Elijah Bowen, MD

From HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES OF GLOUCESTER, SALEM, AND CUMBERLAND NJ by Thos. Cushing, MD and Charles E. Sheppard, Esq.:

p. 556 ELIJAH BOWEN was an early practitioner of medicine in Cumberland County. His grandfather, Richard Bowen, with others of his countrymen, came from Wales in the year 1640, and settled at a place in Massachusetts, which they named Swansey, after the town from which they emigrated. Doctor Elijah Bowen was for a time resident in Rhode Island, from whence he removed to a place in the then county of Salem, but now in Cumberland County, near Shiloh, where he was married to Deborah Swinney. He was probably the first medical practitioner in Cumberland County whose profession was not subsidiary to some other calling as the main business of life. He probably commenced the practice of medicine, at or near Shiloh, about the year 1730, and was one of the founders of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church at Shiloh. Of his mental abilities, medical acquirements, general character, or the extent of his practice no information has been obtained. It is traditional that his medicines were exclusively vegetable. He died Sept. 23, 1773, at a great age, and was interred in the cemetery of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church in Shiloh. His descendants in the female line in Cumberland County are quite numerous and respectable.

p. 697 On the 27th day of March, 1737, the Seventh-Day Baptist Church of Shiloh was organized with articles of faith and agreement. The following were the constituent members: John Swinney, Dr. Elijah Bowen, John Jarmen, Caleb Barratt, Hugh Dunn, Jonathan Davis, Jr., Caleb Ayars, Jr., Joseph Swinney, Samuel Davis, Jaen Phillips, of Newton Square, Pa., Deborah Swinney, Deborah Bowen, Abigail Barratt, Any Dunn, Esther Dunn, Deborah Swinney, Jr., Ann Davis, Anna Swinney. Some of the constituent members had burial lots in other societies and were not interred at Shiloh. Among this class was Deborah Swinney...