The Ancestry of Jennie Bowman wife of Jesse Bishop

CHAPTER 23

JOHN BOWMAN amd SUSANNAH ROSEBAUM

The Bowman Family can only be traced back, with any certainty, to John Bowman who married Susannah Rosenbaum . Many researchers have misidentified him with a John Bowman of Rockingham County, Virginia. It is purely speculative but as these German families all intermarried, he may have been a descendant of Adam Bauman of Pennsylvania. What is known is that he was born circa 1785 in Virginia while his wife Susannah Rosenbaum was born March 1789 in Rowan County, North Carolina.

On 31 March 1803 in Abingdon, Washington County, Virginia, John Bowman at the age of 18 years old married 14 year old Susannah Rosenbaum. They were married by a Methodist Minister named Charles Hardy in Washington County.

Susannah Rosenbaum Bowman was the daughter of Anthony Rosenbaum and Elizabeth Worley. She was born in March 1789 in Rowan County, North Carolina and died circa 1856 in Green County, Wisconsin.

The name Bauman is rather common in many parts of Germany. It means builder. Perhaps it may have been first used by a person whose occupation of building homes or public buildings. Johann Adam Bauman from whom John Bowman may have descended was the son of a German cooper [Barrel maker] named Johann Peter Bauman and Magdalena Sommers. Adam Bauman was found on a New York Subsistence list from 1710 at the Neu Quinsberg Settlement where his first wife died leaving 5 children behind. He was among the Palatinate Germans who came to America in the early 1700’s by the thousands settled in Lancaster County Pennsylvania, then later making their way down the Great Wagon Trail from Pennsylvania to the Yadkin River Valley of North Carolina. The Germans (also known as Pennsylvania Dutch) tended to find rich farmland and work it zealously to become stable and prosperous. Partly because of the language difference, they tended to keep to themselves.

Pennsylvanians moved south into Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina via the heavily traveled Great Wagon Road which was the primary route for the early settlement of the the "backcountry" of the Southern Colonies. Although a wide variety of settlers traveled southward on the road, three dominant cultures emerged, the Quakers, the German Palatines and Scotch-Irish American immigrants.

Beginning at the port of Philadelphia, where many immigrants entered the colonies, the Great Wagon Road passed through the towns of Lancaster and York in southeastern Pennsylvania. Turning southwest, the road crossed the Potomac River and entered the Shenandoah Valley near present-day Martinsburg, West Virginia. It continued south in the valley via the Great Warriors' Trail or also known as the Indian Road which was established by centuries of Indian travel over ancient trails created by migrating buffalo herds. The Treaty of Lancaster in 1744 had established colonists' rights to settle along the Indian Road. Although traffic on the road increased dramatically after 1744, it was reduced to a trickle during the French and Indian War (Seven Years' War) from 1756 to 1763. But after the war ended, it became the most heavily traveled road in America. This was because one of the terms of the treaty ending the French and Indian War was the Proclamation of 1763 which forbade settlement west of the Appalachia Mountains. Colonists were attracted to the unsettle backcountry of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

South of the Shenandoah Valley, the Great Wagon Road was also called the Carolina Road after it reached the Roanoke River. From there it passed through the present-day North Carolina towns of Winston-Salem, Salisbury, and Charlotte and sites of earlier Indian settlements on the historic Indian Trading Path.           

The Great Wagon Road ultimately reached Augusta, Georgia, on the Savannah River, a distance of more than 800 miles from Philadelphia. Despite its current name, the southern part of this road was by no means passable by wagons until later colonial times. By all accounts, it was never a comfortable route.

The lines of settlers' covered wagons moving south were matched by a line of wagons full of agricultural produce heading north to urban markets; these were interspersed with enormous herds of cattle, hogs, and other livestock being driven north to market. Although there surely would have been pleasant areas for travel, road conditions also could vary from deep mud to thick dust, mixed with animal waste. Inns generally provided only the most basic food and a space to sleep.

The first census in which John Bowman can be found is the 1810 Census of Washington County, Virginia which lists the Bowman Family under the name “John Boman”

Free White Male age 26 thru 44 John Bowman age 25

Free White Male age Under 10 John Bowman age 6

Free White Female age Under 10 Elizabeth Bowman age 5

Free White Female age Under 10 Anna Bowman age 3

Free White Male age Under 10 Isham Bowman age 2

Noticeably missing from this household is his wife Susannah Rosenbaum. Where she is or why she was not listed is a mystery.

