Samuel Bower [Bowers] (1760-1834) - prominent shipbuilder and merchant, he started his career building transport boats for Revolutionary troops while still a teenager. His shipyard, above Laurel Street on the Delaware River, built and repaired 379 vessels from the late 1780's to the 1820's. He was active in public affairs, serving as lieutenant colonel in the state militia, and helped found Hope (2nd) Baptist Church. So highly was his work esteemed that he was offered the post of chief naval constructor by the Spanish government during the Napoleonic Wars. (this biography was written by Rich Remer)
The following is material I gathered elsewhere on Samuel Bower's life:
The Philadelphia Gazette, on 2 March 1795 (page 4), ran a notice stating the following:
“Philadelphia, February 26, 1765 [should be 1795]. By virture of a precept issued out of a Court of Common Pleas for the County of Philadelphia, to me directed, will be exposed to public sale at the merchants’ coffee house, in Second street, in the said city of Philadelphia, on Monay the second day of March next, at 7 o’clock in the evening – The brigantine Lydia, with her tackle, apparel and furniture, as she now lies at Eyre’s wharf, now in tenure of Samuel Bower’s, in Kensington, in the Northern Liberties, and will be sold by John Baker, Sheriff.”
The next we hear of Bowers is on October 4th, 1800, when “Samuel Bowers, Point Plesant, Kensington,” was listed as one of the Guardians of the Poor (Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 4 Oct 1800, page 3).
Bowers appears listed simply at “Kensington,” in an advertisement for the raising of monies, a lottery, for the 2nd Baptist Church, of which he appears to have been one of the founders, along with Isaac White of Kensington, and Jacob Keen of 511 N. Front Street, as well as others from the Northern Liberties. The lottery announcement took place in the 18 April 1806 issue of Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser (page 4).
On 4 April 1814, the Voice of the Nation (Philadelphia, PA), had listed on page 4, the following advertisement:
“For Sale, A new Ship, Now lying at Pharoah’s wharf, Camden, New Jersey, about two hundred and fifty tons. For further information, apply to Samuel Bower, Kensington. Jan. 22.”
In the 1816 Philadelphia City Directory, Samuel Bowers (Bowyer) was listed as a ship carpenter at “Beach near Maiden.”
And from History of the Philadelphia National Bank, by Nicholas Wainwright, page 60.
“Not for years had the Philadelphia shipyards been as busy as they were in the spring of 1822. In April, the Kensington firm of Tees, Vanhook, Bowers and VanDusen, launched an “elegant” ship of three hundred and thirty tons for the London trade. Its figurehead was a striking likeness of the shipowner’s wife. In the same yard, a fine vessel of four hundred tons, one of the Liverpool packets, was being readied for its launching in May. At Jehu Eyre’s yards two ships and a schooner were under construction, and at Samuel Bower’s a neat-looking ship intended as a southern packet was nearing completion. All shipbuilders were complaining of the cost of labor and materials: carpenters, no longer content with a dawn-to-dusk pay of a dollar and a half, now demanded two dollars! “
William Allen’s Map of 1828, “Plan of the City of Philadelphia and Adjoining Districts, compiled from original documents,” and published by H.S. Tanner, in the “The Stranger’s Guide….to Philadelphia.” [Philadelphia: Tanner, 1828], shows “Bower’s Wharves & Shipyard” as well as above Bower they have “Donaldson’s Wharf & Mast-yard,” and below Bower is “Ayres Wharf & Ship-yard.” Presumably these are William Donaldson, Samuel Bower, and Isaac Eyre, all mentioned in the deed research as being owners of adjacent properties in the Deed Map 16-N-19.
The following book also provides details on Bowers as a shipbuilder:
Chandler, Charles Lyon.
Early Shipbuilding in Pennsylvania 1683-1812.
[Philadelphia: Reprinted by The Guild of Brackett Lecturers, 1932].
Page 33-34:
One of the most prominent shipbuilders of this period was Samuel Bowers who, was born at Southwark in 1760, and began shipbuilding at Kensington in 1789. In 1790 he received $2,940.67 for a ship and $1,288.66 for a brig - and did some $2,000 worth of repairs. In 1790 he did a business of about $15,000.
In 1796 he built the Samuel Smith of 705 tons for $24,000. In 1795 he built the Indostan of 470 tons for the East Indian trade at $31.00 a ton.
For several years a ship for the China and East Indian trade was launched at Bowers' yard each year.
After 1816 he built several steamboats for use on the Delaware and other rivers. He once completed a brig of 200 tons in 6 weeks.
Samuel Bowers was asked in 1800 to become the chief naval constructor of the Spanish Government.