Dr. Lemuel James Bowie

Lemuel James Bowie grew up in Vicksburg and became a clinical biochemist. After graduating from St. Mary's High School in 1962 he studied at Xavier University and Howard, and earned a Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins. In 1982 he identified an abnormal hemoglobin and named it Hemoglobin Evanston for the Illinois city where he worked; in 1998 he received a patent for a method of detecting the most common genetic disorder. He is credited with leading the American Association of Clinical Chemistry. He died on Christmas Day 1998, aged 54, and is buried in Cedar Hill.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Court House Museum — 0.4 mi
  Vicksburg's Greek Revival courthouse of 1860, raised on a hilltop with the labor of enslaved artisans and now a private local-history museum heavy on Confederate relics.
• USS Cairo Gunboat and Museum — 1.3 mi
  The raised hull of a Union river ironclad sunk by a mine in the Yazoo in 1862, displayed at Vicksburg National Military Park with the artifacts the river mud preserved.
• Vicksburg National Military Park — 1.7 mi
  A 16-mile tour road through the trenches of the 47-day siege of 1863, with a national cemetery and the story of the thousands of enslaved people who reached freedom behind Union lines.

More markers nearby

• Dr. David D. Foote — 0.2 mi
• Newit Vick's Original Vicksburg — 0.2 mi
• Anchuca — 0.3 mi
• Bethel A.M.E. Church — 0.3 mi