The First Ohio Bowsers and a Few of Their Friends

by Arthur H. Laube

 

In the last decades of the 18th Century, the Indian tribes were forced further west and the land north and west of the Ohio River was organized into the Northwest Territory. The land was divided in neat checker-board squares by surveying teams and sold by the Congress of the United States at public auction and through territorial land offices.

Barbara Bowser Bowman was the first Bowser to arrive in the Ohio country. She and her husband David were married in 1795, in Huntington County, Pennsylvania. David was offered a job as a miller in the wilderness of the Scioto River Valley, in the Territory of Ohio. Since he was expected and had friends in the wilderness, he felt secure enough to bring his wife to this wild country. Later David was an Elder of the Brethren church. He was no doubt the leader of the group of Brethren who went up the Big (Great) Miami River Valley.

Barely mentioned is another party of Brethren who were led by the minister, Elijah Schofield, from Allegheny County, Maryland. Elijah's group either traveled with David Bowman or followed close behind. It was far too dangerous to travel alone, and we suggest that these two parties of Brethren became one; sent by their churches to take the Word to the frontier - the Territory of Ohio. Individual family groups assembled in western Pennsylvania, on the Yohogania River, at the crossing of the Nemacolin Indian trail (near Fort Redstone). They traveled by raft, floating down the Yohogania River to the Monongahela River and on to Fort Pitt. They took their last look at the comforts of Pennsylvania civilization as they embarked upon the Ohio River. Their rafts and huge canoes were tied together; three wide, in four rows. Women and children in the center and armed men facing the shoreline and guarding against any approach from upstream or downstream. They had many Indian friends in Pennsylvania and Maryland and they expected to establish friendly relationships with any Indian neighbors they might have, but there were many reports of Indian trouble along the banks of the Ohio River They arrived at Marietta without incident.

Here, Elijah Schofield and a few other Brethren left the group. David Bowman led his group on to the mouth of the Big Miami River. As they were poled up the river, the party began to disband, but David Bowman led his family on to his destination near present day Dayton.(1) David Bowman's wife, Barbara, was one of the six children of Daniel Bauser/Bowser and Anna Mary Wagoner. Daniel and Anna Maria Bauser/Bowser lived in Frankstown Township, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. When Daniel learned his son-in-law, David Bowman, was going west he decided to relocate his his entire family, and he was one of the first to join David's group. Some of David's family also joined the group; we will call it the Bowman/Bowser party.(2) Jacob Bowser, a cousin, also came with the Bowman/Bowser party; he lived and died in nearby Turtle Creek Township, Warren County.(3) The Kuhlman/Coleman family and the Prouds also lived in Warren County. The Coleman tribe were plentiful in Pennsylvania and early Ohio and some of them may have come with the Bowman/Bowser party. The Prouds arrived from New Jersey in 1805.(4) These families were all Brethren and they intermarried - more on this later.

Another Jacob Bowser and his wife Mary and their son John were also with this first contingent of Bowsers as they rafted down the Ohio River in 1798. Jacob and Mary's origins are not clear. Mary may have been a Twigg; that family lived near Flintstone, Allegheny County, Maryland. Jacob and Mary had one child, a son, John. He was born in Pennsylvania about 1784. As will be told below, Jacob chose to live with the Brethren of Jonathan Creek and without exception, his Brethren neighbors in Hopewell Township seem to have come from the Cumberland Gap/Hagerstown, Maryland area. Believing in the fundamental law, "Like Attracts Like," we imagine that Jacob and perhaps Mary are also somehow connected to this area. We even go so far as to speculate that Jacob was descended from a Henry Bowser, who lived in Salisbury Hundred, Washington County, Maryland ( we identify this Henry Bowser, as he who died in 1806) or else that John Bausser, who also lived in Salisbury Hundred, was his father.(5) Jacob needed cash to buy land and the river port of Marietta offered several opportunities. Attracted by the hustle and bustle of the first, permanent Ohio settlement, he left the Bowman/Bowser party and joined those who were clear-cutting for 50 cents a day.

Jacob and his family lived and worked in Salem/Union Township, Washington County, Ohio for more than fifteen years.. In about 1805, John married Mary (Someone.) Mary (Someone) was born in Pennsylvania. Their first five children were born in Salem Township. By 1814 John had accumulated enough cash to buy a piece of Jonathan Creek property from George Nye. In 1817 Jacob purchased the balance of George Nye's property along Jonathan Creek. The Jacob and John Bowser families joined the other Brethren who had settled around George and Lewis Nye along Jonathan Creek.(6) Who were George and Lewis Nye?

In his 1806 will, Henry Bowser of Salisbury Hundred, Washington County, Maryland referred to George Nigh, as "...his most beloved friend," and he named George Nigh executor of his will. A George Nye was a neighbor of Henry's and seems to have had a son named George who went to Ohio, probably with the Bowman/Bowser party in 1798. Members of the Nigh/Nye family were already in Ohio when the Bowman/Bowser party arrived in 1798. Ebenezer and Ichabod Nye purchased land from Putman, Rufus and Co. (The Ohio Land Company) near Marietta in 1788 and in 1797, Lewis Nye made similar purchases. In 1804-05 Lewis Nye moved up the Muskingum River to Jonathan Creek, an important tributary of the Muskingum. He built a hewed-log house (where Newtonville now is). He was probably the first of the Brethren to buy land on Jonathan Creek.(7)

 

George Nye was the second Brethren, after Lewis Nye, who settled along Jonathan Creek. George bought his Hopewell Township land from the Chillicothe Land Office in 1805.(8) He and Lewis Nye were soon surrounded by Brethren living along Jonathan Creek in Hopewell and Newton Townships.(9) George Nye, like his father, was land smart. That is, he was probably a surveyor and could read maps. He may have joined the surveying crews who were laying out the ranges and townships between the Scioto River and the Seventh Range before Ohio became a state in 1803; at the same time he searched for good farming property. Washington County, Ohio had a great attraction for George Nye.

