Isaac Bowman

Isaac Bowman (April 24, 1757 – September 9, 1826) was an 18th-century American soldier and militia officer who took part in the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War. His capture and eventual escape from hostile Chickasaw led him on a two-year adventure before returning to the United States from Cuba in 1782.

His brothers, Colonel John Bowman (1738–1784), Colonel Abraham Bowman (1749–1837), and Major Joseph Bowman (c. 1752–1779), were also officers during the Revolutionary War, and all four were early frontiersman who were among the first to settle in Kentucky. Their father and grandfather, George Bowman and Jost Hite, respectively, were also prominent pioneers in the Colony of Virginia. Another of his descendants is William Irving Shuman, a banker and assistant U.S. Treasurer in Chicago, Illinois. Another descendant is Euday Bowman, composer of the 12th Street Rag.

Biography

Early life The youngest child born to George Bowman and Mary Hite, Isaac Bowman grew up at Fort Bowman aka Harmony Hall on Cedar Creek, only two miles south of present-day Strasburg. He inherited part of the family estate, including the Bowman mansion, upon the death of his father in 1768. During the mid-1770s, he accompanied his cousin Isaac Hite and brothers Abraham, Joseph, and John to Kentucky where, in 1775, he and the other thirteen pioneers carved their names into a beech tree in Warren County, Kentucky. Isaac Bowman did not become a major landowner as his brothers did, most likely due to his age.

Service during the American Revolution In 1778, at age 21, he enlisted in the Illinois Militia and participated in General George Rogers Clark's Illinois campaign serving as a lieutenant and quartermaster under his brother Major Joseph Bowman. During this time, he was assigned to escort a number of high-level British officials and military officers as prisoners-of-war from Fort Vincennes to Williamsburg, Virginia, including Governor Henry Hamilton and Philippe-François de Rocheblave. He settled down at Fort Bowman estate and became a prosperous farmer and landowner. In 1812 or 1813, he constructed a large brick mansion he called Mount Pleasant on the family estate where he lived with his family until his death on September 9, 1826.

The house was located on the high bank above Cedar Creek, two miles (3 km) northeast of Strasburg and within half a mile of his birthplace at Ft Bowman built by his father in 1753. As of 1895, the house was still in existence although unoccupied.