Jacob Bowman

Captain (John) Jacob Bowman, Sr., (December 2, 1733 - June 20, 1781) was an 18th century American pioneer, grandson of Jost Hite, Colonial Militia officer of Virginia Colony, veteran of the French and Indian War, City of Strasburg Trustee, large land owner in Virginia and South Carolina, a South Carolina State Representative (Third Whig), District 96 Road Commissioner and Revolutionary War Patriot noted for supplying mill goods to the Continental Army. In 1753 he helped his father in the construction of Ft. Bowman (aka Harmony Hall) near present day Strasburg, Virginia.

Four of his younger brothers, Col. John (aka Johannes) (John Bowman (pioneer)), Col. Abraham, Maj. Joseph and Capt. Isaac Bowman were excellent horsemen and later known in John Wayland's book as the "Four Centaurs of Cedar Creek", and all of whom were among the earliest pioneers to settle in Kentucky and serve as prominent officers in the Continental Army. While his younger brothers were in Kentucky, Jacob Bowman and brother-in-law George Wright had earlier removed to the old 96th District in the Province of South Carolina where he owned a grist mill and trading post on the Reedy River.

He was also the brother-in-law of frontiersmen Isaac Ruddell, Lorentz Stephens, Peter Deyerle, Henry Richardson, George Brinker and the aforementioned George Wright. A future great-grandson, Abram Hite Bowman. in 1919 would found Kentucky's first airport, Bowman Field, which is the oldest continually operating airport in North America. His grandnephew, Col. Abraham's grandson John Bryan Bowman, founded the University of Kentucky and the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky.

Born in the Shenandoah Valley of what was then the Virginia Colony to pioneer Georg Bowman and Mary Hite (daughter of pioneer Jost Hite) on Cedar Creek in what was then Spotsylvania, later Shenandoah County, Virginia he is first recorded as having fought in the French and Indian War (1754-1763), as a Captain in the Virginia militia in 1758. He lived in Botetourt County. In November 1761, (John) Jacob served as a Trustee for the City of Strasburg.

By marrying Sarah Stephens in 1766, (John) Jacob married his young step-niece, the daughter of Lawrence Stephens and a step-daughter of (John) Jacob's sister Mary (Bowman) Stephens. Between August 1766 and March 1768, his brother-in-law George Wright and sister Sarah (Bowman) Wright talk (John) Jacob and Sarah Stephens Bowman into moving to the Carolinas where George Wright and he had visited family in 1764.

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