My great great grandfather David C. Bowen came to Kodiak, Alaska, when he was in his 70’s, where his son Henry Richard Bowen was living with his family.
David C. Bowen’s grandfather was Henry Bowen.
Henry Bowen was born 26 July 1738. He was an original land grantee of Eastport, Maine, called Moose Island, in 1774. He had 100 acres, lot #8. According to the census of 1790 for Washington County, he was living there with his family. He died 22 August 1807.
Henry and his son William considered their land to be under the jurisdiction of Nova Scotia and were loyal to England during the Revolutionary War.
The following is from Theodore C. Holmes, Loyalist to Canada, (Camden, ME: Picton Press, 1992), p. 179:
This March 29, 1784, grant of 15,250 acres of land was located on the Digdeguash River in St. Patrick’s Parish, Charlotte County, New Brunswick. The principal grantee was John Curry, who reserved 500 acres on the tract for a sawmill. Curry convinced other grantees to acquire 100 acres for him in their names.
Later he tried to get the entire tract in his own name.
The names (spelled as found) of the Digdeguash grantees were: (41 names are as listed—following are a few names of people who went to Eastport):
- Bowen, Henry
- Boynton, Caleb
- Cochran, James
- Fountain, Stephen
- Richer (Ricker), William
Today, Moose Island, on the northeast border of Maine, is separated from Deer Island, New Brunswick, Canada, by less than three quarters of a mile of water. Holmes reported, on p. 188:
John Lawless of Deer Island, Thomas Terrell (Farell) of Deer Island, James Chaffey of Indian Island, John Fountain of Deer Island, William Elwell of Deer Island, Alexander Hodge of Deer Island, Henry Bowen of Moose Island, William Ricker of Moose Island, Wm. Crow of Moose Island, Andrew Lloyd of Campobello, Hibbare Hunt of Campobello, and Joseph Cormockl of Deer Island testified, in a signed document, that they had lived within the district of Passamoqoddy since 1770. And considered themselves, “as well as those on the Cobscook River twelve miles to the westward of said Moose Island,” within the limits of and under the jurisdiction of the Province of Nova Scotia.
Biographical sketches of loyalists of the American revolution, with an historical essay by Sabine, Lorenzo, Vol. 2, pp. 482-483:
Bowen. Of New York. Henry of Tryon (now Montgomery) County, was a neighbor and adherent of the Johnsons, and accompanied Sir John to Canada, and, subsequently, appearing in arms on the side of the Crown, belonged to a party who desolated the country inhabited by his former friends and associates. William Bowen, of the same family, was engaged in the same enterprise. The Bowens of this region were from New England, and emigrated to New York about the year 1728. Peter, of Tripe’s Hill, in 1775, refused to sign the Whig Association. Of Massachusetts. John, of Princeton, went to Halifax in 1776, and was proscribed and banished two years after. Nathan, of Marblehead, was an Addresser of Hutchinson in 1774. Jeremiah, of New Hampshire, was proscribed and banished in 1778. Ansel and Francis, residence unknown, went to St. John, New Brunswick, in 1783, and received grants of lots in that city. John, in 1782, a Captain in the Prince of Wales Volunteers. Jeremiah, who, in 1778, was permitted by Governor Tryon to take possession of the house and land of Joshua Wells, a Whig, of South Carolina. Adam, who, at the peace, accompanied by his family, went from New York to Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where the Crown granted him one town and one water lot. His losses in consequence of his loyalty were estimated at £850.
“Sir John,” mentioned above, was Sir John Johnson, 2nd Baronet, who gathered loyalists in 1776 to fight for the British, and who fled to Canada. He and his supporters joined the King’s Royal Regiment of New York, which fought the colonists throughout the revolutionary war.
We think the parents of Henry above were Penuel Bowen, Sr. (1715-1760) and Frances Davis (1703-1769), who had been married to Ames Throop.
On his gravestone which had on the top, three chain links, which was the Odd Fellows emblem. The gravestone reads:
David C. Bowen
Born 16 April 1812
Died 30 May 1888
Native of Perry, Maine
Beloved by all
After years of research, I found the that the gravestone wasn’t entirely correct.
David C. Bowen was born 16 April 1816 in Perry, Maine (not 1812).
His father was William Bowen born in 1779 and died, at the age of 40, with his son George, who was 14 years old. They died from exposure on the beach after a big storm put them ashore while on a fishing trip. As reported in the local paper from November 1819:
DIED—Mr. Wm. Bowen, aged 40, of Perry, and his son, aged 14. They left this place in a boat on Saturday evening last to return home, it being extremely dark and boisterous missed their way, & got into South Bay, where it appears they hauled up their boat, took out the sail, &c., and probably being greatly fatigued layed down on the beach at high water mark to wait till day light. They fell asleep, alas never more to wake. They perished with cold and were found on Monday morning, both together, near the edge of the water. Mr. B. was an active and industrious man and has left a wife with a large family of children to lament his untimely exit.
David C’s mother was Anna Clark, born 18 October 1781 and died November 1857.
William’s brother was Enoch, married to Jane Clark, who was Anna Clark’s sister.
William Bowen and Anna were married 20 March 1801 in Eastport, Maine. The children of William and Anna:
Anna Clark Bowen married Benjamin Barnabee, 1 May 1823. Barnabee died in 1829.
