Compiled by: J. C. Overmeyer, Columbus, Ohio William H. Nellans, Rochester, Indiana Charles Nellans, Mishawaka, Indiana Transcribed by: Paul H Andree III July 1, 1997
Elizabeth Waggoner, oldest child of John Sr and Elizabeth Leach Waggoner, his wife, born
in Frederick County, Maryland, February 25, 1788. On October 23, 1809, united in marriage
with Barnhart Henry Bowman, son of Barnhart and Catharine Dreisbach Bowman; Adam Weaver
performing the ceremony. (Fairfield County Marriage Records, Volume One, Page Five.)
Perry County was not organized as a county until 1818. Reading Township, where the
Waggoner, Overmeyer, and Bowman families settled, was a part of Fairfield County prior to
that date. The blending of these three families occurs so frequently that no biographical
sketch of either family would be complete without due regard and mention of the others.
After more than a quarter of a century of residence in Perry County, they proceeded to
Sandusky County and Seneca County, as some of their earliest and most substantial
pioneers.
After their marriage, Barnhart and Elizabeth located on the Northeast 1/4, Section
Twenty-nine, 160 acres, in Reading Township, which he entered from the government May 15,
1809. This tract was located just north of and adjoining the tract owned by her father,
John Waggoner, Sr, which was the Southeast 1/4, Section Twenty-nine, and had been entered
by her father on November 20,1809
When the members of the Waggoner family sold their lands in Perry County, Ohio, and
emigrated to Seneca and Sandusky Counties in Ohio. Barnhart Henry Bowman and his wife,
Elizabeth Waggoner Bowman, soon thereafter sold their Perry County property and located in
Washington Township, Sandusky County, Ohio; there to join her sisters, Mrs. Christian
Dershem, and Mrs. John Macklin and their families. Her brothers, John Jr, George, Solomon,
and Samuel had settled in Sandusky County previously. Jacob and David, brothers of
Elizabeth, settled in Seneca County. Her mother, having died in 1830 or 1831, and her
father, John Waggoner Sr, having married a second wife, Sarah Minic, on June 30, 1833, a
sister of his first wife, was also residing in Sandusky County at that time. John Waggoner
Sr, died December 15, 1842, in his eighty-fifth year of age. His remains and those of his
first wife, Elizabeth, were first interred in the Bowlus Cemetary, but later removed to
the Four-Mile Cemetary, west of Fremont, Ohio; where rest the remains of his second wife,
Sarah.
The Bowman family was also well represented in the "Black Swamp" section of
Sandusky County, where Barnhart Henry Bowman and his wife, Elizabeth Waggoner Bowman,
joined them.
On April 5, 1833, Barnhart Henry Bowman purchased od David Hess that part of the Southeast
1/4, Section Nine, Washington Township, lying south of the Maumee Turnpike, containing
66.21 acres, where the southern part of the village of Hessville is now located. This
tract was crossed by Big Mud Creek, where he at once proceeded to build a dam and
mill-race, and true to the instincts of his ancestors, who were in the grist mill business
in pioneer days of Pennsylvania and Perry County, Ohio. He erected the first grist mill in
that community, which he operated by water power. This mill was located on the west bank
of the Big Mud Creek, south of the turnpike. The location of the dam and the race is still
plainly visible, although constructed more than a century ago and it's use continued until
about 1890.
He built a large "L" shaped tavern on the west of the mill and just east of the
present road leading to Gibsonburg. He and his wife operated this tavern for many years,
when it was known as "Bowman's Tavern". Her sister, Nancy Waggoner Macklin, and
her husband, John Macklin, owned a tract of land in Section Fifteen and operated
"Macklin's Tavern", on the present O'Connor farm, about one-half mile east of
"Bowman's Tavern". Barnhart Henry Bowman was very successful in business, both
with his grist mill and tavern, and was considered a wealthy man by the pioneers of the
community. Money was scarce and trade was largely carried on by bartering or trading
one
commodity or product for another, but when cash was needed, Barnhart Henry Bowman was said
to have a "barrel", and he became known as "Old Cash", and his town as
"Cashtown".
