The Bowman Family
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| The house built by John Bowman, Jr. in the late 1850s. Photo by author, 2006. |
Little is known of the European origins of the Bowman family. Family lore places Georg Bauman, the first generation of Bowman's in America, in Wurtemburg, Wiesbaden, and Prussia; however, none can be proven. It is also possible that the Bowman family was originally of Swiss origin, and migrated at some point to southern Germany.1 Nevertheless, it can be surmised the Georg Bauman was most likely a peasant farmer, one of over 100,000 German speakers who settled in British North America between 1683 and 1775.2 Most of these men, women, and children came from the territories bordering the Rhine River in southwestern German and Switzerland. In the earlier period, many were religious minorities who did not enjoy official toleration within the Holy Roman Empire, and thus were subject to various forms of religious persecution. In the later period, particularly during the peak years of immigration into the proprietary colony of Pennsylvania (1749-1754), most were farmers and craftsmen who left their homes to seek better economic opportunities. While the Rhinelands had largely recovered from the devastating conflicts of the previous century by this time, the new prosperity was not shared by all. In particular, the inhabitants of the agricultural villages of southwestern Germany encountered problems on a number of fronts. The territorial rulers, and their ecclesiastical allies, were inserting themselves into the daily affairs of villagers with greater frequency, in the form of increased taxes and regulations that often violated village customs. Even more problematic was the adherence to partible inheritance practices (where farmland is divided among all the heirs within the peasant household). This practice, coupled with an increasing population, meant that a growing number of young men were unable to support their families on farms that were getting smaller and smaller.3
George Bowman was one of an estimated 35,000 Germans arriving in the port of Philadelphia during the peak years of German immigration from 1749 to 1755.4 German peoples were on the move in the 17th and 18th centuries, particularly the inhabitants of territories of along the Rhine River. One historian of German immigration has identified three waves of German migration from 1683 to 1709, from 1709 to 1714, and from 1717 to 1775. Each wave had different characteristics. In the first wave, religious persecution played a dominant role. Protestant and Catholic authorities persecuted radical pietist sects, including Mennonites, Moravians, and Hutterites alike, and they fled to establish communities in Eastern Europe and British North America. The second phase of German immigration was caused by an agricultural crisis resulting from the harsh winters of 1708/09 and 1709/10. The third wave of migrants left southwestern Germany for demographic and economic reasons; primarily overpopulation and a resulting scarcity of land.5
George Bowman arrived in Pennsylvania during this third wave of immigration. Family lore places George Bowman aboard the immigrant ship Edinburg which docked in Philadelphia in September, 1753; however, a "Georg Baumann" is on the ship list for the Phoenix which arrived in Philadelphia from Rotterdam via Portsmouth in September, 1751. He was one of only a relatively small number of these migrants who chose the hazardous voyage to British North America. It is estimated that about 80-90% chose instead to relocate to other European lands. Those who did come to America were lured by optimistic reports from "Newlanders", letters from neighbors and kin who had already made the journey and settled in America and books, pamphlets, and broadside published extolling the virtues of "the island of Pennsylvania." Mostly, they were encouraged by reports of large quantities of inexpensive land, and the possibility of acquiring farms larger than their entire village.6 In spite of reports of the hazards of the transatlantic travel, difficulties in obtaining permission from the local authorities to leave, the requirement that citizenship rights be surrendered, including, occasionally, the right to inherit property, and the fees and taxes that had to be paid to those authorities before permission was granted, thousands left their villages seeking a new life. By 1750, the approximate time George Bowman immigrated, the typical German-speaking immigrant to the New World "was a poor farmer or artisan, with a wife and two or three children, most likely in debt for the transatlantic passage, and with some contacts with kin, co-religionists, or fellow countrymen already settled in America."7
By the 1760s, more than a decade after his arrival in Philadelphia, George Bowman is found in the tax records listed as a modest farmer in Greenwich Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania. The overwhelming majority of Virginia Germans originally settled in the proprietary colony of Pennsylvania, and it was here that the dominant patterns of living for Virginia Germans were established. For a variety of reasons Pennsylvania created the most favorable impression among German speakers who sought a new life in the New World. William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, eagerly sought settlers for his new colony beyond his sect, and actively recruited German-speaking Protestants in the late seventeenth century. Pennsylvania was popular among sectarian groups, such as the Mennonites, because of its reputation for religious tolerance. Later migrants were attracted by its abundant and inexpensive farmland; here, a single householder might own a tract of farm land larger than that worked by an entire village in the Rhinelands. Additionally, migrants were pleased at the prospect of settling in a colony with an unobtrusive government that did not enact the suffocating taxes and regulations that were characteristic of the governments in the Rhenish territories.
