The First Baby

At the end of his clerkship for the Tappan brothers, Henry Bowen and another employee started a dry goods business (Bowen & McNamee) specializing in silks, fine ribbons, laces, and trims. By 1844, their new venture was a success. Once established financially, thirty-year-old Henry married nineteen-year-old Lucy, the daughter of his former employer Lewis Tappan, and they made their home in fashionable Brooklyn Heights. The following year, Lucy and Henry’s first child, Henry Elliot, was born.