All of John and Susannah Bowman’s children are born in Washington County, Virginia although the family was not listed there under that name for the Census of 1820. They may have moved to Wythe County but more than likely they were simply overlooked.

John Bowman’s wife “Susan” Bowman was mentioned in a deed dated August 20, 1822 in Washington County, when James and Jeanette Keys sold to her mother Elizabeth Rosenbaum, and Susan’s siblings land in Washington County.

The following year John and Susannah Bowman’s eldest daughter married her first cousin John George Worley 1 Nov 1823 in Washington County, Virginia. They were both grandchildren of Michael Worley.

About 1827 John Bowman their oldest son married Elizabeth Lethco the daughter of James Lethco a veteran of the War of 1812. The Lethco were another interracial family with some of this family listed as ““free colored people.”

The only John Bowman found in the 1830 was enumerated in a family of “Free Colored People.” This is purely speculative but the census seems to fit the known ages of John Bowman.

John Bowman Home in 1830 Washington, Virginia

Free Colored Male age - 36 thru 54: 1776-1794 John Bowman age 45

Free White Females age- 20 thru 29: 1801-1800 Susannah Rosenbaum age 40

Free Colored Male age - 10 thru 23: 1807-1820 John Bowman age 26

Free Colored Female age - 24 thru 35: 1795-1806 Eliza Lethco age 26

Free Colored Male age - 10 thru 23: 1807-1820 Isham Bowman age 22

Free Colored Female age - 10 thru 23: 1807-1820 Mary Bowman age 20

Free Colored Male age 10 thru 23: 1807-1820 Robert Bowman age 18

Free Colored Male age - 10 thru 23: 1807-1820 Aaron Bowman age 15

Free Colored Male age - 10 thru 23: 1807-1820 William R Bowman age 11

Free Colored Male age - 10 thru 23: 1807-1820 Philip Bowman age 8

Free Colored Female age - Under 10: 1829-1830 Nancy Bowman age 2

Free Colored Male age - Under 10: 1829-1830 Isaiah Bowman age 2

Free Colored Male age - Under 10: 1821-1830 Christopher Bowman age 1

Free Colored Females age - Under 10: 1821-1830 Unknown

Census takers were generally people of a community, so they classified people racially as they were known by the community. Definitions of racial categories were often imprecise and ambiguous, especially for "mulatto" and "free person of color".

"Mulatto" could mean a mixture of African and European, African and Native American, European and Native American, or all three. At the same time, these groups often intermarried as socially they were stigmitized. The shift from "mulatto" to "white" was often dependent upon appearance and, especially, community perception of a person's activities in life.

The children of John and Susannah Bowman left Virginia after or even before the 1830 census was taken and moved in the Free States of the Midwest. Their removal from Virginia may have been prompted by the 1831 Nat Turner slave rebellion.

In Southampton County in southeastern Virginia, rebel slaves killed from 55 to 65 white people, the highest number of fatalities caused by any slave uprising in the Southern United States. Tennessee and other southern states passed new restrictions on free people of color in reaction to the rebellion.

The family was first in Bartholomew County in Indiana across the Ohio River. Indiana was a free state and it would have been easier to pass as white people in a community that did not know them. John and Susannah’s daughter Anna Bowman was married 5 Apr 1832 in Bartholomew County, Indiana, to Abel Abraham Welch.

The family moved from Bartholomew County the following year to Putnam County where Susannah Bowman’s brother Valentine Rosenbaum had settled by 1833. John and Susannah Bowman’s grandson John Worley and granddaughter Sallie Bowman were both born there in 1834. The families after a few years moved to neighboring Hendricks County by 1838 when grandchildren children were being born there and their son in law John Worley died there in 1839.

The Bowman family is listed in the 1840 United States Census as living in Hendrick County Indiana. John Bowman was now 55 years old and probably was moving to be with his children. Why he went to the Midwest rather than into slave states may had to do with the fact that they or some of their relatives and in laws were listed as “Mulatto” and were free from having to register as free people of color as not to be enslaved as they would have if they would have stayed south of the Ohio River.

