Biography
Born free in Boston to a black father and bi-racial mother and raised by a foster family, Charles Bowles made a name for himself in the infantry during the American Revolution and later as a sailor and cook aboard a number of New England ships.
In 1808 he bought a farm in Huntington, Vermont where he embarked on a new life as a preacher, eventually ordained as a minister in the Free Will Baptist Church. He organized a number of churches including those in Huntington, Starksboro, Hinesburg, and Enosburgh. He organized the yearly Free Will Baptist meetings for the entire Champlain Valley.
As a prominent preacher in the Second Great Awakening, he led revivals and camp meetings that welcomed all races and genders and, by many accounts, were boisterous and noisy affairs. The area of Huntington and Hinesburgh around his home became a center of black lives in Vermont with a number of black veterans settling in the area and remaining for generations.
Later in life his calling took him to northern New York where he organized more churches before his death in 1843 in Malone.Occupation
Farmer
Preacher