Bowditch was born in Boston into the Massachusetts Bowditch family of mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch, his grandfather, and physiologist Henry Pickering Bowditch, his brother,[1] son of Jonathan Ingersoll Bowditch and Lucy Orme Nichols.[2][3] He received his undergraduate degree in 1863 and his master's in 1866, both from Harvard University.[4] During the American Civil War he served as an officer in the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, a colored regiment,[5] rising to the rank of captain, and then served as a captain in the 5th Massachusetts Volunteer Cavalry, also a colored regiment.[6] In 1866, he married Cornelia L. Rockwell who bore him four children who survived him.[4] He died in 1921 in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and was buried with a Unitarian service.[7]
As a businessman Bowditch participated unsuccessfully in the Pennsylvania oil rush[8] and returned to Massachusetts to manage the estate of Mrs. William Wadsworth, which gave him experience as a financial trustee. He went on to manage many trusts, was a director of the Massachusetts Cotton Mills and the Pepperell Manufacturing Company, the Boston and Providence Railroad Company, American Bell Telephone Company, and a director and later president of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company. For three years he was vice-president of the American Bell Telephone Company.[9]
In 1888, Bowditch took a trip to the Yucatán and southern Mexico and became interested in the Mayan culture.[4] While he funded much Mayan research, his own Mayan work focused on deciphering Mayan epigraphy and their calendar system.[10] He was one of the founders of the American Anthropological Association.[11] In 1891 Bowditch was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society.[12]
Harvard and the Peabody Museum
Bowditch made his first donation to Harvard's Peabody Museum in 1888, and during his life was its largest contributor.[4] Beginning in 1891, Bowditch funded numerous expeditions to the Mayan areas of Central America through the museum, almost one per year until his death. In 1894 he was elected a trustee of the museum and served on its faculty. On his death he left a large collection of books and other materials on the languages of Central America and Mexico to the museum.[1]
Among the expeditions that Bowditch funded were those of:[4]
^ abBarnhart, Clarence L., ed. (1954). "Bowditch, Charles Pickering". New Century Cyclopedia of Names, Volume One, A – Emin Pasha. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. p. 605.