John Bowman of Hendricks, Indiana 1840

Free White Males age 50 thru 59 [1781-1790] John Bowman

Free White Females age 50 thru 59 [1781-1790] Susannah Rosenbaum

Free White Males age 15 thru 19 [1821-1825] Philip Bowman

Free White Males age 15 thru 19 [1821-1825] William R Bowman

Free White Females age 15 thru 19 [1821-1825] Christopher Bowman

Free White Females age 10 thru 14 [1826-1830] Nancy Bowman

Others in the county were his sons Isham Bowman who was married to Margaret Saliday and Aaron Bowman who had recently married his 1st cousin Elizabeth Rosenbaum the daughter of Matthias Rosenbaum and Sally Worley. Matthias was the brother of Aaron’s mother Susannah. Matthias Rosenbaum had moved to Indiana with the Bowmans.

By 1846 the family had moved north into Wisconsin Territory. They settled in Sylvester Township in Green County, about two miles north of the Illinois state line. and The family was living there when Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848.

The 1850 United States Census of Wisconsin listed John Bowman Sr and his children John Bowman Jr, Elizabeth Worley, Anna Welch, Aaron Bowman, William R Bowman, Philip Bowman and Nancy Bowan as residing in Green County. His son Isham Bowman however had moved from Indiana to Des Moines County, Iowa and is located there in 1850

The 1855 Wisconsin State Census does not list John Bowman Sr and it can be safely assumed that he died by that time. His wife Susannah Rosenbaum Bowman was said to have died in 1856 in Sylvester Township, Green County, Wisconsin. They are probably buried in Green County in unmarked graves.

The Children of John and Susannah Rosenbaum after their parent’s deaths lived primarily in Wisconsin and Iowa.

1. John Bowman,Jr. was born about 1804 in Washington County, Virginia and married Elizabeth Lythcoe circa 1827 in Washington County. He had three known children. He moved from Wisconsin after his father died to Iowa and later to Union County, in the Dakota Territory. In his old age he and his wife returned to Washington County Virginia where it is presumed he died shortly after 1880.

·         Isaiah Bowman married Esther A Matteson

·         Josiah Bowman died young

·         sarah “Sally Bowman married John Worley

2. Elizabeth Bowman was born circa 1806 in Washington County, Virginia. She married Johan George Worley son of Valentine Worley on 1 Nov 1823 in VA.. George was born on 2 May 1803 in Wythe Co., VA. He died on 1 Jan 1839 in Hendricks Co., Indiana and she married again to Stephen G. Raymond a native of Nova Scotia. Her death date is unknown but most likely died in Green County, Wisconsin.

•       Lousianna Worley was born on 28 Nov 1824 in Wythe, VA, and married Mr. Woods in 1841 in Wythe, VA,

•       Valentine Worley

•       John Worley died 1862 married 1st cousin Sally Bowman

•       William R Worley was born about 1833 in , Putnam County, IN, US

•       Elias Worley was born about 1836 in , Putnam, IN, US

•       Aaron Worley borm circa 1837, Indiana died 1862 married Lucy Lindley

•       Asmi Worley was born about 1839 in , Hendricks, IN, US.

3. When Anna Bowman was born in 1807 in Washington County, Virginia, her father, John, was 22 and her mother, Susannah, was 18. She married Abel Abraham Welch on April 5, 1832, in Bartholomew County, Indiana. They had six children in 18 years. They moved to Green County by 1842 and after the death of her parents the family moved to Iowa and then to Elk Point in Union County Dakota Territory where she died in 1876 at the age of 69, and was buried in Elk Point, South Dakota.

•       Susan Emeline Welch

•       Aaron E Welch was born about 1836 in , Bartholomew, IN, US. He died on 24 Jun 1880 in Iowa Aaron married Sarah Jane Woods on 22 Apr 1866 in Lima, Grant, Wisconsin

•       John H Welch

•       Mary Ellen Welch was born about 1843 in Green County , Wisconsin Mary married David Woods on 26 Jun 1858 in Lima, Grant, WI, US.

•       Alpha Welch was born on 15 Feb 1846 in Green County, Wisconsin, IN, US. He died in Lewis, , CO, Alpha married Elizabeth.

•       Stephen Welch

•       Andrew Welch was born on 5 Feb 1848 in Monroe, Green County, WI, US. He died in May 1926 in Hillsboro, , WI, US. Andrew married Clara Griffith.

•       Rebecca Welch was born about 1850 in Sylvester Twp, Green, WI, US. Rebecca married Charles Blume on 24 Oct 1873 in , Union, South Dakota , US.

