[pic1.jpg]
Photo courtesy of M. Lumley
Isaac Bowman

Born: July 29, 1826 in Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio
Died: May 1, 1892 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

"I, Henry Eyring Bowman, was born Feb 3. 1859 in the Gruesbeck Block in the
17th Ward in Salt Lake City, Utah. My father's name was Isaac Bowman. He
was born in Wooster, Wayne Co., Ohio, 29 July 1826. His ancestors were
from Germany, and he was of that stock known as "Pennsylvania Deutch
(Jacob Bowman and Catherina Robbins). "He was about 5 feet 10 inches high
and weighed only 150 pounds. He had brown hair, which, was inclined to be
curly. He had a good set of teeth, the upper being large.

Isaac Bowman arrived in Salt Lake City, June 1850, on his way to the
California Gold Fields. Owing to the lateness of the season, his party
remained in Salt Lake City for the winter. Father joined the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint and did not go on to California in the
Spring of 1851.

He was employed as clerk by the by the early merchants of Salt Lake
City. Among them was Wm. Jennings and Livingston & Kincade. After several
years he turned to school teaching at which he was very successful. In the
course of about eight years, he had married three wives. Isaac married his
first wife, Susan Arberrilla Alexander (1833-18??) on 18 February 1852, by
whom he had seven children. He married his second wife, my mother, Bertha
Odelia Louise Eyring (1836-1890), on January 17, 1857, who bore him three
children (and then divorced early in the summer of 1868). He married his
third wife Martha Jane Calvert (1840-1925) on November 1, 1857, who bore
him eight children.

In the year of 1860 his father, Jacob Bowman, died. My father went back to
Ohio to assist in settling his father's estate. He received about $20,000
as his share. With this money he bought a stock of merchandise and opened
up a business in Ogden, Utah to which he moved his families. Aside from
his business, he speculated a good deal. Among other things he bought an ox
freight train, hired drivers, and engaged in freighting across the plains
from the Missouri River. This adventure proved disastrous financially. This,
coupled with his other speculations and unwise credit in his business,
resulted in his losing all his property within about two years. With one
remaining yoke of oxen, he moved his families 16 miles east of Ogden to
Morgan County, about halfway between Mountain Green and Enterprise, on the
north side of the Weber River, where he took up, or settled on quite a large
farm. He erected one large room for each of his families and started in to
build fences, break up land, take out irrigation ditches, and do the many
other things incident to pioneering a home in an underdeveloped country. He
had had no experience in farming so that the net result of these conditions
was extreme poverty for 8 or 10 years.

In addition to the difficulties above indicated, commencing about 1865,
his crops were destroyed three years in succession by grasshoppers. I well
remember the last year; the grasshoppers were flying so thick that they
obscured the sun, and once could not go out without some protection for the
face, as the grasshoppers hit one with such force as to be very painful,
especially if they struck one in the eyes. Just at this time, the seagulls
appeared in countless numbers. I never saw any of them light at any time. They
just flew through the air swallowing grasshoppers. When they became gorged,
they would vomit while flying and repeat the operation. The quantity disgorged
at each time was about a tea cup full of dead grasshoppers. These gobs were
dropping through the air so thick that one could not be out much without
being hit by them. Soon the ground was thickly strewn with these little
piles of dead grasshoppers.

Toward evening when the grasshoppers would light for the night, the gulls
would disappear, flying westward toward the Salt Lake. Next morning when
the grasshoppers took to the air, the gulls would reappear from the west
and get busy. In less than a week, there was scarcely a grasshopper to be
seen, and there were none after that. I remember this incident as clearly
as though it happened yesterday.

The first year they appeared our grain was just heading out. They lit on
it in a swarm and next morning there was nothing but bare stalks left. The
leaves were consumed and the heads lay on the ground.

During the grasshopper year, father clerked for Eldridge and Clawson Salt Lake
City in the winter time and in the summer made weekly trips 40 miles to Salt
Lake City with his own and neighbors' butter, where he supplied hotels and
private families. With the aid of his family, he practiced good methods and
delivered a first class article in splendid condition and received the top
price. He would bring back merchandise which Eldridge and Clawson supplied
him wholesale and this made double profits, and in this way supported his
families as best he could. I occasionally went with him on these weekly trips.

