Charles Bowles (1835-1915) was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and died in Rutland, Vermont. He served in the American Civil War in the Sanitary Commission, a private relief agency created by federal legislation in 1861 to support sick and wounded soldiers of the United States Army. Bowles attended the first Geneva (Red Cross) convention in 1864, unofficially representing the United States, who had sent no official representation. After the war, he became head of the international banking house of Bowles Brothers Co., and president of the Joint National Agency. Bowles and his brothers quickly expanded their banking companies in the United States and Europe at the beginning of the 1870s, but by 1872 they had shut down and declared bankruptcy. He married Susan H. Mowers in 1879. Throughout 1887, the Bowles wrote to Mary Baker Eddy about joining her class. Although they expressed an interest in studying at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, there is no record of either of them doing so, as Eddy ultimately decided not to accept them on account of their previous study with Julia Anderson Root and Emma Curtis Hopkins.

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