More research is required before much can be related about George Bowman's life in Pennsylvania. At the time George Bowman arrived in the colony on the Phoenix, he had a one-year old son named Johannes (John); the historical record provides no information of any other children born in either Germany or in this country. Presumably, his wife either came with him or joined him later; no information is currently available about her. Bowman's name appears in the tax records of Greenwich Township in Berks County from 1754 to 1769. From these records, it has been determined that by 1767 he owned a farm of approximately 100 acres, with two horses and two cows. In October 1765, Bowman became a "natural born subject of the Kingdom of Great Britain, pursuant to the Direction and Intent of the said Act of Parliament;" one of approximately 2,600 Germans who became naturalized that fall in order to confirm their land titles.8
While little is known of George Bowman specifically, some generalizations can be made regarding his experiences as a small farmer in Pennsylvania from the current scholarship on colonial Pennsylvania. A diverse population, comprised primarily of English, Scotch-Irish, and German-speaking peoples, characterized Pennsylvania in the colonial and early national periods; it was here that German-speaking immigrants forged their response the dominant Anglo-American culture. However, this process was made somewhat easier by a basic familiarity with, and endorsement of, fundamental English principles of Protestantism, liberalism, and capitalism. Germans in the colony were presented with three alternatives upon arrival: Assimilation, rejection, and an in-between choice of acculturation. Historian Scott Swank argues that most Pennsylvania Germans assimilated; that is, they gradually surrendered much of their identity and entered the Anglo-American mainstream. A significant majority chose acculturation, which requires minority to control the pace and extent of accommodation.9 Nevertheless, it appears likely that, outside of sectarian groups like the Old Order Amish who opted for rejection of the mainstream culture, most German immigrants and their immediate descendants chose elements of both assimilation and acculturation. While they might have opted for outward expressions of acceptance of Anglo-American culture, it is likely that they retained elements of their German heritage privately. Their relationship with other national groups were relatively cordial, but with some minor tensions. Prominent Pennsylvanians of English descent fretted whether or not the German element in the colony could ever truly assimilate.
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| Figure 1. George Bowman's Naturalization Document, 1765. Courtesy of Carrier Library, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia |
Germans who settled in Pennsylvania usually opted to settle near other Germans; ties of ethnicity, language, and religion held them together. By 1760, Germans were the dominant ethnic component in much of Berks County, upper Philadelphia, Northampton, and York counties, and the Lebanon Valley in Lancaster County. However, Germans were not isolated ethnics; they did participate in the society in which they settled, mainly to defend against perceived encroachments upon their interests. Pennsylvania Germans were greatly concerned with protecting their property, so it could be passed on to succeeding generations, and with interference in religious and familial affairs. It was these concerns that drove them to create a political culture to influence affairs in Pennsylvania. Bowman and other Germans who took the Oath of Allegiance in the fall of 1765 were engaging in a political act in order to secure their land titles against seizure by the proprietors upon their deaths (the policy of escheat, which stipulated that property belonging to resident aliens reverted to the proprietary upon their death).
Many Germans also took to the polls in the late 18th century to elect German officeholders, though they supported anyone whom they believed would represent their interests in community autonomy and free exercise of property rights.10
Most Germans who settled in Pennsylvania engaged in agricultural pursuits, either as farmers or as tradesman supporting the agricultural sector. Here again, they were active participants, this time in an emerging commercial economy. The dominant mode of agriculture in the colony was general mixed farming, with the emphasis on grain cultivation and livestock rearing. Historian James T. Lemon writes that agricultural practices were intensive, rather than extensive; that is, very little emphasis was given to employing innovations that increased agricultural yields per acre of land. Lemon writes that Pennsylvania farmers of all ethnic backgrounds were satisfied by their returns from mixed farming, and found little incentive to make their lands more productive until the 19th century. Nevertheless, from 1730 to 1760 agricultural production in Pennsylvania increased, as did the overall standard of living of its inhabitants. In particular wheat, flour, and flaxseed were exported in increasing quantities from the colony. In addition, the value of imported goods increased, as did social stratification due to the increased production of marketable surpluses for cash income.11
In May, 1772, George Bowman purchased 260 acres of land in northern Augusta County, Virginia, along the Fairfax Line, from Andrew Hudlow for 140 pounds "current money of Virginia." The lease and release, dated May 19 and May 20 respectively, is the first record of George Bowman in Virginia. Here, he is named as a resident of Augusta County so it is apparent that he had made the move to Virginia from Berks County by this date. Bowman was one of thousands of Germans and Scotch-Irish to make the move from Pennsylvania to the Valley of Virginia after 1730. Most came seeking affordable land; land prices increased significantly from the 1720s onward making it difficult for recent arrivals from Europe to acquire suitable land for farming. Even though Bowman owned at least 100 acres in Berks County by the late 1760s, in Virginia he could afford a much larger farmstead for a modest sum. Migrants from Pennsylvania were encouraged to come to the Valley by favorable land policies established by the Virginia Council; the colonial government wished to establish a "buffer" for the colony of white, Protestant yeomen against encroaching Spaniards, Frenchmen, and Indians, and to prevent the establishment of maroon colonies of runaway slaves from the Tidewater.12