It was at this time the Salt Lake Tabernacle was being built, and what
little time I could get away from father was spent watching the workmen. It
was of great interest and wonder to me, and still is. We all worked hard,
went barefooted and had only a limited amount of the bare necessities. I
remember Bishop Hunter stopping overnight in the very late Fall when it was
very frosty, and seeing us all barefooted, remarked in his characteristic way,
"Beats the devil, beats the devil. Children born without shoes and stockings,
beats the devil."

The last winter that father clerked for Eldridge and Clawson, he moved his
first wife, Susan Alexander Bowman, and her children to Salt Lake City. She
refused to return in the spring. He brought her children back to our Morgan
County home. But within a few years they all ran away and went to their
mother. Susan Bowman went out to a railroad town in Wyoming where she
married a non-Mormon, a Mr. Shepard, without being divorced from father,
and later moved to Park City, Utah. Her children all grew up without faith
in the Gospel and became scattered until I do not know which are living or
where any of them are.

In the summer of 1868 the union Pacific railroad was being graded. Father
took contract to grade 3/4 of a mile running through his farm. Although I
was only 9 years old I drove our team of old yellow horses on a scraper all
summer. At that time the fur bearing mink were plentiful along the Weber
River. For several years my two half-brothers and I contributed largely to
the support of the family by trapping them.

Through an advertisement giving one of his brothers as reference, father got
in touch with a patent medicine called Macedonian Oil, which was prepared
in Cleveland, Ohio. For about a year, commencing in the winter of 1868, he
traveled with his team and sold this remedy. He had splendid success and made
more money than he had done in three years before, which somewhat relieved
our extreme poverty. In those early days, it was customary for every one to
ask advice concerning all of the affairs of life, from President Brigham
Young. When father inherited money from his father in 1860, he consulted
President Young about embarking in the mercantile business. President Young
advised him to use the money to provide homes for his families and prepare
himself for school teaching, Pres. Young told him he would be a successful
teacher but would fail if he undertook merchandising. He disregarded his
advise with the result before stated.

He was of a nervous temperament and very proud. He developed the habit of
blaming all of his mistakes on others and found fault with and criticized
every one. As a result, he developed into a chronic scold, so that it was
next to impossible to live with him. He discontinued family prayers, giving
as an excuse that he was possessed of rebellious wives and disobedient
children. As a matter of fact, father's three wives were splendid faithful
women, lived harmoniously together with their children, and did everything
in their power to help and sustain him. I remember that many times, I strove
with all my might to please him, but was never successful, The other children
had the same experience. Because father was not in harmony with his Bishop
and neighbors, he did not allow his family to attend Sabbath meetings or
to participate in any Ward activities, either religious or social. I cannot
associate a recollection of childhood as being in any way connected with my
father. I grew up with a strong dislike for him which changed to sympathy
and pity when I arrived at mature understanding.

In the early summer of 1868, just after we started work on the Union Pacific
Railroad, mother separated from my father and received a complete divorce
or release from Pres. Young. She went to live in the family of Abraham
0. Smoot in the 20th ward of Salt Lake City. During the winter of 1868-9,
track was laid for the U. P. R. R. This made a market at high prices for
hay and everything we had produced. The following years the section and
other gangs of workmen on the railroad furnished a good market. The railroad
installed Chinamen to do all section work. Their diet consisted largely of
vegetables. They purchased all we could raise and would ship the surplus to
their friends working on other sections. In 1871, father opened a little
store at Peterson Station about 3/4 of a mile east, of our house. This
he continued for about ten years. He then lost his farm on a mortgage and
moved to Salt Lake City where he acted as collector for doctors and other
professional men. He developed dropsy and died 1 May 1892. He was not very
strong physically and had always been troubled with rheumatism."

[pic2.jpg]
Susan Arberrilla or Arabella Alexander Bowman Shepard
1833-1913
Susan's parents were Randolph Alexander II (1802-1879) and Myzra Nix
Alexander (1815-1880), married June 11, 1830, and had thirteen children.

From: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff, History of his Life and Labors
by Matthias Cowley, pages 60-61.

"In June 27 1836 Woodruff was invited to hold a meeting at a meetinghouse
on Thompson Creek to preach. Parson Browning the Baptist "priest" told the
church deacon to "forbid my preaching in the house." He then "commenced
a tirade of abuse against the Mormons." Woodruff let the people know that
he still wanted to preach, he had come ten miles to preach the gospel to
them, and was willing to stand in a cart, on a pile of wood, on a fence,
or any other place they would appoint, to have that privilege. "All the
congregation, with the exception of the minister and one deacon, arose
and left the meetinghouse, walked across the street and formed seats of
a worm fence, and gave good attention while I preached for an hour and a
half on the principles of the gospel." Particularly vocal in his defense of
Woodruff on that occasion, a Baptist named Randolph Alexander bore testimony
to the truth of what had been said. Randolph converted to Mormonism shortly
thereafter..."He invited me home with him, bought a Book of Mormon and was
baptized and I organized a branch in that place."

