Henry Chandler Bowen

He was an influential member of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, where he resided much of his life and the founder of the New York-based newspaper The Independent.

He built a Gothic-style summer home at his birthplace named Roseland Cottage in Woodstock, Connecticut.

[1] He moved to New York City and joined a dry-goods company owned by the abolitionist Arthur Tappan.

He opened a store on 112-114 Broadway, an Italian Marble building designed by English architect Joseph C.

In 1862, as Lucy Maria, aged 38, lay on her deathbed, she confessed to Bowen that she had had a sexual relationship with Henry Ward Beecher.

[7] In 1846, he hired architect Joseph Wells to build a summer home in Gothic Revival style called Roseland Cottage in Woodstock.

In 1876, at a special meeting of the Plymouth Church Examining Committee, Bowen declared that Beecher was "an adulterer, a perjurer and a blasphemer".

Four United States presidents visited Bowen's summer home as his guests and speakers for these celebrations: Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes, and William McKinley.

Henry Chandler Bowen , oil portrait, 41 1/2 x 36 3/8, 1876, Historic New England . Probably made by James J. Sawyer. Roseland Cottage is in the background of the portrait.
Roseland Cottage was built in 1846 in the Gothic Revival style as the summer home of Henry Chandler Bowen and family. The complex includes a boxwood parterre garden, an icehouse, garden house, and a carriage barn with a private bowling alley.