By the time that Bowman settled in the Valley, the frontier period was largely in the past. After 1760, the Valley was undergoing rapid commercialization and a gradual shift from an exchange economy to a cash economy. The Seven Years War brought an infusion of cash into the region, as the British army required supplies for its operation against the Indians and the French. Developments after the war increased the level of participation in global markets by Valley farmers and merchants. A rising demand for wheat flour in Europe resulted in increased prices for the grain. Higher prices made it profitable for farmers to export their surplus production to Alexandria, Richmond, and Baltimore. By 1775, there were at least 100 flourmills in the Valley, a marked increase from the 34 in existence a mere quarter of a century earlier.13 Valley society was affected in a number of ways. The development of towns increased, to accommodate the demands of commercial agriculture, and town and country became more inextricably linked. The increase in market activity produced a greater demand for manufactured goods among the region's inhabitants as the "consumer revolution" infiltrated the Valley. As was the case in Pennsylvania, increased market production also resulted in greater social stratification, as wealth became concentrated in fewer hands and an increasing percentage of residents were landless tenants or laborers.14
Like many other Valley farmers in this era, the Bowman family prospered. Shortly after they arrived, they built a sturdy, two-room log house with a Germanic, Flurküchenhaus (hall-kitchen) floorplan. After George Bowman died in 1786, the farm containing the log house was left to his son. It is unclear how long John Bowman resided in this house, however. The 1815 land tax register for Rockingham County lists Bowman in possession of three tracts of land in the Forest neighborhood of northern Rockingham County, most likely adjoining one another. Bowman was taxed for a 375 acre tract described as the "Old Place Forrest," a 134 1/2 acre tract described as "Joining" the previously listed tract, and a 234 acre tract described as the "Home Place;" it is possible that John Bowman and his wife Mary Magdalene were living in a house on the latter property at this time.15 Evidence indicates that Bowman was a successful farmer, raising livestock and cultivating grain crops characteristic of the mixed farming practiced in the Valley. A tax assessor's notebook from 1790 lists John Bowman as owning nine horses and possibly 81 head of cattle.16 The inventory of his personal possessions at the time of his death in 1816 list cattle, hogs, and horses among the livestock he possessed. He owned a considerable amount of agricultural tools and equipment, including a large 119-gallon still for converting grain to whiskey, a wagon, a shovel plow, stored crops of rye, wheat, and oats, and barrels and hogsheads for storing and/or shipping whiskey or flour. Household furnishings, most of which were conveyed to his widow Mary Magdalene by his will, included a pair of beds, 2 chests, 4 chairs, a clock, a pipe stove, brass and iron cookware, pewter, and teaware. All of his tools, crops, livestock, and furnishings were valued at almost $2000. Additionally, he possessed significant financial assets, in the form of promissory notes, book accounts, and cash, totaling over $2,500.17
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| Figure 2. The Bowman House. FCMV, 2001 |
Archaeologist Mark Groover refers to two distinct types of economic production behavior among farm owners in his work on a similar type of farmstead in east Tennessee, and refers to these types as yeomen and entrepreneurs. John Bowman, Sr. and his descendants tend to fit the former profile. According to Groover, yeomen are characterized by an ideology that stresses conservative behavior and the adoption of economic strategies that are designed maintain the farm and family for several generations. They also developed an emotional attachment to the land, and viewed it as a sacred trust to be passed on to their offspring. Unlike entrepreneurial farmers, they were not solely concerned with short-term profits, although they were willing to engage in surplus production for the market principally to improve their farmsteads and add land, livestock, and other productive property to enhance the patrimony provided to their children.18
In the years before his death, Bowman was very much concerned with providing for his children while alive and ensuring a stable succession following his death. In November, 1816, seven months after Bowman's death, his four daughters and their husbands filed suit in the Staunton Superior Court of Chancery claiming that their father was not of sound mind at the time the will was executed, and that his sons John Jr. and George Bowman either manipulated their ill father into giving them his land or subsequently altered the will. The plaintiffs wanted to obtain a more "equal" distribution of the estate, including (probably especially) the land. The case demonstrates the importance of land to farming families in the early nineteenth century, and serves as a reminder that rural America in the early national period was not an idyllic refuge with abundant opportunities for all. By the end of the eighteenth century, increasing social stratification characterized Valley society as the region transitioned to a commercial agricultural economy. By 1800, almost one-half of the taxable population owned no land and land ownership became "a major differentiating factor among residents."19 Furthermore, population growth and rural infilling was making prime farmland scarce by this point, and it is perhaps not surprising that Bowman's sons-in-law were willing to sue his estate in order to acquire at least a portion of his substantial holdings.