Journal History, 29 June 1836. One of the Thompson County settlers named
Randolph Alexander, hearing a Mormon elder preach for the first time,
announced: "The people of the present day made him think of a pen of hogs;
the keeper would make a trough, and pour into it hot or cold water, dish
water or anything else, and they would drink it; but let a stranger come
along and pour over a basket of corn on the back side of the pen, and the
hogs would be frightened and run and snort all over the pen. He said it was
so with the people; the priests would feed them with any kind of doctrine,
no matter how false, the people will swallow it down, but let a stranger
come and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, which will save the people,
as Mr. Woodruff has done, and the people are afraid of him."

Sometime after 1848, John "Jack" D. Holladay was named branch president
of Big Cottonwood, which was known as Holladay's Settlement or Burgh when
had returned from Alabama with the second group of Mississippi Saints
and other pioneers, included in the Burgh were also some settlers from
the Mormon Battalion, and some from the main Nauvoo group. Included were
Randolph Alexander, Milo Andrus, Isaac Bowman, David Brinton, William Casto,
Solomon Chase, Winslow Farr, Jr., John D. Lee, and several others.

[pic3.jpg]
Grandmother Susan Bowman Shepard, Mary McKenney's mother
-Photo courtesy of M. Lumley

[pic4.jpg]
Randolph Alexander family - photo taken 1899 in Salt Lake City, Utah
Front:  Lewis Andrus, Cleveland Jones (son of Henrietta), Jane Adeline
Alexander Andrus Sproul, Laron Andrus;
Back: Andrew Sproul, Randolph Andrus, Rosannah (Laron's wife), Henrietta
Andrus Jones
Jane Adeline Alexander is Susan Alexander's sister.

Children of Isaac Bowman and Susan A. Alexander Bowman

1 Isaac Robbins Bowman
Born: 1 Feb 1853 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
Infant
Died: 8 Dec 1853 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

2 Catherine Malissa Bowman
Born: 9 Mar 1855 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
Married:
Died:

3 Margarette Elenora Bowman
Born: 13 December 1856 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
Married:
Died: 1899

[pic5.jpg]
4 Brigham Alexander Bowman
Born: 31 October 1858 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
Married: Lune Romanta Snyder on 16 November 1879 in Park City, Summit, Utah
Died: 15 June 1926 Copperopolis, Calaveras, California
Buried: at Park City, Summit, Utah

[pic6.jpg]
5 Mary Alexander Bowman
Born: 1 June 1861 in Ogden, Weber, Utah
Married: George McKenney
Died:

6 Anna Alexander Bowman
Born: 1 June 1861 in Mountain Green, Morgan, Utah
Married:
Died: 2 November 1902

[pic7.jpg]
7 Heber Alexander Bowman
Born: 19 December 1865 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
Married:
Died:

	
[pic8.jpg]
Margaret Bowman McKenney Dakin
Daughter of Mary Alexander Bowman and George McKenney

"... [George W. McKenney's] dad's family in the East made a dreadful to-do
about his having married a western girl [Mary Bowman] and he became so
disgusted with them that he vowed never to return to the East under any
circumstances and even changed his name to McKennie.  [Margaret McK. Dakin]
never new until 1907 when I [MMcKD] was married that the name ever had
been McKenney.  Then Dad wrote that since all his people were dead he was
going back to his right name!".....McKenney

This info from a short bio compiled by Margaret Anna McKenney Dakin (1881 -
1968), the eldest daughter of George W. McKenney.  He had ended up in the
west sort of by mistake and stayed there.

Bertha Odelia Louise Eyring Bowman Greenwood
1836-1890

"Bertha Odelia Louise Eyring Bowman Greenwood was born in Coburg,
Saxony, Germany on 12 June 1836. Her people were Protestants and very
religious. During religious troubles her father, Edward Christian Eyring,
when a young man, took refuge in France and married a French lady,
Ferdinandine Charlotte Caroline Von Blomberg on May 14, 1834. He later
returned to Germany. This makes me 1/8 French. They were of the Gentry
Class. Many of them had the office of Mayor and other official positions
and quite a number were doctors and ministers. Her father was a well-to-do
druggist in the city of Coburg. My mother had an older brother, Henry Carlos
Ferdinand Eyring (1835-1902), and a younger sister, Clara Ann Julie Eyring
(1841-1913). They had good school advantages and were reared in polite
society. Both of my mother's parents died of cholera or black plague.