In 1837 he with David Hess, who owned the land on the north side of the turnpike and
opposite the tract purchased by Barnhart Henry Bowman in 1833, employed David Reeves,
county surveyor, and surveyed and platted the present village of Hessville, which on the
original plat, as signed by Mr. Hess and Mr. Bowman on October 21, 1837, was called
"Cashtown", (Volume K, Page 460, Deed Record.) The plat provided for a
"Public Square" and the part owned by Mr. Hess consisted of lots Nos. 1 to 60,
north of the turnpike; of which lots Nos. 51 and 52 were given for a "school and
meeting house, to be erected". The part south of the turnpike, owned by Mr. Bowman,
consisted of lots Nos. 61 to 120, of which two lots were given for the site of a Union
Church for the Lutheran and Reformed denominations. Mr Bowman also gave a site for a
cemetary on the banks of Mud Creek, and it still exists, located south of his mill and
tavern, which became the final resting place for many pioneer families of the "Black
Swamp", among them John Burkhard or Burkett, born August 20, 1752, a soldier in the
Revolutionary War, and a member of General Washington's Body Guard.
The village soon became a thriving, prosperous place, with a post office, to which mail
was delivered by carriers on foot, on horseback, or with team hitched to the rear axel and
two wheels of a wagon, upon which a box was built into the which the mail was placed,
while the driver was seated on top of the box and by the dextrous use of the reins and a
whip, tried to avoid the stumps and mudholes which covered the entire distance from Lower
Sandusky, now Fremont, to Perrysburg.
When the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern R.R. was built in 1852, across Washington
Township, mail for the "Black Swamp" post office was carried by railroad to
"Loose Station", or "Washington Station", now Lindsey, and then by
carrier to "Black Swamp" post office. It was not until about 1876 that the name
was changed to Hessville, in honor of the Hess family, which joined Barnhart Henry Bowman
in establishing the village in 1837.
Barnhart Henry Bowman purchased and sold many other parcels of land in Washington township
from time to time until 1860. When he was seventy-nine years of age, he and his wife
retired from active duties of life. On March 6, 1860, they granted power-of-attorney to
John Bowman, their only child, "to sell any or all of their real estate in Washington
Township, as he shall deem fit". (Volume Three, Page 540, Deed Records.)
Their property then consisted of the Northeast 1/4, Section Sixteen, containing 66.3
acres, excepting therefrom the cemetary site and about twenty acres for the lots platted
for "Cashtown", or Hessville. On April 30, 1860, John Bowman, their son, sold
the above real estate, together with the unsold lots in the Plat of "Cashtown",
the flour mill, and tavern, to James N Smith, for $8000, $1000 paid in cash and balance in
notes secured by mortgage payable to John Bowman, of Fulton County, Indiana.
Barnhart Henry Bowman and his wife went to Rochester, Indiana, to live with or near their
son, John Bowman. Solomom Waggoner, brother of Mrs. Bowman, had located in Fulton County,
Indiana, about 1854, after selling their lands in Washington Township, Sandusky County,
Ohio, and no doubt induced Barnhart Henry and his wife to locate there. They passed their
declining years in Fulton County. After fifty-three years of married life, they were
separated by the hand of death. He died August 15, 1862, and his wife Elizabeth Waggoner
Bowman died March 6, 1874. Both are buried in the Lutheran Cemetary, near Talma, Fulton
County, Indiana; about eight miles northeast of Rochester, Indiana.