Depositions and other documents associated with Carrier v. Bowman (Richard Carrier was the husband of daughter Catherine) shed some light on some aspects of life in the Bowman family in the years preceding Bowman's death. It appears that he provided his younger son John Jr. with the "Old Place" farm consisting of 375 acres which included the log house built by his father, though legally he still owned the tract and paid taxes on it. David Caldwell, a witness in a lawsuit contesting Bowman's will, testified that about 1811 or 1812 "old Mr. Bowman" was at "young" John Bowman's place with his wagon to divide up the corn crop. The witness to this transaction noted that John Jr. "at that time lived on the place he now lives on, and which was willed to him by his father." John Bowman, Jr. inherited this tract after his father's death in 1816. This witnesses testimony also reveals that Bowman purchased a tract of land for his oldest son George, and was still making payments on this land at that time. Falling ill in the spring of 1816, Bowman stated his intention to write a will to avoid dying intestate; in such cases land and personal property were sold at public vendue potentially leaving the widow and children with nothing. Bowman appears to have been motivated by the recent death of a neighbor named John Roller. Believing that Roller had died without a will and that the land would soon be sold, he observed that the land would probably "be bid too high for the boys (Roler's sons) to buy." Hoping to spare his children a similar fate, he sent for a local schoolmaster named Frederick Smith to come to the farm to assist him in drafting a will.20
It should also be noted that providing or withholding assistance from children and leaving open the possibility that the children might be left out of the will was a form of control or social sanction used by many farmers, and John Bowman may have been no exception. The testimony of David Caldwell reveals that in return for his assistance, John Bowman retained a share of the crop raised by his sons for himself. Caldwell reported that Bowman took two out of every five bushels. Caldwell testified that "the old man smiled & said some people thought he dealt hardly with his sons - but said when the payments were made up for the land he had bought which his son George then lived on he would not be so hard with them - but that it would make little difference he intended the land for them at any rate;" perhaps Bowman believed he was securing his legacy by teaching his sons the value of land and the hard work that was required to maintain it. Sometime around 1810, a house was built on the land purchased by Bowman for his son George to live on. According to a witness for the plaintiffs in Carrier v. Bowman, John Bowman reportedly "paid all the hands and other expenses" while George performed as much of the labor as he could. When asked why he did not let George pay for the construction of the house, he responded "that he did not know who was to hereafter have it." The plaintiffs in the case, of course, meant to cast doubt that John Bowman, Sr. meant for his two sons to have all of his land. However, an alternative explanation of Bowman's statement (if he actually made it) is that John did not wish his sons to feel too secure in their claims upon his land following his death, and may have cultivated a certain amount uncertainty as to his intentions among his family and neighbors.21
Bowman took great care in drafting his will. Frederick Smith wrote it out according to the directions he received from Bowman, and read every clause back to him for approval. Witnesses to the will were neighbor Jacob Miller and a young laborer residing with John Jr. named Jacob May. The will specified that John Jr. was to receive the 375 acre "Old Place" where he was currently residing, and George was to receive the other tracts totaling 398 acres. Additionally, the will specified that "the Lane shall be kept open that sd John can come to the water as usual forever forever" to avoid any future disputes among the heirs. The will also carefully specified the provisions of beef, pork, wheat, corn, firewood and whiskey that was provided by George to his mother (George's house was approximately 150 yards away from that of his parents.). Mary Magdalene was also willed the household furniture, books, yarn, and "the yearly Interest of one hundred pounds ..."; it was very common for German-American wills in Pennsylvania and Maryland at this time to give specific instruction on the provision of the widow, most probably a retention of German peasant practices. Given the origins of the Valley German community, it is perhaps not surprising that this practice continued. In addition, the will stipulated that daughters Elizabeth, Barbara, Mary, and Catherine receive 200 pounds "Virginia currency" to be provided by George and John. The substitution of cash for land in his daughter's inheritance, again, was a common practice among German-Americans, and did not necessarily conflict in their minds with a sense of equal treatment. His daughters (or possibly their husbands) disagreed, however. In the view of the plaintiffs in Carrier v. Bowman, the distribution of the estate as specified by the will was "unequal." The suit failed, however, and the two sons retained possession of their respective farms.22
John Bowman, Jr., the son who inherited the "Old Place," continued to live in the log Flurküchenhaus possibly until the 1850s when a new house was constructed alongside the old.