Children of Isaac Bowman and Bertha Odelia Eyring Bowman

[pic9.jpg]
1 Henry Eyring Bowman
Born: 10 Feb 1859 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
Married: 1) Mary Bertha Gubler 2 Sep 1885 St. George, Wahington, Utah; 2)
Wilhelmina Walser 27 Nov 1902 Col. Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico (div)
Died: 30 May 1933 in Provo, Utah, Utah

2 Clara Eyring Bowman
Born: 3 May 1862 Mountain Green, Morgan, Utah
Child
Died: 13 April 1867

3 Hyrum Eyring Bowman
Born: 18 Feb 1864 Peterson, Morgan, Bowman
Married: Esther Eleanor or Ella Herbert 13 March 1889
Died: 28 Feb 1916

On 22 March 1869, Bertha Eyring was sealed for time and eternity by President
Young to William Greenwood of American Fork, Utah, in which place she resided
until her death on June 7, 1890 The cause of her death was neuralgia of
the heart.

By William Greenwood, she bore four children:
-Stephen Edward Greenwood, born 16 February 1870; d. 13 December 1874
 American Fork, UT
-Bertha Emily Greenwood, born 20 April 1872,
-Charlotte Ferdinanda "Lottie" Greenwood, born, 14 November 1874; d. 31
 March 1973; md. Albert Hansen.
-Abraham Owen Greenwood, born 5 February 1877; d. 1973; md Bertha E. Lineberry
 or Linabary on October 12, 1908.

William Greenwood had a wife and large family when mother married him, so
that she embraced the order of plural marriage twice and was a firm supporter
of that principle. Greenwood had married Alice Houghton Greenwood on May 30,
1843 in Davenport, Scott, Iowa. They had fourteen children.

Greenwood's second wife, deceased, Emma Julian Mercer Greenwood (1835-1865),
had one son, William Julian Greenwood (1864-1913); md. Maren Sophie Johannesen
on 3 July 1888.

William Greenwood was First Counselor to Bishop Leonard Harrington, a
surveyor by profession, had a good farm and was secretary and bookkeeper of
the American Co-op Store. He was a kindly man and provided fairly well for
my mother. His first wife died about 1882, and he died of Bright's Disease
six years later."

Mary Jane Calvert Bowman
1840-1925

Mary Jane Calvert, daughter of William P. Calvert and Annie Hamaker Calvert,
married Isaac Bowman on November 1, 1857 at Salt Lake City Endowment
House. Utah. They had one child.

Their son William Calvert Bowman (1859-1944) married Lydia Loretta Squires
(1863-1908) on January 3, 1883 at Wah Wah Springs, Beaver, Utah, the daughter
of Lydia Lucina Abbott (1833-1919) and Edwin Saxton Squires (1820-1887). Lydia
Lucina Abbott is the daughter of Abigail Smith (Captain James Brown's fifth
wife) and Stephen Joseph Abbott (1804-1843).


Sources:

PAF - Archer files = Isaac Bowman +  Bertha Odelia Louise Eyring > Henry
Eyring Bowman + Mary Bertha Gubler > Claudious Bowman I + Jennie Stark
Robinson > Claudious Bowman II + Nelle Loriene Taylor (granddaughter of
Ernest Leander Taylor + Johanne Marie Skousen) > Claudius Bowman III +
Ana Marina Brown < Pauly G. Brown + Lilia Gonzalez < Orson Pratt Brown +
Angela Gabaldon.

There exist several other connections of the Bowmans and the Browns.

http://www.dublan.net/History/ as written by his son, Henry Eyring
Bowman. Some editing, addition of names and dates added by Lucy Brown Archer.

http://www.signaturebooks.com/excerpts/heaven.htm#89

http://www.parkcityhistory.org/search.htm
http://www.lib.utah.edu/digital/unews/pmr.html

Photos of Susan Alexander Bowman and her children, and Margaret Bowman
McKenney Dakin, are courtesy of M. Lumley.

Copyright 2001 www.OrsonPrattBrown.org