James H. Bowman
Wells, Cherokee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A soldier in the Army of Republic of Texas, 1836. Born in 1820. Died in February 1886.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
James H. Bowman served in the army of the Republic of Texas during the 1836 fight for independence from Mexico, part of the volunteer force that secured the breakaway republic. Born in 1820, he lived out his life in the East Texas piney woods, dying in 1886. His grave marker anchors the memory of one of the revolution's many rank-and-file soldiers.
Why it matters
Simple soldier memorials like this keep the human scale of the Texas Revolution visible, honoring the ordinary men who made an independent republic possible.
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Related people
- · James H. Bowman
Related events
- · Texas Revolution
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
John Joseph Bowman
Wells, TX
John Joseph Bowman came to Texas from Tennessee in 1822 as a boy, settling with his family in Stephen F. Austin's colony on the Colorado River among the very first Anglo-American colonists. In 1835 he enlisted in the Texian Army and fought in the war for independence alongside his father and brother. He later put down permanent roots in Cherokee County, where he is buried near his brother James.
Mt. Hope Cemetery
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Joseph and Mary Bowman brought their family through Missouri and Mississippi to Texas as part of Stephen F. Austin's colony, and their sons Joseph, John, and James fought for Texas independence from Mexico. In 1875 James H. Bowman offered a hundred acres to draw the Rev. W. D. Lewis to establish a Methodist church at Mt. Hope, giving adjacent land for this cemetery. The first burial came that November; when the railroad passed through Wells in 1886, the church moved to town and Bowman himself was laid to rest here.
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