It appears they may have been living here by the time of the 1810 census, when Bowman was listed as the head of his own household. At this time, the thirty-six year and his wife a son and three daughter, all under ten years of age. Based on the results of dendrochronological (tree-ring dating) analysis of the logs, it has been concluded that in or around the year 1820, Bowman made significant renovations to the house by adding a center passage and another room to the north end of the house. A partition was built in the Stube, so that a Kammer, or chamber, was formed in the rear third of the room. The bare log walls of both sections of the house were covered with plaster, and chair rails and wainscoting were added. New window frames with six-over-six sashes replaced earlier casement windows, and the exterior fenestration was modified to show greater symmetry. The interior of the house is painted, white plaster walls contrast with trim and paneling painted blue, red, and orange. While it is uncertain if the paint dates to the time of the renovation, the colors are consistent with what is generally known of popular paint colors of the 1820s.23
Bowman's renovation of the house was perhaps an attempt to update the house to reflect the dominant architectural trend in Anglo-American culture, termed the Georgian style. The style emphasized symmetry in composition, more refined interior and exterior finishes, and the separation of public and private spaces in household room arrangements. During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ethnic building forms, such as the Flurküchenhaus, were either modified to reflect these changes or replaced with a form called the "I-house," which became the dominant housing type built by successful farmers in the Valley. However, it was a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to emulate the new style as the house still retained traces of his German heritage. Even the new construction disclosed Bowman's background; the new addition to the house featured a ceiling that was unpainted with exposed joists and summer beam that were attached in the German manner.24 The retention of the house itself, representing an older housing form, may have signaled that Bowman was not entirely ready to give up the forms and the style of life of his forebears, and simply re-worked the traditional house to reflect the contemporary American reality. It was not uncommon for Virginia Germans to give the outward appearance of cultural assimilation while retaining aspects of their traditional culture for internal consumption.25 It was not until the late 1850s that John Bowman exchanged his Flurküchenhaus for a newly constructed I-house as the principal dwelling house on his farm.26
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| Figure 3. The fireplace mantle in the c. 1820 addition. FCMV, 2001 |
It is also interesting that Bowman waited for ten or more years after his initial occupation of the house to makes these changes; it is likely that he was waiting until he formally inherited the property from his father and the resolution of the lawsuit that followed the execution of the will before making significant improvements to the property. It should be noted that significant changes in domestic architecture and landscapes likely occurred on most rural farmsteads in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries resulting from major life events of the residents, such as household succession from one generation to the next or the arrival of children. Most families were responsible for constructing their own dwellings during this time, and hence most household heads were architecturally competent enough to perform and/or direct the renovation or expansion of an existing house, hence there was little reluctance to do so as needed.27
In the years that followed, the Bowman household was expanded through the addition of new children. By 1820, the household consisted of thirteen members; three male children under that age of ten, two males between the ages of ten and sixteen, four female children less than ten, two females between the ages of ten and sixteen, plus John and his wife Catherine. By 1830, there were six males 5-20 and five female age 5-30 within the household. Presumably, these were all children of John and Catherine; Bowman's 1858 will references eleven children. Little is known about Bowman's economic and agricultural activities during antebellum period. Bowman apparently continued to raise livestock and cultivate wheat, corn, and other grains on the farm as his father and grandfather had done before him, and which characterized nineteenth century agriculture in the Valley. Livestock may have been of particular importance to the Bowman Family. Historian John W. Wayland noted that after 1835, the Middle Road (present-day Route 42) which passed by or through the Bowman property was extensively used by drovers herding cattle from western Virginia, so much so that it was called the "Ox Road." Evidence suggests that at least some members of the family were heavily involved in raising livestock, particularly cattle. According to the "Productions of Agriculture" schedule of the 1860 Census, George M. Bowman, a son of John and Catherine, owned 10 "milch" cows and 144 "other cattle" (most likely steers). In 1850, when he was 67 years old, John Bowman's farm was valued at $18,704, comfortably exceeding the per farm average in Rockingham County of $4,595. He also exceeded the county average in most major categories of agricultural production (see Table 1), including farm acreage, wheat, corn, and animal value.28
John Bowman was also active in acquiring additional land. Deeds and surveys in the collection of Bowman papers at James Madison University document further acquisitions of land or interest in land. In the 1820s and 30s, he acquired various small tracts of land, including a small town lot purchased with two others in Orkney Springs where a small community formed around medicinal springs. It is unclear as to what, if any, activity was taking place here, though Bowman's 1858 will indicates that there was a house on the lot. In 1838, Bowman acquired 1/10 interest in an unspecified amount of land from the George Neese estate in Shenandoah County from his son Michael, who by this time was living with his wife Sarah in Clark County, Ohio.
