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 Bowen Coat of Arms Starting in Wales The Bowen family originated in Pembrokeshire, South Wales. This is a coast county, and explains why so many of the Bowens won distinction in the English Navy. So much of the ancient history is covered up with legends, and dates are so confused, that it is quite impossible to fix a definite time as to much of this early history. Approximately, the family goes back to about the year 1050. There is a legend to the effect that the head of the family thirteen hundred years ago carried the sword of state before King Arthur at his coronation at Caerleon (Lions' Rock), in Monmouthshire. But no authentic records go back that far. About 1050, just before the Norman Conquest of England, one comes upon something like history in Wales. The various tribes had taken shape, and we know who some of their rulers were. It seems reasonably certain that this family was descended from one Griffith, who was one of the Princes of South Wales. After several generations we come upon the name "Ap Owen." To illustrate how these Welsh names run we find Robert ap John ap Thomas ap Owein, who used as his Coat of Arms that borne by Griffith Gower, Lord of Ynyssdderne, South Wales. With slight variations this is the Coat of Arms of the Pembrokeshire Bowens down to the present time. The Bowen Coat of Arms, as given in one of the books published about American Bowens, is described as: Azure a stag argent with an arrow stuck in the back and attired or. Crest: A stag standing vulned in the back with an arrow proper. This Coat of Arms comes from Swansea and Kittle Hill, Glamorganshire, Wales, to which place a branch of the family, originally founded at Pentre Evan, had moved, and from which came the American Bowens. The seat of the family appears to have been at Pentre Evan. Ap Owein, or Owen, became softened into Ab Owen, and then into Bowen. In this connection an interesting letter was written by Major Arthur Bowen, of St. Catherines, Canada, on December 17, 1859, and which will bear reproduction. He said: "There are Welsh Bowens and Irish Bowens. The latter which is descended from the Bowens who went over with "Strong-bow," the Earl of Pembroke, from Milfordhaven, in Pembrokeshire, six hundred years ago in the reign of Henry II. They all admit their Welsh origin and are proud of it, as are the Irish Lloyds, Morgans, Evans, etc. My family are Welsh of the old genuine full-blooded stock, and literal Cambrians proud of our ancestry. We have it by tradition that our ancestors were Princes of Dyfed." (Here follows the tradition above referred to about King Arthur.) The major then goes on to say: "The Bowens in South Wales are numerous, particularly in Pembrokeshire. I am a direct descendant of the pioneers of Pentre Evan ap Owen. My ancestor was the second High Sheriff of the County. These high sheriffs were first appointed in the reign of Henry VII, and since that time their names will be found in every reign filling that office; Bowen of Llwyngwair of the house of Pentre Evan, was the last. There were many generals and admirals in the family in by-gone days and in Bow generals and admirals in the family in by-gone days and in modern times. One of my first cousins was Admiral Charles Bowen, and another, Captain John Bowen. One of my brothers was in the Battle of Trafalgar. Another was at the desperate Battle of Java, where he later died on the staff of Sir Rolla Gillespie. Another brother was in the East Indian service, wounded in action and died. I am a retired major of the British service in the West Indies, East Indies and in Spain." In Burke's "Landed Gentry" appears a memorandum as to the Bowen family under the title of "Bowen of Llwyngwair," to this effect: "Llewelyn ap Owen, of Peutre Evan, County Pembroke, descended from Gwilym ap Gwrwared ap Gwilym, descended from Gwrwared, of Cemmaes, son of Cyhylyn, is frequently mentioned in Baronia de Kemeys. He was one of the free tenants of the Fee of Treevern in 13G4. He married Nest, daughter of Howell Vychan, and had five sons and three daughters. The names of four of these sons we know: Rhys, Evan, Owen and Philys." This Pentre Evan family seems to have been the main line of these Bowens. It is interesting to note that they were also ancestors of Owens and Lewises, which is something which nobody but a Welshman can figure out. The Bowen family had a very conspicuous and honorable history in Wales, and at one time, some centuries back. Sir Rees (or Rhys, the name appearing under both forms) was the greatest man of his generation in the principality. In the seventeenth century three of these Bowens emigrated to America. Griffith Bowen came to Massachusetts in 1638 and founded a prominent family there. Richard, about the same time, perhaps a little earlier, came to Rehoboth, Massachusetts, and from him is descended the Connecticut family, which is now widely spread. Moses Bowen, with his wife Rebecca Rees, came with a large company from Wales, about 1698, and settled in Guinnedd township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. It will be noted that they were strong and numerous enough to give a Welsh name to the township. Moses Bowen must have been a man of considerable means, for he acquired ten thousand acres of land in Chester County where he settled. He is said to have been a Quaker, which is not surprising, in view of the fact that the Quaker movement in England in the last half of the seventeenth century was then at its height and reached a great multitude of thinking men who seemed to have realized as fully then as we do now the horrors of war, and sought to engage men in purer, better and more peaceful living. John Bowen, sometimes spoken of as "Quaker John," a man of great physical