The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-08-17

ueht-The Many Prominent Positions
 He Had Occupied.
 Hon. Caleb B. Bowers died last even- ing at o'clock in West Haven at the Lines cottage. The news of his death with be learned with sadness by the large circle of warm personal friends of the deceased gentleman in this city and by the New Haven public at large, among whom he had moved for a gen. eration or more, his home having been here for the last twenty-five years, and by large number of those prominent in legislative affairs in years past, in. various parts of this, his native state. For the last year or two it had been observable that his health was declin- ing, his step less active. Last May he rallied and seemed so much improved that fresh hope was taken by his friends, but the improvement was only temporary. A number of weeks ago the family removed to the Lines cot tage at Savin Rock in the hope that the sea air might benefit him, but for the last month he had been unable to leave the house. He died of general breaking down of the system conse- quent upon his advanced years. His age was seventy-eight MT. Bowers was a gentleman whom to know was to esteem and honor, 8 man of high in- tegrity, winning urbanity of nature, a loyal friend and a citizen whose public and private career alike reflected credit upon his city and state. His home for twenty-five years past had been at 2O9 Crown street, The arrangements for the funeral are not yet completed but the service will probably take place on Friday.
 A sketch of the deceased follows.
 Hon. Caleb B. Bowers was born in the village of Westfield, a part of the town of Middletown, Conn.,, April 21, 1920, his parents being William and AL mira (Bailey) Bowers, who attained the great age respectively of eighty-f1ve and ninety years His father was a man of some local prominence, having held various town offices, and been a representative in the legislature and a captain in the old Connecticut militia.
 He was descended from an ancestry traceable to the earliest days of the set clement of New England, his direct pro- ginator being George Bowers, who To- cated at Scituate, Mass, in 1637. Among his ancestors he also numbered John Dwight of Dedham, Mass, 1885, and John Bailey of Hartford, Conn, 1860. MT. Bowers was the eighth in line of descent from George Bowers, whose great-grandson, the Rev. Benjamin Bowers, a graduate of Harvard college, removed from Billerica, Mass, in 174O, to become the first Congregational min- ister at Middle Haddam, Conn. The Rev. John Bowers, a son of the origi- nal settler, came to New Haven in 1853, and subsequently settled as the first minister in the town of Derby, Conn. As might be expected from these as- sociations with the independence loving first settlers of New England, MT. Bow CTS descended from good Revolutionary stock, Caleb Bailey, his grandfather, having served in the war for indepen- dence, suffering during many months, as a prisoner, the horrors of the "Jer- sey Prison ship
 During his infancy the parents of MT. Bowers moved to the old town of Berlin in Hartford county, where he spent his boyhood in the ordinary pur- suits of country life, receiving the bene- fits of a common school education, SUD- plemented by an academical course of two years. At the age of sixteen he began teaching a district school and during a period of fourteen years, made teaching his vocation, at the same time prosecuting studies in Latin, higher mathematics, modern languages and elementary law, which later in life led him to develop into 8 specialist in in surance law. At twenty years of age he was principal at the academy in Portland Conn.,, remaining there four years, when he became master of the grammar school at Springfield, Mass, having supervision of all the schools of lower grade in that city. Until 1850 he was actively associated with every movement in Massachusetts in con- nection with popular education, enjoy- ing the friendship of Horace Mann, at that time superintendent of the board of education of that state. In 1850, hav- ing been appointed to g. responsible po- sition in the postoffice department at Washington, D. C., he removed to that city, and during those palrny days of the republic, enjoyed the acquaintance of many of the most prominent public men of that time, and from his inter- course with the, acquired knowl- edge that in after days proved of great service in the public positions to which he was called.
 Leaving Washington in 1858 he was chosen secretary of the Hartford Fire Insurance company, which position he occupied for five years, and during this time the company experienced degree of prosperity unexampled in its previ- ous existence of nearly half century. He was then elected president of the City Fire Insurance company of Hart ford, where for six years he continued his career as g. successful insurance manager. He then organized the Put nam Fire Insurance company of Hart ford, and acted as it's president for a