According to the 1850 Agricultural schedule, the Bowman Farm itself was still roughly the same size it had been when he inherited it from his father, 373 acres. When he wrote his will in 1858, John Bowman proposed to divide the farm into three tracts for sons David, Joseph, and George. He divided it into a 217 acre parcel, a 203 acre parcel, and a 209 acre parcel (which contained the old Flurküchenhaus), indicating that Bowman had expanded the farm to encompass 629 acres by this time. It is possible that additional lands were added to the farm, as the 1860 Agricultural schedule indicates that Bowman possessed a 717 acre farm at this time. George inherited the 209 acre "centre part ...including the Buildings," but in 1876 David purchased the property from his brother's estate.29
| Table 1. John Bowman's agricultural production versus the Rockingham County average in 1850. Rockingham County averages taken from Jamie Ferguson, "Final Report for the American Farm Project," Appendix A. John Bowman, Jr., data from the United States Bureau of the Census. The Seventh Census of the United States, Schedule 4, Productions of Agriculture, 56th District, Rockingham County, Virginia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Sometime in the latter half of the 1850s, the venerable Flurküchenhaus ceased to be the primary dwelling on the farm. A few years prior to writing his will, after his children had left the household, Bowman apparently built a new house less than forty feet from the old. The house was a double-pile, center passage, wood-framed I-house. For Valley farmers of the time, the I-house was the symbol of at least modest economic success and material comfort. For Valley Germans, the I-house also symbolized a break from the ethnic traditions of the past. In most cases, acculturation was not abrupt or complete. Architectural historians Edward Chappell and Ann McCleary note that that the first three or four decades of the nineteenth century saw the development of a regional style of architecture in the Shenandoah Valley, with significant contributions from all of the main ethnic groups, including Valley Germans. Ann McCleary writes that between 1810 and 1830, "local families experimented with a variety of traditional ethnic ideas and popular new pattern-book designs, creating tremendous diversity in architectural forms." However, in later decades the "prevailing mood no longer encourages creativity, but rather pressed for conformity to the new model of success." This "new model" was the I-house, which represented a national style that came to characterize domestic architecture throughout the eastern United States. Valley farmers like John Bowman chose this form of housing because "it fit community expectations and suited family needs" of progressive farming families in the wheat-based economy.30
That John Bowman and his family abandoned (or at least demoted) the ethnically-inspired Flurküchenhaus in favor of a house-type that came to characterize Anglo-American notions of success should come as no surprise, given the history of the German element in the Shenandoah Vally. The period of 1820 to 1840 was especially significant for Virginia Germans, as this was the period when essential elements of cultural separateness slowly gave way. The most important institution in the life of the Virginia German community, the church, underwent significant change during this time. Slowly, amid some controversy, the German churches began to abandon the German language for English; Lutheran congregations in Winchester and Staunton were the first to do so, by 1812. The Lutheran church attended by the Bowman family, Rader's Church, started keeping its records in English in 1838. After 1840, German was heard in Lutheran sanctuaries only once a month or on special occasions. The sales of books printed in the German language peaked between 1810 and 1820, and fell off after that. The Henkel Press of New Market, the only significant German print house in the Valley, ceased publishing materials in German after 1841. While many German families continued speaking a dialectical form of German in their households, in public the language largely disappeared. In fact, retention of the German language came to be seen as backwards and only persisted in more isolated German settlements (mainly western Shenandoah and Rockingham counties) into the 20th century. With the passing away of the German language, differences between the "German element" and their English and Scotch-Irish neighbors largely disappeared.31 However, acculturation did not necessarily mean assimilation. Valley Germans still displayed signs of group solidarity throughout the early national and antebellum periods. Politically, Germans became more active during the 1820 and 1830 at the same time that the German language was disappearing from the cultural landscape and they became more interested in affairs beyond the confines of their neighborhoods. Nevertheless, they differed from their English and Scotch-Irish neighbors in their near unanimous support for the Democratic Party. One historian has noted "if there was a typical western Democrat, he was a German farmer in the Valley." In contrast, heavily Scotch-Irish Augusta County was a stronghold of the Whig Party in western Virginia.32 More research is required to identify the level of acceptance of Anglo-Virginian values and cultural traits by mid-century, but it appears that the disappearance of the "German element" in western Virginia was not yet complete by the Civil War.33
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| Figure 4. The house built by John Bowman, Jr. in the late 1850s. Remnants of the Flurküchenhaus foundation can be seen in the photo at left. Photo by author, 2006. |
If architectural expressions, such as the Bowman house, are indicators of cultural acceptance, then even a relatively prosperous farmers such as John Bowman, Jr., found little reason to completely turn their backs on the heritage of his father and grandfather. After all, it appears that John Bowman found little reason to construct a new house until late in his life. John and Catharine Bowman apparently found the modified Flurküchenhaus perfectly suitable for raising a family in the early nineteenth century Valley of Virginia. Nevertheless, events that took place a few years after the John and Catharine built their new house demonstrated that the bulk of the German element in the Valley of Virginia were "Virginians" at least as much as they were "Germans." Most Valley residents, regardless of ethnic affiliation, embraced Unionism while opposing Northern interference with slavery in the 1850s. However, after, President-elect Abraham Lincoln called for volunteer troops to suppress the rebellion begun at Fort Sumter in April 1861 sentiment in the Valley was overwhelmingly in favor of joining the South in seceding from the Union. With the exception of Dunkers and Mennonites, most of whom remained steadfast in their non-violent and anti-slavery convictions, Valley Germans embraced the Confederate cause.