strength, son of Moses and Rebecca Rees Bowen, was a man of considerable wealth for his time. He married Lilly McIlhany, a beautiful Scotch-Irish girl of seventeen, who had come with her mother and stepfather to Pennsylvania. She was a daughter of Henry and Jane McIlhany. Her father died in her infancy, leaving two children, Lilly and Henry. The mother married secondly, a Mr. Hunter, and with her second husband and two children came to Pennsylvania. Mrs. Hunter and her daughter were both expert flax spinners, and were said to have been the first Scotch-Irish women to bring the small flax-wheel to Pennsylvania. John Bowen migrated to Augusta County, Virginia, about 1730, at that time an extreme frontier settlement. John Bowen and his wife, Lilly McIlhany, were the parents of twelve children: Moses, John, Jane, Nancy, Rebecca, Henry, Arthur, Robert, Mary, Charles, William and Rees. Moses died of small-pox while serving in the Virginia Colonial Army, John married Rachel Mathew; Jane married Cunningham, who died, and she afterward married Fring; Nancy married Archie Buchanan; Rebecca married Whitley; Henry married Anne Cunningham; Arthur married Mary McMurray; Robert married Mary Gillespie; Mary married Poston; Charles married Nancy Gillespie; and Rees married Levisa Smith. Captain William Bowen married Mary Henley Russell, daughter of General William Russell by his first wife, Tabitha Adams, his second wife being the widow of General William Campbell, the hero of King's Mountain, and before her marriage was Elizabeth Henry, sister of Patrick Henry. Colonel John H. Bowen, son of Captain William Bowen, was a noted lawyer and a representative from Tennessee in the Thirteenth Congress. Catherine Bowen, daughter of Captain William Bowen, married David Campbell, brother of Governor Campbell of Virginia, and her son, William Bowen Campbell, was the sixteenth Governor of Tennessee, serving from 1851 to 1853, held other honorable positions and was one of the great men of Tennessee in his generation. Moses Bowen and his son John are said to have been Quakers, but never did the peaceable Friends breed a stronger lot of fighting men than these two sturdy Quakers. Brief space is here given to the records of some of these. When the Revolutionary War broke upon the country, the Bowens were ardent patriots to a man. One of the sons of John, Rees Bowen, born about 1742, after arriving at manhood, settled in what is now Rockbridge County, Virginia, but in 1772 moved further up country and settled at Maiden Spring, Tazewell County. The lands which he then acquired have now been in the family for five generations. In 1774 he took part in the battle of Point Pleasant, on the Ohio River, waged between the Virginians under General Andrew Lewis and the Indians under their chief, Cornstalk. This was what is known as Dunmore's War. Evidently he became a Revolutionary soldier, for he was in an expedition which went to the release of the Kentucky stations in 1778. The summer and fall of 1780 was the darkest period of the Revolutionary cause in the Southern States. Cornwallis had overrun the Carolinas and everywhere defeated the defenders, and only irregular bands were keeping up the struggle. Colonel Ferguson, one of the most efficient of the British officers, a Scotchman of approved valor, and noted for his ability in partisan warfare, was dispatched to the western section of North Carolina by his chief for the purpose of rallying the Tories in that section, and also of striking terror to their opponents. That section had not before been invaded, and the mountaineers began to buzz like a nest of angry hornets. From the upper regions of North Carolina, from extreme western North Carolina, from the Watauga, from the Holston and from the Clinch these deadly marksmen gathered under their colonels and rallied to meet the British. Down from southwestern Virginia came William Campbell at the head of his four hundred Virginians. Among these was a company commanded by William Bowen, his brother Rees being lieutenant. When the colonels had gathered together with their cohorts Ferguson became alarmed and retreated, finally making a stand on King's Mountain. Draper's "History of King's Mountain and Its Heroes" tells the story in great detail—a story worth telling —for it was the turning point of the struggle in the Southern Colonies. When the battle impended Captain William Bowen was ill of a fever. The command of his company devolved upon his brother Rees. Considering the small number of men engaged, not over two thousand men, all told in both of the little armies, the struggle was a furious one, the American riflemen charging up the mountain with great valor and the British meeting them with equal courage. Rees Bowen leading his company was observed to be making hazardous and unnecessary exposure of his person. Some friend remonstrated. "Why, Bowen, do you not take a tree? Why rashly present yourself to the deliberate aim of the Provincial and Tory riflemen concealed behind every rock and bush before you? Death will inevitably follow if you persist." "Take to a tree!" he indignantly replied. "No, never shall it be said that I sought safety by hiding my person or dodging from Briton or Tory who opposed me in the field." He had scarcely concluded his brief utterance when a rifle-ball struck him in the breast, and he fell instantly and expired. The record of the man who fought at King's Mountain shows that the Bowens started there what appears to have become a habit with them. When there was any fighting to be done for their country, they all went. For among the King's Mountain men appeared William Bowen, captain; Arthur Bowen, captain; Rees Bowen, lieutenant; Henry Bowen, private; Robert Bowen, private, all live being brothers and sons of John Bowen. |