Several other Nye families lived there. It was in Washington County that George Nye found Lydia Gardner. They were married in 1808. He took her to his property on Jonathan Creek where they lived until he sold out to John and Jacob Bowser in 1814 and 1817.(10) While he lived on Jonathan Creek, George Nye seems to have attracted other Brethren to buy land and settle around him; Adam Plank, Elijah Schofield, Abraham Eversole and Adam Cover, were among the first to arrive.

Other Brethren who may have accompanied the Bowman/Bowser group in 1798 when that party rafted down the Ohio River and then became the first settlers along Jonathan Creekare liste below: David Horn and his brother Daniel from Washington County, Pennsylvania arrived in 1805 in Newton Township, on Jonathan Creek in Muskingum County. The Horns were closely tied to two of the Jonathan Creek Brethren families who lived on farms adjacent to George Nye in Perry County. Daniel Horn loaned John Bowser $103. And his daughter, Mary Horn, married Adam Plank.

Elijah Scofield, from Allegheny and Washington County, Maryland, is documented as arriving on Jonathan Creek before 1810.(11) A well known Brethren minister, he preached on a far-reaching circuit, which extended into Licking County and Muskingum County. In 1817, Elijah Schofield organized 25 families as the Jonathan Creek Brethren church at Mt. Perry, Perry County.(12) This was one of the first Brethren churches in the new State of Ohio. Elijah served the Brethren of Jonathan Creek for almost two decades. He died in 1836, about the same time as when the Mount Perry church building was sold to the Methodists. Elijah fits a pattern reported by other researchers: The leaders of many Brethren churches organized groups (like the one we are suggesting). An elder or a minister went with the first contingent, helped members buy land, get settled and then someone went back to lead another group of the congregation to their new homes on the frontier. Often the first group were the younger men.

Elijah seems to have been in several places at once. He was no doubt the spiritual leader of the group which left the Bowman/Bowser party at Marietta and eventually settled along Jonathan Creek in Perry County and Muskingum County. Just as David Bowman was the Brethren elder who looked after the party that continued on to the Big Miami River Valley.

Adam Plank from Allegheny County, Maryland, and his family arrived on the banks of Jonathan Creek in 1804. Adam is listed as head of household in the 1800 census enumeration of Allegheny County, so he may have been in a second party to travel from Cumberland Gap area to Jonathan Creek.(13) Adam's daughter Elizabeth married Abraham Hufford of Rush Creek Township. The Hufford's were a well known Brethren family.

By middle of the century the Mt. Perry Brethren church had been replaced by two churches, "one to the east and one to the west." The one to the east was at Goshen in Newton Township, Muskingum County and the one to the west was at Five-Points (Zion Town) a mile or so north of Somerset, Perry County; both churches are still active.

At that time, Rush Creek was the western edge of the congregation that attended the church at Five-Points and there were several Hufford families living there, although Abraham Hufford moved on west in the 1830's.(14) Abraham Eversole lived two farms away from Henry Bowser, in 1800 Maryland. (This is the Henry who described George Nigh as "...his most beloved friend." In 1811 Peter Eversole, bought a half-section contiguous with the Nye property and joined that group of Brethren who were later known as the Jonathan Creek Brethren Congregation.(15) Adam Koover was a witness to Henry Bowser's Maryland will and was surely a friend of George Nigh, Henry's executor.

Adam Cover and his son Adam were George Nye's close neighbors on Jonathan Creek and were well known as members of the Brethren congregation. Hannah Plank, daughter of Adam, married Samuel Cover. In 1878, the Brethren built Greenwood, a mile or so north of Jonathan Creek. Hannah is remembered as the largest contributor toward its completion.(16)

There were other marriages between the neighbors of the Jonathan Creek Brethren congregation. For instance Benjamin Schofield married John and Mary Bowser's first child, Alvina. There was at least one early marriage connecting the Brethren of the Big Miami Valley with the Brethren of Jonathan Creek. As described below: Henry Bowser ( March 11 1814 - April 11, 1874), a grandson of Jacob and Mary of Jonathan Creek as a widower visited Warren County in 1840 and married Nancy Proud Coleman (Kuhlman) (1810- April 15, 1895). Nancy was born in Ohio, the daughter of Peter and Abigail Proud, who came to Warren County in 1805 from New Jersey. Nancy Proud married John Coleman in 1837; he died in 1841.

Henry had a three year old son and Nancy Coleman had four children all under ten. They needed each other! Everyone involved was Brethren. Does this marriage indicate anything more than good communication between two Brethren communities? We think not.(17) We tentatively conclude that although the Bowsers of Jonathan Creek and the Bowsers of the Miami River Valley were both in Ohio around 1800, and may have come together, they were not closely related. And also, there is good reason to believe that the Jonathan Creek Bowsers, of Hopewell Township, Perry County, Ohio and their closest Brethren d neighbors came from the Cumberland Gap/Hagerstown area of Maryland . Whereas the Miami Valley Bowsers came from Frankstown Township, Bedford/Huntingdon County.

This is all very circumstantial and will probably never be proven - but this scenario may be close enough to the truth to give us an insight into the lives of these strong characters who built our country. They would not be able to imagine what "poverty level" meant.