Several grandsons of John Bowman, Jr. served in Company H of the 12th Virginia Cavalry.34
The Bowman House serves as an important component of the story told at the Frontier Culture Museum. Interpretation of the Bowman Farm will focus on the period in Valley history when the distinctive American folk culture created by Old World immigrants and their descendants was at its height. The Bowman Family is representative of German element of this folk culture, and their house is an artifact that tells the story of how these families navigated their way between the culture of their forebears and the Anglo-Virginian culture they found all around them.
1 Conversation with Eric Bryan, Deputy Director, Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia (5 May 2005).
2 Approximately 111,000 settled in British North America during this time; this figure comes from Marianne S. Wockeck, Trade in Strangers: The Beginning of Mass Migration to North America (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 38-45.
3 Thomas Robisheaux, Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 39, 95-146; Alan Mayhew, Rural Settlement and Farming in Germany (London: B. T. Batsford, 1973), 131-134;
4 Wockeck, Trade in Strangers, 38-45.
5 Aaron Spencer Fogelman, Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717-1775 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 4-6.
6 Wockeck, Trade in Strangers, 26-27, 31-33; Mark Häberlein, "Communication and Group Interaction Among German Migrants to Colonial Pennsylvania: The Case of Baden Durlach," in Hartmut Lehman et al, eds. In Search of Peace and Prosperity: New German Settlements in Eighteenth Century Europe and America, (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 164-165
7 Marianne Wockeck, "German Settlements in the British North American Colonies: A Patchwork of Cultural Assimilation and Persistence," in Lehman et al, eds., In Search of Peace and Prosperity, 191.
8 Naturalization Certificate for George Bauman, Bowman Family Papers, Carrier Library, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA; Fogelman, Hopeful Journeys, 145-146. The proprietor of Pennsylvania held the power of escheat; that is, the proprietor had the right to claim lands if the holder died without legal heir. Theoretically, unnaturalized "aliens" could have their property seized by the proprietor after their death. Changes in land policy by the proprietor in the summer of 1765 induced a record number of Germans to become naturalized that fall in order to secure clear, permanent title to their lands so that they might pass it on to their heirs.
9 Scott T. Swank, "The Germanic Fragment," in Scott T. Swank, ed. The Arts of the Pennsylvania Germans (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1983), 4-5.
10 Fogelman, Hopeful Journeys, 127-148, 150-51; A. G. Roeber, "'The Origin of Whatever is Not English Among Us': The Dutch-speaking and German-speaking People of Colonial British America," in Bernard Bailyn and Philip D. Morgan, eds. Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991, 281
11 James T. Lemon, The Best Poor Man's Country: Early Southeastern Pennsylvania, 2nd. ed., (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2002), 150, 223-224.
12 Lease and Release, Andrew and May Hudlow to George Bowman, 19 and 20 May 1772, typescript copy in the Bowman Family Papers, Harrisonburg-Rockingham County Historical Society, Dayton, Virginia; Robert Mitchell, Commercialism and Frontier: Perspectives on the Early Shenandoah Valley (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1977), 16-19; Warren Hofstra, The Planting of New Virginia: Settlement and Lanscape in the Shenandoah Valley (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 4-5, 92-95.
13 Mitchell, Commercialism and Frontier, 144.
14 Hofstra, The Planting of New Virginia, Mitchell, Commercialism and Frontier,
15 Rockingham County, Land Tax Records, 1804-1821, Microfilm Reel 278, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.
16 Roebush Collection, Menlo Simmons Library, Eastern Mennonite University, Box 10, File 35, cited in WMCAR, Exploring Rural German Culture in the Valley of Virginia, 2002, p. 7.
