Joseph Bowman

Joseph Bowman
Joseph Bowman grave marker, at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral Cemetery, near George Rogers Clark National Historical Park, Vincennes, Knox County, Indiana
Born	Joseph Lawrence Bowman c. March 8, 1752 Frederick County, Virginia
Died	August 14 or 15, 1779 (aged 27) Fort Patrick Henry, near Vincennes, Illinois County, Virginia, present-day Knox County, Indiana
Cause of death	burn wounds from gunpowder explosion
Resting place	originally along the Wabash River, near Vincennes, present-day St. Francis Xavier Cathedral Cemetery, near George Rogers Clark National Historical Park, Vincennes, Knox County, Indiana
Nationality	American
Other names	Captain Bowman, Major Bowman
Occupation	frontiersman, hunter, farmer, soldier, state militia officer
Parent(s)	George Bowman and Mary Hite, Anglicized from Hans Georg Baumann and Marie Elisabetha Hite
Relatives	Jost Hite (grandfather), John (Johannes) Bowman (brother), Isaac Bowman (brother), Abraham Bowman (brother)

Joseph Bowman, born Joseph Lawrence Bowman (c. 1752 – August 14 or 15, 1779), was a frontier, Virginia state militia officer, during the American Revolutionary War. He was second-in-command, during Colonel George Rogers Clark's 1778 military expedition to capture the Illinois Country, in which Clark and his men seized the key British-controlled towns of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes. Following the 1779 campaign and defeat of the British forces, in Vincennes, Bowman was critically injured in an accidental gunpowder explosion and subsequently died of his wounds. He was the only American officer killed during the 1778-1779 Illinois campaign. Joseph Bowman kept a daily journal of his trek from Kaskaskia to Vincennes, which is one of the best primary source accounts of Clark's victorious campaign.

Joseph Bowman was born in Frederick County, Virginia, the son of George Bowman and Mary Hite, Anglicized from their original, German names, Hans Georg Baumann and Marie Elisabetha Hite. His maternal grandfather was Jost Hite, a German immigrant credited, as the first white, European colonist to settle west of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. In 1732, Hite led his extended family, including his daughter Mary and her husband, George Bowman, to the Shenandoah Valley, near present-day Winchester, Frederick County, Virginia. Jost Hite distributed land, that he owned, to his family and to other settlers—claims, which would later be contested in Hite v. Fairfax, a landmark Virginia land case. Joseph Bowman was born at Fort Bowman, near present-day Strasburg, Shenandoah County, Virginia.