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.
John Bowen was born at Augusta County Virginia in 1760, the first born child of Rees Bowen and Margaret Levisa Smith.
At the age of 20 years, John was a private in Colonel Campbell’s Eighth Regiment of Riflemen. He fought at the Battle of King’s Mountain, 7 October 1780. There were eight member of the Bowen family in that battle: John’s father, Rees, who was killed, five uncles who were commissioned officers, a future brother-in-law, Thomas Gillespie, and himself.
He married Nancy Gillespie, a daughter of Thomas Gillespie and Eleanor, at Montgomery County, Virginia, in 1784. John and Margaret had one child, Levisa (or Louisa) who was born in 1785. In 1788, he bought a home at Russell County, Virginia. He died suddenly in 1789 at the age of 29 years at a hotel at Philadelphia, where he had gone to sell cattle. The site of his burial at Spartanburg, South Carolina is not known. After his death, his daughter, Louisa, was made a ward of her uncle, Thomas Gillespie, who was John Bowen’s brother-in-law. His wife married Thomas Ferguson and removed to Kentucky.
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