JOHN BOWMAN, 1810 - 1862
John Bowman, the only child of Barnhart Henry Bowman and Elizabeth Waggoner Bowman, was
born in Perry County, Ohio, in 1810, where he grew to namhood and married Mary (Polly)
Foster, May 10, 1832, by .Charles Henkel. She was born in Perry County, Ohio. John was
later employed with his father in the milling business in Hessville for many years, and
moved to Fulton County,
Indiana, prior to 1860. He inherited all of his parents estate, and engaged in the milling
business in Indiana, as his parents had dopne before him in Sandusky County, and in Perry
County, Ohio, and in Pennsylvania before coming to Ohio. While repairing the mill dam at a
mill he owned at Bloomingburg, now Talma, Indiana, he contracted typhoid fever, from which
he died, September, 1862, at the age of 51 years, 11 months and 25 days; only about a
month after the death of his father. Power -of-attorney was then given to his son, Henry.
(Volume Thirteen, Page 577.)
John and Mary Bowman were the parents of four children, whose are listed below at the end
of this narrative. After the death of her husband, John Bowman, Mary Bowman lived with her
son, Henry, until her death, January 28, 1889. Both she and her husband are interred in
the cemetary near Talma, Indiana, beside John's parents. They had accumulated considerable
property, which at their death passed to their four children.
HENRY BOWMAN by Ada A Bowman, Rochester, Indiana; circa 1940
Henry Bowman, oldest son of John and Mary Foster Bowman, was born April 29,1833. On
January 13, 1856, he married Faith Elizabeth Traves, born in England, who came to America
with her parents in 1844. Henry and Faith resided in Sandusky County, Ohio, for a short
time after their marriage, then moved to Fulton County, Ohio, their future home. They had
two children: Mary Bowman, 1858 to 1873; and John William Bowman, 1861 to 1933. Henry
Bowman married second, Biddie Sullivan, d. 1882, and had four sons: George O Bowman, 1873;
Dr. Aaron L Bowman, 1876 to 1916; Charles B Bowman, 1878 to 1889; and Albert L Bowman,
1880 to 1932. Henry Bowman married third, Nancy Bugbee, who died in 1901. Henry died
August 25, 1903, and was buried in the cemetary at Talma, Indiana.
SALOME BOWMAN by Mrs. Anna E Blough, Benton Harbor, Michigan; circa 1940
Salome Bowman, daughter of John and Mary Foster Bowman, was born in Sandusky County, Ohio,
February 9,1839; grew to womanhood in Fulton County, Indiana. In October, 1858, she
married Lewis Boyer, born March 27,11836; Rev. Heller officiating at the marriage. Upon
the death of her father in 1862, they acquired the flour mill at the mouth of Maxinkukee
Lake, Fulton County, Indiana. Salome died January 7, 1917. Lewis Boyer died May 4, 1913.
Both are interred in Crystal Springs Cemetary, Benton Harbor, Michigan. They had three
children: Perry Boyer, 1865 to 1929; Clara Boyer "Shuler", 1873; and Anna E
Boyer "Blough", 1877.
AARON L BOWMAN by William H Nellans; circa 1940
Aaron L Bowman, son of John and Mary Bowman, born in Sandusky County, Ohio; married Mary L
Stine, April 26, 1860. After the death of his father in 1862, he became the owner of the
flour mill on the Yellow River. They later moved to California where he died and is
buried. Aaron and Mary Bowman had one son, William Bowman.
MAHALA BOWMAN by William H and Charles Nellans; circa 1940
Mahala Bowman, daughter of John and Mary Foster Bowman, born in Sandusky County, Ohio,
November 14, 1845. On march 3, 1862 she married Absolom Nellans, born August 10, 1833.
After the death of her father in 1862, they became the owners of the farm in Fulton
County, Indiana. Mahala died September 22, 1922 and Absolom died June 22, 1918. Both are
interred in the
Fulton Cemetary at Fulton, Indiana. They had seven children: Mary Elizabeth Nellans
"Rouch", 1864 to 1933; Clara Nellans "Pownall", 1866 to 1922; William
H Nellans, 1869 to 1909; Francis Nellans, 1875; John Frederick Nellans, 1877 to 1916;
Charles Nellans, 1879; and Guy Nellans, 1883.