The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
State of Service: PA
Qualifying Service: Patriotic Service
Birth: 23 Jun 1750 / Augusta / VA Death: 18 May 1823 / Burke / NC
Qualifying Service Description:
Paid for supplies provided to the war effort
Additional References:
Haun, Weynette Park, North Carolina Revolutionary Army Accounts, North Carolina. Durham: self-published, 1990-1999, #566, Roll #S.115.70
Spouse: (1) John Bowman; (2) Charles McDowell; Children: Mary; Charles; Sarah; Athan; James;
Members Who Share This Ancestor
None*
*This means that the NSSAR has no applications for this Patriot on file.
Instead the information provided is best effort, and from volunteers who have either researched grave sites, service records, or something similar. There is no documentation available at NSSAR HQ to order.
Grace Greenlee was born on 23 June 1750 in Augusta County, Virginia. She grew up in her family's log cabin in the Shenandoah Valley. When she came of age, her parents arranged her marriage to an elderly landowner. Grace developed the spirit of rebellion early in life. She left the groom at the altar, to the dismay of the wedding guests. On 23 December 1778, she married the man of her choice, John Bowman, in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Grace and John, along with her older brother James, removed to North Carolina to settle land near their McDowell relations in what is today Burke County.
John and Grace built their farm, named Hickory Grove, near the McDowell home, known as Quaker Meadows. By 1777, the war with the British, which began in the Northern colonies, moved closer to them. John Bowman, Grace's husband, was in the local militia along with her cousins, Charles and Joseph McDowell. John Bowman made gunpowder with his enslaved people to supply the militia, and Grace also learned the skill. James Greenlee was a quartermaster, and Grace assisted him with gathering supplies for the Patriot soldiers.
In June of 1780, Grace received word that John was wounded at the Battle of Ramsour's Mill. She rode for two days through the wilderness with her infant daughter Mary "Polly," to reach his side before he died. A poem written by Grace was found amongst some of John Bowman's papers and today is located at the State Archives in Raleigh, North Carolina. She could not have possibly imagined that hundreds of years later, a lament to her grief would be one of her last remaining artifacts.
Family stories passed down through the ages describe Grace's encounters with local Tories. She is said to have pointed a musket at a couple who tried to confiscate her prized horses and chased them off her property. She was whiteness to the gathering of over a thousand men, The Overmountain Men, at the Counsel Oak at Quaker Meadows Plantation on their way to fight the British at Kings Mountain.
Grace Greenlee Bowman married her cousin, Brigadier-General Charles McDowell, in 1782. General McDowell became a state senator, and she was the mistress of Quaker Meadows Plantation. Together they had five children.
The Patriot, Grace, died on 18 May 1823 and rests beside Charles at the family cemetery in Morganton, North Carolina. His headstone reads, "Sacred to the memory of an officer who died as he had lived…A Patriot." On her marker, she is only described as his consort, but history proves her to be a noted patriot in her own right.
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Patriot biographies must be the original work of the author, and work submitted must not belong to another person or group, in observance with copyright law. Patriot biographies are to be written in complete sentences, follow the established rules of grammar, syntax and punctuation, be free of typographical errors, and follow a narrative format. The narrative should unfold in a logical manner (e.g. the narrative does not jump from time period to time period) or have repeated digressions, or tell the history of the patriot's line from the patriot ancestor to the author. The thinking here is that this is a patriot biography, not a lineage report or a kinship determination project or other report published in a genealogy journal. The biography should discuss the qualifying service (military, patriotic, civil) of the patriot ancestor, where the service was rendered, whether this was a specific state or Continental service, as well as significant events (as determined by the author) of the patriot's life. This is the entire purpose of a patriot's biography.
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Send your submission1, in a Microsoft Word compatible format, to patriotbios@sar.org for inclusion in this space 1Upon submission of a patriot biography, the patriot biography becomes the property of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and may be edited to conform to the patriot biography submission standards.