17 Inventory and Bill of Sale of Estate of John Bowman, Sr., in Augusta Court Chancery Records, Carrier v. Bowman (file 1820-018).
18 Mark D. Groover, An Archaeological Study of Rural Capitalism and Material Life: The Gibbs Farmstead in Southern Appalachia, 1790-1920, (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003), 26-27.
19 Mitchell, Commercialism and Frontier, 119.
20 Carrier v. Bowman, Deposition of David Caldwell, January 22, 1817, Series 1, Augusta County Chancery Depositions, file 1820-018, Augusta County Courthouse, Staunton, VA; Carrier v. Bowman, Deposition of Frederick Smith, January 22, 1817, Series 1; Carrier v. Bowman, "Response to Bill of Complaint 18 December 1816."
21 Groover, Rural Capitalism, 28; Carrier v. Bowman, Deposition of David Caldwell, January 22, 1817, Series 1; Carrier v. Bowman, Deposition of Peter Crim, Jr., June 9, 1817, Series 2.
22 Carrier v. Bowman, Will of John Bowman, Sr.; Carrier v. Bowman, Deposition of Frederick Smith, January 22, 1817, Series 1; Carrier v. Bowman, "Bill of Complaint filed 9 November 1816;" A. G. Roeber, "The Origins and Transfer of German-American Concepts of Property and Inheritance," in Bernard Bailyn, Donald Fleming, and Stephan Thernstrom, eds., Perspective in American History v. 3, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 162-165.
23 United States Bureau of the Census, Third Population Census of the United States
24 Ray Wright, "An Architectural Survey of the Bowman House in Rockingham County, Virginia." (Staunton, VA: Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia, 2000), 6
25 Catherine Kahl, "The Bowman House: Evidence of Acculturation or the Creation of a New Culture?" (Staunton, VA: Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia),18-19; Edward A. Chappell, "Acculturation in the Shenandoah Valley: Rhenish Houses at the Massanutten Settlement," in Dell Upton and John Michael, eds., Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture, (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986, 37-38; Turk McCleskey, "The Price of Conformity: Class Ethnicity and Local Authority on the Colonial Virginia Frontier," in Puglisi, ed. Diversity and Accommodation, 213-222.
26 John Bowman, Jr., Will, 14 January 1858, Bowman Family papers, Carrier Library, James Madison University
27 Groover, Rural Capitalism, 143-44
28 John W. Wayland, Twenty-five Chapters on the Shenandoah Valley, 3rd ptg., (Harrisonburg, VA: C. J. Carrier Company, 1989), 49; United States Bureau of the Census, The Eighth Census of the United States, Schedule 4, "Productions of Agriculture, District No. 1, Rockingham County, VA. Microfilm on file, Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia, Staunton; United States Bureau of the Census, The Seventh Census of the United States, Schedule 4, "Productions of Agriculture, 56th District, Rockingham County, VA. Microfilm on file, Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia, Staunton; Jamie Ferguson, "Final Report for the American Farm Project," unpublished research report on file at the Frontier Culture Museum, Staunton, VA, 1999.
29 United State Bureau of the Census, The Eight Census of the United States. Schedule 4, Productions of Agriculture, 1st District, Rockingham County, Virginia, (Microfilm on file, Library, Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia), 81; WMCAR, Rural German Culture, 10.
30 Edward A. Chappell, "Cultural Change in the Shenandoah Valley: Northern Augusta County Houses before 1861," Master's Thesis, University of Virginia, 1977, 136, 159-70; Ann E. McCleary, "Forging a Regional Identity: Development of Rural Vernacular Architecture in the Central Shenandoah Valley, 1790-1850, in Kenneth Koons and Warren Hofstra, eds., After the Backcountry: Rural Life in the Great Valley of Virginia, 1800-1900, (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2000), 92.
31 Klaus Wust, The Virginia Germans (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1969), 129, 138-40, 186-189.
32 William G. Shade, Democratizing the Old Dominion: Virginia and the Second Party System, 1824-1861 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996), 120: University Press of Virginia, 1996), 120
33 Donald W. Linebaugh, "Folk Art, Architecture, and Artifact: Toward a Material Understanding of the German Culture in the Upper Valley of Virginia," in David Colin Crass, Steven D. Smith, Martha A. Zierden, and Richard D. Brooks, eds., The Southern Colonial Backcountry: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Frontier Communities (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998), 200-220.
34 Stephen L. Longenecker, Shenandoah Religion: Outsiders and the Mainstream, 1716-1865, (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2002), 154-64, 174-181; John Wayland, A History of Rockingham County, Virginia, (Harrisonburg, VA: C. J. Carrier & Co., 1980), 458.
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