•       Melissa Welch was born about 1852 in Sylvester Twp, Green, WI, US. G R Welch was born about 1864 in , Green, WI, US

4.  When Isham Bowman was born in 1808 his father, John, was 23 and his mother, Susannah, was 19. He had six sons and four daughters with Margaret Salliday between 1831 and 1853. He died on December 28, 1866, in Des Moines, Iowa, at the age of 58.

•       Solomon Bowman 1831–1913

•       Sarah Bowman 1833–1880

•       Elizabeth Bowman 1836–1915

•       James Bowman 1837–1917

•       William Bowman 1839–

•       Francis Bowman 1842–

•       Henry H Bowman 1844–

•       Adeline BOWMAN 1846–1882

•       Matilda

•       Bowman 1850

Mary Bowman born circa 1810 Washington County died unknown

Robert Bowman was born 30 November 1812 in Washington County, Virginia and died circa 1897 in Washington County, Virginia. He began cohabiting with 1st Dorcus Riddie Lethcoe and married 2nd Anna Retta Lthcoe both daughters of James Lethcoe and sisters of Elizabeth Lethcoe wife of his brother John Bowman.

• Emeline Lethcoe 1839– aft 1910 married Frank Baumgarder

• Isaiah Franklin Lethcoe 1841–1862 CSA married Mary Rhudy

• Martha J Lethco 1846–1884 married Simon Peter Bumgardner

• Dorcus Lethcoe 1849– 1895 married David A Rosenbaum

• Rebecca Ann Lethco 1850–1914 married as 2nd wife of Simon Peter Bumgarder

Aaron Bowman born circa 1815 married his 1st cousin Elizabeth Rosenbaum daughter of Mathias Rosenbaum and Salome Sally Worley. Elizabeth was born about 1821 in , Washington, VA, US. She died after 1860 in , Green, WI, US.

• Louisa Bowman

• Jesse Bowman was born about 1843 in , Green, WI, US.

• Aaron Bowman Jr. was born about 1844 in , Green, WI, US.

• Susan Bowman was born about 1848 in Green WI, US. and married William Harry Horten.

William R Bowman born circa 1817 married Mary Ann Coin about 1848 in Sylvester, Green, Wisconsin where he lived until after 1870 when he moved to Boone County Iowa where he died 13 Dec 1907 at Worth, Boone, Iowa

• John Stewart Bowman 1852-1935 married Isabelle Linerode

• Margaret Bowman 1854 married Mr. Engle

• Sarah Elizabeth Bowman 1854-1884 married Robert Neely

• Nancy Jane Bowman 1856-1931 married James Hull.

• Julia Ann Bowman 1859-1919 married Newton Redman .

• Amos Hamilton Bowman 1860-1928 unmarried

• German Bowman 1866-1946 married Amy Grace Ridpath

Phillip Bowman was born about 1820 in , Washington, VA, US. He died 1905 in Boone County, Iowa. Phillip married Lucy M Lindley on 22 Oct 1868 in Green County, Wisconsin. She was the widow of his cousin Aaron Worley who died during the Civil War as a Union soldier. After her death about 1882, he married Orpha Snyder in 1885 and had a second family after he was 65 years old. His youngest child was born two months after his father died at age 79.

• Elmire Bowman 1870–1929 married Thomas H Lancaster

• Emma Bowman 1873–

• Simon Curtis Bowman 1892–1951

• Josie Grace Bowman 1895–1983

• Glenn Guy Bowman 1898–1946

• Asa Theodore Bowman 1905-1947

Nancy Bowman was born circa 1829 in Washington, Virginia She died after 1907 in , Boone, Iowa a spinster She lived with her brother William Bowman of Boone County, Iowa and her Hull nieces.

Christopher Bowman was born 1829 in Washington County, Virginia and died 22 February 1899 Green County, Wisconsin. He married 29 July 1852 Nancy A Hamilton

& 2nd Susan McGonigie circa 1883. He had two separate family by his two wives.

• William J Bowman 1853 died unknown

• Susan Helen Bowman 1857-1940 married Ole Arneson and Frank Warner

• Christopher C Benson 1858-1937 married Caroline Halverson

• Rebecca Jane Bowman 1862-1943 married Henry Ihus

• Mary E Bowman 1864-1946 married Ole Halverson

• Aaron Bowman 1884–1949 married Martha Tobias

• John H, Bowman 1888–1952 never married

• Andrew Bowman 1892–1959 never married

• Mary A. Bowman 1894–1964 never married