Individual Details
John Bowles
(1747 - )
Post-It Note on World Connect about John Bowles:
MARRIAGES OF GOOCHLAND COUNTY VIRGINIA 1733-1815
Compiled and Published by Kathleen Booth Williams
p 13
27 November 1768. John BOWLES and Mary Redford, dau. of William Redford, deceased. Sur. John Cannon. Elizabeth Bowles makes affadavit that John, 21 years old last May, is son of Benjamin Bowles, deceased.
The Douglas Register gives the marriage as 9 November 1768, and says "Hanover".
Children suggested in online databases - which I have not proved except for Martha - are the following:
Thomas born say 1770, married Lucy England;
Martha was born 19 Dec 1773 in Goochland; baptized at St. James Northam;
Nancy b. ca 1774;
Adeline b. ca 1775;
William Joseph b. ca 1775 married Nancy Rolf Bolling;
John b. ca 1775 married Frances Bolling.
John Bowles and Mary Redford are often suggested as the parents of the Nancy M. Bowles who married John Jefferson Williams ca 1813, Warren Co TN, but, born in 1796, that Nancy is too young to have been their daughter. It is possible she could have been a granddaughter but even that is questionable. The research on the various John Bowles is very confusing and several men of the same name have been confused. There is more about the situation in the notes of Nancy M. Bowles. One of the problems with researching this family is that there is a book, The History of the Bowles Family, written by Thomas M. Farquhar, Philadelphia, 1907. Unfortunately Farquhar is known to have been a falsifier of records in order to receive payments from persons requesting his services as a researcher.
On pages 231 and 232 of Farquhar's, there is the story that the earliest John Bowles of Hanover [though he doesn't mention a wife Mary Redford] went to Tennessee and then to Missouri with his youngest daughter who had married a Mr. Williams. The time frame given is long after John Bowles of Hanover was dead. In fact, Farquhar seems to merge three or four different John Bowles into one or two. Not even the John M. Bowles of Warren Co TN ever went to Missouri - he and wife Fanny both died still in Tennessee and it was their ELDEST daughter that married John Jefferson Williams.
Many have also assumed that this John is the author of a will in Cumberland Co, dated 1 Jan 1793 - but the children named in that will are not these shown here.
Events
| Birth | 1747 | ||||
| Marriage | 9 Nov 1768 | Saint James Northam Parish, Goochland County, Virginia - Mary Redford |  |
Families
| Spouse | Mary Redford ( - ) |
| Child | Martha Bowles (1773 - ) |
| Child | John M. Bowles (1775 - 1832) |
| Child | William Joseph Bowles (1772 - ) |
| Child | Living |
| Child | Living |
| Father | Benjamin Bowles ( - 1768) |
| Mother | Mary Webber ( - ) |
Endnotes
1. Edited by W. Mac Jones, The Douglas Register. Detailed record of Births, Marriages, Deaths.....as kept by the Rev. William Douglas, from 1750 to 1797. [Note: Douglas went to Goochland in 1750 but did not start the Registter until 1756.] An Index of Goochland Wills. Notes on the French-Huguenot Refugees who lived in Manakin-Town. (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. Baltimore Reprinted 1985; Original, 1928. c1966) Available online at Ancestry.com by subscription..
2. , "Marriage Bonds in Goochland County," William & May Quarterly (Vol. 7, No. 2, Oct 1898, No. 3, Jan 1899; Vol. 8, No. 2, Oct 1899), Oct 1898; p.98-106. Jan 1899; p.197-200; Oct 1899; p.91-96.