John A. Bowman
Daniel and Mary (Henry) Bowman came from Virginia to Clinton County, Ohio, when their son Daniel Washington Bowman was a young man. In Clinton County the latter met Miss Patsy Melissa, daughter of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Kimbrough) Howell, and early in their married life they moved to Indiana, locating in Grant County at the Bowman homestead in Liberty. Except one child that died in infancy, and Mary Elizabeth, who married C. W. Gibson, all their children were born at the old homestead. The only son to carry the name of the family is John A. Bowman, proprietor of the stock farm known as Banner Land, than which there is none better in Liberty Township. After Mary Elizabeth, the children in order of birth ran as follows: Samantha, who first married John Woodward and second N. M. Bealls; John A., Martha A., wife of L. O. Lines; Loretta E., wife of Frank Gibson; and Elmire M., wife of W. H. Young.
John A. Bowman married Flora Hungerford on June 29, 1887. A daughter of John and Carolina (Carpenter) Hungerford, Mrs. Bowman came as a child with them from Rush County. Her brothers are Stanley Hungerford, who married Julia Newton, and Branson Hungerford, who married Goldie Beck, and her sister is Lillie, who married Luther Jackson. Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Bowman, Paul and Nonnetta Marie. The Bowman and Hungerford family homestead are not far apart, and Banner Land -the home of John A. Bowman, is half way between them, while Mr. Bowman's parents and his stepmother., Mrs. Margaret Kaufman Bowman, are dead, Mrs. Bowman's parents live in Marion, having left the farm several years ago.
When Mr. and Mrs. Bowman were married they lived a few years at the Bowman family homestead, but hey soon went into debt for land and bought and sold two or three places, always at an advance until in 1902 they located at Banner Land. This is right in the heart of the old colored settlement (See chapter on Negro in Grant County), and they bought the Steele, Ward & Harris land, which Major G. W. Steele declared was the "Garden Spot of Grant County" when he owned it. The Weaver school occupies a corner of that quarter section. Mr. Bowman has added to this investment until he now owns more than three hundred acres, and the operates a part of the Hungerford land near Banner Land. Intensive agriculture along extensive lines is his general plan, and he has the faculty of getting results both as a stock and grain farmer. Mr. Bowman is a mechanic and saves many nickels and dimes by doing his own blacksmithing in a little shop on the farm, although he does not bid for custom work at all. Since Banner Land had been a tenant farm, there was a good barn, but a poor house when they moved there, and since then many improvements have been added and there is no better appointed farm house in Grant County.
When Mr. Bowman wants to use cement he mixes and lays it himself. Due to the liberal use of this material, and by careful planning in construction the stable are out of the mud, although the farm is level and it required considerable engineering to install an effective water system with pressure sufficient to force water to all the pasture tanks and to the stalls in the barn, but little difficulties like that do not disconcert him. Mr. Bowman has always employed labor, and the few colored men about Weaver always known there is a day's work awaiting them at Banner Land. When the exodus from Weaver to Marion depopulated the colored community described elsewhere in the Centennial history, the white families occupied the land until only a few negroes remained who depend upon the surrounding farms for employment.
Mr. Bowman has always bought and sold anything and everything farmers have use for, and has cleared considerable money at it. He has always handled live stock. He is an exceedingly shrewd business man, and has always kept himself at the head of the procession. He was among the first Grant county farmer to own an automobile, and when anything is wrong with the machine he knows how to fix it himself. Mrs. Bowman has always delivered produce to private families, and with an automobile at her disposal delivery is a small matter and a great economy of time and effort. She has every dairy convenience and the revenue from this source has relieved her husband of all family expense accounts. While Mrs. Bowman has made butter for the market, the beef type of cattle predominates, there being only a few Jerseys in the herd, with some shorthorn dairy cows. When Mr. Bowman was superintendent of the cattle department in the Marion fair he secured the best exhibits in the whole country, and now that he has been elected president of the Agricultural Association he wills till be alert for the success of all its departments. While he always feeds out from one hundred and fifty to two hundred hogs, when the cholera does not strike them, Mr. Bowman's live stock specialty is the horse (see chapter on live stock). His Charmont, a fine Belgian stallion, imported by Crouch & Sons, is one of the finest animals ever brought to Grant county. Charmont was first and champion winner in the 1911 Indiana State Fair, and he won the honors at the International Live Stock Show in Chicago in the class of four year old and over, and took second place in the free for all show at the International. He is registered in the American Association and weighs 2,400 pounds when in normal condition. Banner Land is one of the best equipped farms in Grant County.
Centennial History of Grant County Indiana 1812-1912. The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914.