Jesse B. Bowman

The Alamo's own biography adds what the plaque leaves out. In Illinois, Jesse Bowman worked as a trapper and hunter. In 1824 he, his wife and three children became the first known settlers of Camden in Ouachita County, Arkansas, and in 1828 they moved to Hempstead. The Alamo lists him at age 51, and says he and his son served in the Texas army. A Texas Escapes article by a descendant counts him among at least eight men from the Red River country who died at the Alamo, naming Claiborne Wright and Daniel Cloud with him.

What the plaque says

Jesse B. Bowman Alamo defender Jesse B. Bowman was born in Tennessee about 1785. By 1811 he was living in Illinois where his son Joseph T. Bowman was born that year. Bowman and his family settled in Ouichita County, Arkansas, until it became more populated and they moved to Hempstead County. In the 1830s Jesse B. Bowman and his family moved with his brother and other family members to this area of Texas, where they soon qualified for a league and labor of land. On February 23, 1836, Bowman answered the roll call at the Alamo garrison in Bexar. He was listed as a private and permanent volunteer under the command of Jim Bowie. On March 6, Jesse Bowman lost his life at the fall of the Alamo. His body and those of the other Alamo defenders were burned by the Mexican Army under General Santa Anna. (1999)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wheelock Academy Historic Site — 9.8 mi
  The Choctaw Nation's academy for girls, rebuilt in 1884 near Millerton and a boarding school until 1955, with its museum in the old teachers' dormitory.
• Fort Towson Historic Site — 10 mi
  The 1824 Red River post where arriving Choctaw and Chickasaw families were dispersed after removal, beside the site of Doaksville, the Choctaw capital where Stand Watie surrendered in 1865.
• Lennox Woods Preserve — 12 mi
  A Nature Conservancy preserve of mature East Texas forest north of Clarksville, kept by the Lennox family for four generations, with a 1.5-mile loop under post oaks more than 300 years old.
• Eiffel Tower — 30 mi
  A 65-foot Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat, built by the local welders' union in 1993 beside Paris's Love Civic Center.

More markers nearby

• Jonesboro — steps away
• Jane Chandler Gill — steps away
• Near Here at the Old Jonesboro Crossing Sam Houston — steps away
• Arnold E. A. Roitsch Archeological Site — 1.9 mi