Nathaniel Bowman, of Cambridge

NATHANIEL BOWMAN - GREAT MIGRATION BEGINS SKETCH

• ORIGIN: Unknown
• MIGRATION: 1630
• FIRST RESIDENCE: Watertown
• REMOVES: Cambridge 1651
• OCCUPATION: Yeoman.
• FREEMAN: Requested admission 19 October 1630 [MBCR 1:80].
• EDUCATION: Nathaniel Bowman signed his deeds by mark, whereas his wife Anna was able to make her signature.
• OFFICES: Watertown deputy to General Court, 8 September 1636 [MBCR 1:178]. Cambridge committee to "look to the cow common, that no cattle trespass upon the same to the damage of the cow herd" (as "Mr. Boman"), 14 April 1651 [CaTR 92].
• ESTATE: Received the full, usual sequence of Watertown land grants: homestall of ten and a half acres; two acres of meadow; one acre of meadow; Great Dividend of thirty-five acres; Remote Meadow of seven acres; Beaverbrook Plowland of seven acres; ten acres and a half of upland (land in Lieu of Township); and a farm of ninety-three acres [WaBOP 4, 7, 8, 13, 38, 93]. By 1644 Bowman had sold the Beaverbrook Plowland tract to John Stowers [WaBOP 60, parcel #6]. The farm was sold to Walter Allen by 1667 (and perhaps at the time of the move to Cambridge) [MLR 7:87, 142, 143].
• On 13 December 1649 Edward Goffe of Cambridge sold to "James Cutler senior & Nathaniell Boman both of Watertowne" for £70 "two hundred acres of land, partly upland, partly meadow, adjoining to Rockie Meadow within the bounds of Cambridge"; on the next day Cutler and Bowman mortgaged this same land back to Goffe [MLR 1:6-9]. On 4 March 1650/1 "Nathaniell Bowman of Watertowne" bought up Cutler's share of the land, and four days later renegotiated the mortgage with Goffe [MLR 1:20-21]. On 5 October 1658 the mortgage was cleared, in favor of "Nathaniel Boman of the same place [Cambridge] yeoman" [MLR 2:68].
• On 16 May 1650 "Nathaniell Boman of Watertowne and Anna his wife" sold to "Thomas Tarboll of Watertowne ... thirty-five acres of upland called Great Dividend, being the fifth lot in the third division, and also seven acres of meadow called West Pine Meadow being the twentieth which land aforesaid lyeth in the bounds of Watertowne and was by the said town granted to him the said Nathaniell Boman" [MLR 1:38].
• On 4 June 1652 "Mr. Boman" received twenty acres in the Shawshine division in Cambridge [CaTR 97].
• In his will, dated 21 October 1679 and proved 4 April 1682, Nathaniel Bowman of Cambridge, gentleman, bequeathed to son Francis Bowman "all my farm in Cambridge where I now dwell which farm I purchased of Edward Goff" (out of which he is to pay the remaining bequests); to son Nathaniel Bowman £25 (but if "my son Nathaniel die without heirs of his body lawfully begotten then the said £25 to return to my son Frances Bowman's children"); to daughter Dorcas March £50; to two grandchildren Nathaniel and Benjamin Blackleech £25 apiece at age twenty-one, and to grandchild Hannah Turner £15 at marriage or age eighteen "which sum with what her father and mother have had already is a due share with the rest of my children" [MPR Case #2364]. The inventory of "Mr. Nathaniell Bowman deceased the 26th of January 1681" was taken on 30 March 1682 and totalled £258, of which £250 was real estate: "a dwelling house & barn & about 10 acres of broken up land & meadow within a fence & a small orchard being part of the 10 acres," £120; twenty acres of meadow unfenced, £60; and seventy acres of upland unfenced, £70 [MPR Case #2364].
• BIRTH: By about 1605 based on estimated date of marriage.
• DEATH: Cambridge 26 January 1681/2 (inventory).
• MARRIAGE: By about 1635 (at her death in 1638 Joanna was called daughter of Anna), and possibly by about 1630, Anna _____; probably the Hannah Bowman who deposed in court in 1678 aged 63 [Bond 689], but apparently dead by 21 October 1679 when her husband made his will.

