The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography - Volume 16, Ann Arbor: University Microfilms (Xerox), 1967 - p. 310 Bowdoin, George Sullivan, financier, was born in New York City, September 25, 1833, son of George Richard James and Frances (Hamilton) Bowdoin. His first American ancestor was Pierre Baudoin, who fled from France to Ireland on account of religious persecution, emigrated in 1686, and settled at Casco, now Portland, Me. In 1690 he moved to Boston, Mass. The line of descent in through his son James, who married Sarah Campbell. James Bowdoin, 1st, rose to the first rank among the merchants of Boston; was for many years a member of the Colonial Council, and left the greatest estate that had ever been possessed by one person in Massachusetts, estimated at from fifty to one hundred thousand pounds sterling. His son, James, who married Elizabeth Erving, was a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental congress held at Philadelphia; president of the convention to frame a constitution for Massachusetts; a founder of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and its president until his death; governor of Massachusetts during 1785-86 and a member of the state convention to ratify the constitution of the United States. His son James, who married Sarah, daughter of William Bowdoin, attended Harvard and Oxford universities, joined the American army in 1776 and served with General George Washington on the heights of Dorchester, and in the evacuation of Boston. He was many times a member of the Massachusetts legislature, United States minister to Spain under President Thomas Jefferson, associate minister to France with General Armstrong, overseer of Harvard College, liberal benefactor of Bowdoin College, the owner of numerous houses in Boston and county seats throughout Massachusetts, the North Shore and at New Bedford, and was the last male of his race of New England. Among others who assumed the name of Bowdoin under his will, and that of his wife, were the sons of his grandniece, Mrs. George Sullivan, daughter of the Hon. Thomas Lindell Winthrop. George Sullivan was a native of Boston, and George Sullivan Bowdoin, the subject of this sketch, was his grandson through his father, George R. J. Bowdoin, lawyer, of the firm of Barlow, Bowdoin and Larngere. His father had long been connected wit the best financial, legal and social interests of New York, and throughout a long and useful life George Sullivan Bowdoin maintained the family traditions of public spirit. He was educated in the schools of New York and at Harvard College. He began his business career in the financial district of New York City and at the age of twenty-five was in business for himself as a broker in securities and notes. In 1871 he became a partner in the firm of Morton, Bliss & Company of which Levi P. Martin was senior partner. He remained in this firm for thirteen years, when, in 1834, he became a partner in the house of Drexel, Morgan & Co., now J. P. Morgan & Co. He retired from business in 1899. He was married June 18, 1863, to Julia Irving, daughter of Moses Hicks Grinnell, a merchant of New York, and is survived by two children: Temple, a partner of the firm of J. F. Morgan & Co and Edith Grinnell Bowdoin. Mr. Bowdoin died in New York City, December 19, 1949