Joseph T. Bowman

His father's road to Texas ran through Illinois, where Jesse Bowman was trapping and hunting by 1811. The Alamo's biography says the family were the first known settlers of Camden, Arkansas, in 1824 and moved to Hempstead four years later. In the 1830s the Bowmans reached Red River County and received land, and father and son both served in the Texas army during the Revolution. Jesse Bowman, aged 51, died in the battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836. Joseph Bowman was born in Illinois, the same biography says.

What the plaque says

Joseph T. Bowman A native of Illinois, Joseph T. Bowman was the son of Jesse B. Bowman, who died at the Alamo. Arriving in Texas in 1835, Joseph T. Bowman enlisted in a company known as U.S. Provisionals in Nacogdoches. In December 1835 he signed the Goliad Declaration of Independence, which resolved that Texas should become an independent Mexican state. Following the Texas Revolution, he served in the Republic of Texas Army. He and his family settled in this area about 1845. Married to the former Naphania Hardin, Joseph Bowman was the father of ten children. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 13 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.
• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 20 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.

More markers nearby

• Guiceland Cemetery — steps away
• Jane Dotson Lively — 3.0 mi
• "Slocum Massacre" — 4.3 mi
• Site of the McClean Massacre — 4.7 mi