Bowmans

Bowman is a very familiar name in the Rockingham area thought it's not know how the very early George Bowmans related to the Brethren Bowmans who appeared in census and land inventories later on. A George Bowman who purchased large land allotments from Jost Hite b 1734. Most of this land was toward the northern part of the Shenandoah while some were at Linville. When he died in 1768 he left negros and moveable estate to his wife, with land divided between sons William, Jacob, Isaac, Joseph, and Adam. John Bowman received 500 acres on Linville Creek purchased from Hite in 1749. John sold the land to Abraham Miller in 1768. Jacob also got 500 acres on Linville Creek purchased of Hite in 1749. This land went to Josiah Davidson following Jacobs move to South Carolina in 1768.

Subsequently there were Jacob and Benjamin Bowmans having land surveyed in the area around 1778-1785. A Jacob owned land next to Jacob Rife in 1791, whose home will be described on the map. The picture is said to be that of a Brethren Elder Benjamin Bowman in 1785 who built a house in order to establish the land as an "improvement'. This may be the Benjamin born of Jacob Bowman and Catharina Wine. A Michael Bowman was involved in purchasing some of the land of Abraham Lincoln who was moving to Kentucky in 1780. Down Jacob Rife/Reiff's line was the builder of a large mill and town toward the south which was named Dayton. Reiff sold the mill at the man-made Silver Lake to a Bowman who ran the mill and post office for many years as a Brethren enterprise. A number of Bowmans migrated to Ohio where support for Brethren tended to be weak; many returned to Mennonite communities.

It was common practice among settlers to go up first with a log structure of some wort, sometimes covered with weatherboarding. Subsequently, if the family was prosperous and relatively committed to staying in the area, a limestone house might have been undertaken. Many of those which were built before 1800 are still in place in the area. This house is also a "Baughman" house, though we're not quite sure which or where since after 1800 there were Bowmans moving around in the area far past the original "Bowman line".