Anna Clark’s father was William Clark born about 1740, and died 21 May 1805 in Eastport, Maine. Anna Clark’s mother was Rebecca Austin, christened in Maine in 1738, and died in 1790.
Anna’s brothers and sisters:
Anna’s mother Rebecca Austin re-married to William Rumery who was born 3 February 1737 and died 21 November 1764. They were married in Pepperell Borough, now Saco, on 10 September 1758. Rebecca and William’s children:
David C. Bowen married Lydia B. Sadler, 9 January 1844.
Judy Peterson, Archivist, Gloucester, Massachusetts, reported that the children of David C. Bowen and Lydia B. Sadler were:
My great-grandfather, Henry R. Bowen, was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and worked as the superintendent of a salting station at Karluk, Alaska. He married Barbara Naumoff of Kodiak Island, and they raised seven children. Bowen believed the fishing on Kodiak Island was exceptional and that New England fishermen could live just as comfortably in Alaska with less exertion. He returned to Gloucester several times and tried unsuccessfully to persuade the fishermen there to move. As captain of the fur-trading schooner Pauline Collins, he escaped from the ship when it broke on the rocks in 1881, but drowned 14 years later when the ill-fated Seventy-Six disappeared with all hands between Kodiak and Kayak Island.
Henry came to Alaska from Massachusetts as captain of the ship the Undaunted. My cousin Bill Olssen said that he came around the Horn to get to Alaska. He also said that Matt Yuth (who was our neighbor in Seldovia) also came with him. The ship carried barrels and salt for a saltery in Alaska near Kodiak Island.
A ship named Undaunted was lost at Kayak Island 7 March 1894. Not sure that this was the same boat.
Henry met Barbara Naumoff Smith in Kodiak; she had been married to William C. Smith and had two children Julian and Ann. After Smith died Julian and Ann went to live with their relatives in California.
Henry worked for the Alaska Commercial Company in Kodiak. When he moved to Wood Island, he quit the Alaska Commercial Company and went to work for the North American Commercial Company there. It was said that he was in charge of the company stores throughout Alaska.
The following came from the book Salmon from Kodiak by Patricia Roppel:
Another salting station, that of the Western Fur and Trading Company of San Francisco, operated at Karluk in 1880, with Captain H. R. Bowen of St. Paul (Kodiak) as the local Superintendent. This company also maintained a saltery at Kasilof, Cook Inlet, and used the Schooner O. S. Fowler in other perations, etc.—BOWEN returned to Gloucester several times after moving to Saint Paul, but no amount of persuasion on his part could induce any of the New England fishermen to move to Alaska, where in his opinion, they could live just as comfortably and with less exertion.
The book From Humboldt to Kodiak, 1886-1895 by Fred Roscoe tells of the life of the Bowen family on Wood Island.
Henry and Barbara lived between Mirror Lake and Tanignak Lake. Their house was up from the Baptist church and mission. Bill heard his mother Florence (daughter of Captain Bowen) say that the house was huge and that they had dances in it.
Church records in Kodiak had some of the Bowen children with the Smith name, but they were later changed.
Their children went to school in Kodiak, which was in a rented building that belonged to the Alaska Commercial Company. In 1888 the government sent up a prefabricated building, with a Mr. Journey to assemble it. Mr. Roscoe was sent up by the government to run the school. He left in 1891 for California, but came back a year later to teach at the Baptist Mission School on Woody Island where the Bowen family moved and the children went to school there.
Captain Bowen was in command of the Pauline Collins, a 69-ton-fur-trading schooner owned by the company, when it broke up on the rocks at Karluk on the evening of 6 October 1881. Bowen escaped unharmed but later was aboard the ill fated Seventy-Six in the winter of 1895-96 when she disappeared with all hands aboard between Kodiak and Kayak Island.
The following American-owned schooners were withdrawn from the sealing trade during the year: Edward E. Webster, Louisa D, Seventy-Six, Alpha and Deeahks.
Seventy-Six—former sealing schooner, sailed from Wooded Island for Kayak Island, Alaska on December 11, 1895, manned by seven men on a trading cruise and was subsequently lost with all hands.
—The Alaskan, the Sitka newspaper, 9 May 1896.
It is with regret that we chronicle the advices received per steamer Dora relative to the loss of the N.A.C. Co. schooner Seventy-Six which left Wood Island on the 10th of last Dec. bound for Kayak, and has never been seen or heard of since. The very night of her departure witnessed one of the strongest gales from the northwest ever felt in that vicinity. It is estimated that the velocity of the wind was at least 75 miles per hour. Fears for the safety of the little vessel were entertained immediately after the storm. When the steamer Francis Cutting arrived at Wood Island on the 5th, she was at once dispatched in quest of the Seventy-Six but returned without having heard or seen anything of the unfortunate vessel or her still more unfortunate crew. Capt. C. Wittier was in command of the little vessel and had a competent crew of four men. She carried as passengers Capt. H. R Bowen and Mr. Otto Anderson, both of Wood Island. Capt. Bowen, (who virtually had charge of the party) was one of the best-known men in the territory and an excellent skipper. He leaves a wife and nine children to mourn his loss. Mr. Otto Anderson also leaves a wife and family. The names of those who were lost on the unfortunate vessel are:
Capt. Henry R. Bowen, Mr. Otto Anderson, Capt. Chas. Wittier, Gustave Carlson, Nelson Davis, Frederick Chapman and Martin Johnson.