CHILDREN:

1. FRANCIS, b. about 1630 (d. Watertown 16 December 1687 "aged 57" [WaVR 59]); m. Watertown 26 September 1661 Martha Sherman [Bailey 3:107].
2. JOANNA, b. about 1635; bur. Watertown 20 November 1638 "three years old" [WaVR 6].
3. MARY, b. say 1637; d. Watertown 10 March 1637[/8?] [WaVR 5].
4. DORCAS, b. late January 1638/9; bur. Watertown 6 February 1638/9 "7 days old" [WaVR 6].
5. NATHANIEL, b. Watertown 6 March 1640[/1?] [WaVR 8]; m. in 1669 Rebecca (Smith) Smith, daughter of Rev. Henry and Dorothy (_____) Smith, and divorced from Samuel Smith [Wethersfield Hist 2:647 (which incorrectly gives her name as Elizabeth and her second husband as "Nathaniel Borman"); Hale, House 732-33; NEHGR 148:30].
6. JOANNA, b. Watertown 20 November 1642 [WaVR 10]; m. by 1666 John Turner (Nathaniel, son of John and Joanna Turner, was b. Boston 26 June 1666, and Hannah, daughter of the same couple, was b. there 15 July 1668 [BVR 101, 109]).
7. DORCAS, b. say 1644; m. (1) by 1665 Benoni Blackleech [NEHGR 148:30-33]; m. (2) Newbury 29 May 1676 Hugh March [Abel Lunt Anc 123].

COMMENTS: Nathaniel Bowman apparently considered moving to Plymouth at an early date, for on 2 January 1636/7 Plymouth court "granted to Edmond Chandlor forty acres of land lying on the east side of Moyses Simonson, where Morris formerly began to clear for Mr. Bowman" [PCR 1:49]. Stratton observes that this latter record "may or may not have been JOHN BOWMAN" [Stratton 249], but on 3 March 1645/6 Plymouth court ordered that "Nathaniell Bowman is awarded to pay ijs. to Morris Truant for not prosecuting his action against him" [PCR 2:95]. This suggests that the "Morris" of the earlier record was MORRIS TRUANT, who had first appeared in New England on 22 March 1630/1 in Massachusetts Bay, and was probably a servant of Nathaniel Bowman before his permanent move to Plymouth Colony.

On 4 March 1633/4 "Rich: Williams is fined 40s. for drunkenness committed at Bowman's house," as were others [MBCR 1:112].

On 24 September 1660 the constable of Cambridge was "required to warn Nathaniel Bowman & Johannah Bowman to appear before me at my house on the last day of this instant week about nine of the clock in the morning then & there to answer for their being at a lascivious meeting of sundry young men & maids at the general training lately held at Cambridge" [MCF Folio #25]; these are apparently the son and daughter of the immigrant, at the time of this event about twenty and eighteen years old respectively. The Middlesex Court Files contain many more documents relating to this episode, which took place both at the Cambridge ordinary and at Harvard College.

Nathaniel Bowman was frequently referred to as "Mr.," and in 1636 was Watertown deputy to the General Court. On this basis one would expect Bowman to have taken a prominent part in town and even colony affairs, but this was not the case. The land which he bought from Edward Goffe in 1650, in Rocky Meadow, was in that part of Cambridge that became Lexington, and so was some distance from the town center. There is also no evidence that Bowman ever joined the church in Watertown or Cambridge; this is partly indicated by the fact that he applied for freemanship in 1630, but never became a freeman, which after May 1631 required church membership.

If the Hannah Bowman who, according to Bond, testified in 1678 that she was sixty-three years old was the same as Anna, wife of Nathaniel, then she would have been only fifteen in 1630 when Francis was supposed to have been born. (The original source for this deposition has not been found.) There is no record which calls Anna (or Hannah) the mother of Francis. The order of the children given above is somewhat conjectural, but if it is correct then nearly five years elapsed between the births of Nathaniel's first child and his second. The circumstance of applying for freemanship in October 1630, but not being admitted in May 1631, is frequently an indicator that the person in question had returned to England early in 1631. In this case it may be that Nathaniel did make such a trip in order to marry a second wife. This would all imply that Nathaniel had married for the first time in England no later than 1629, and furthermore that Francis was born in England, perhaps in late 1629 or early 1630. In the absence of firmer evidence, however, Nathaniel is here assigned only one wife, Anna.

Links

• http://worldconnect.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db...

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This person migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1620-1640).