Sarah Stephens Bowman
BIRTH
25 Mar 1745
Frederick County, Virginia, USA
DEATH
7 May 1839 (aged 94)
Garrard County, Kentucky, USA
BURIAL
Bowman Graveyard
Lancaster, Garrard County, Kentucky, USA
Sarah Stephens, daughter of Laurence Stephens, was born 25 March 1745, in Frederick County, VA. Sarah married Jacob Bowman (1733-c1781), the son of Virginia Pioneer George Bowman, in the Virginia Valley. They soon removed to Ninety six District, SC
Jacob Bowman went to Reedy River, Laurens Co, S.C. about 1768 where he and his brother-in-law George Wright had purchased adjacent land about 1764.
In late c1781 Jacob was shot in the doorway of his mill by Indians or Tories, no one seems to be sure which. His widow filed for administration of the estate Oct.2, 1782 Ninty-Six District (Sarah Bowman of Reedy River.) In 1788 she sold most of her land to Jacob Niswanger, and sometime after that moved with all of her children except Jacob Jr to Garrard Co, Ky, where she is buried at the Bowman cemetery.
In 1792, Kentucky became a state and in the mid-1790's widow Sarah (Stephens) Bowman and her 7 children moved to Kentucky to settle on what has become know as Bowmans Bend of the Kentucky River. The land is also referred to as "Bowman's Bottom". In 1797 the property was part of what was organized as Garrard County. Sarah and her children lived on the property in an original structure. In the area is a large spring making it a logical location for a home.
The extant Bowman house that exists today was likely constructed between 1815 and 1830 and was constructed by Sarah's youngest son, George (born c1782).
While we can not fix the date, George married Sallie Hill Robards, a native of the area, in 1816. (An interesting side note, the Robards {also spelled RoBards} family is the family of Rachael Lewis Robards, who married Andrew Jackson in a cloud of controversy. The issue was whether she was single at the time of her elopement with Andrew Jackson, a controversy that plagued the couple for the rest of their lives.) It seems probable that George built the house when he married and moved into it leaving his mother in the original dwelling.
George Bowman and Sallie (RoBards) Bowman had 5 children but only Charles Edwin Bowman born in 1817 and Sallie E. Bowman (1830) had heirs and were the only children to survive their mother's death in January 1858.
In the 1820 census they reported 29 slaves; in 1830 census 28 slaves; and in 1839 23 slaves. While the 1820 and 1830 census identified George as the head of the household (since it was customary to list a male as head of the household), his mother Sarah likely was the owner of these slaves
The mother, Sarah Bowman, died in 1839 (at the age of 94), and there followed in 1840 a legal battle over the estate. In the litigation, the farm and house was referred to as a plantation and there were numerous slaves. George was able to win title to the farm and the slaves were distributed among 7 lines of heirs. The settlement also notes that Sarah Bowman lived in a residence on the site but separate from the "plantation" of George Bowman. Today the Extant Home is located at the very North end of Garrard County's Bowman's Bottom Road – held privately in a Nature Conservancy.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/117016414/sarah-bowman
