John Bowater I was born in 1630 in England.
5 He lived in Spittlefields (near London), England.
4 He was an English Quaker who visited America, but never settled here.
2 CHESTER COUNTY QUAKERS AND THEIR KIN
JOHN BOWATER, QUAKER MINISTER
JULY 24, 201T
John Bowater was baptized on 25 April 1630 in Bromsgrove, the son of
William Bowater, a nail-maker there.1 Bromsgrove was in Worcester, south of Birmingham. Originally a center for cloth manufacture, it was also known for nail-making. It was close to the River Severn, for transport, and close to the River Stour, which was dotted with slitting mills, a water mill for making bars of iron into rods.2 “Nailmakers would purchase their iron from the nailmasters and sell their nails to nailmasters at set prices, effectively at a piece-rate. The basic technique of nail production did not change much, involving in essence heating iron rods, making a point, half cutting the nail off, fully cutting it and hammering a head. Simple nails might take a few blows and take a matter of seconds to make, while complex nails could involve twelve to twenty blows.”3 Nailmaking was a family occupation. The nailers lived in tiny cottages, with a shed attached for doing the work. They were at the mercy of the nailmasters for their income, and were generally poor. When John’s father William died in 1647, he left his son John a “paier of Bellowes in my shope with all my workinge tooles beelonginge to my trade.4 Since William owned his own shop, he was a step above the poorest of the nail makers.
John became a Quaker before 1660, when he was put into prison for refusing to take an oath.5 In the town of Worcester the magistrates summoned many known Quakers and required them to swear an oath. Forty-seven of them refused and were sent to prison, including John.6
John traveled to America as a Quaker minister in 1677 and 1678. He visited New England, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, preaching in places along the ways, and wrote a book about his experience, published after his death, called Christian Epistles Travels and Suffering of that Ancient Servant of Christ, John Boweter.7 After his return to England, he was put in Worcester Gaol for failing to pay tithes. He was later transferred to Fleet Prison in London.8
John’s first wife,
Ann, died in 1679, leaving him with three grown sons, John,
Thomas and William.9
After his release from Fleet Prison, he married Mary Maunder of London under the jurisdiction of Devonshire House Monthly Meeting.10 They had children, Jonathan and Mary. They may have remained in London, since the death of their son Jonathan was recorded there as well as their own deaths. It is not recorded how John made his living in London. Quakers did not pay their ministers, looking down on “hireling priests”. John died in 11th month (January) 1704/05 and was buried at Friends Burying Ground near White Chapel. Mary died the next month, from a fever. They were living on Westbury Street, Spittlefields, now known as Quaker Street.11
Children of John and Ann:
John, bapt. 8 August 1652, d. summer 1705. Like his father and grandfather before him, he was a nail-maker. He married in 1683 Frances Corbett, daughter of William Corbett of Sedgley, Staffordshire, also a nail-maker.12 They were married at Chadwick Monthly Meeting, Worcester.13 The next year they immigrated to Pennsylvania and presented a certificate to Philadelphia Meeting. They moved to Chester County, where John was an active member. They had seven children, all born in Pennsylvania except the first. John left a will naming Frances and five living daughters. Frances lived until 1721. She also left a will. Children: Anne (died young), Mary, William, Elizabeth, Anne, Alice, Phebe.
Thomas, born February 1654/55, died after November 1734, m. Sarah Edge in 1686. Thomas immigrated in September 1683 on the Bristol Comfort as an indentured servant to Frances Fincher from Worcester. After his indenture was over he married Sarah Edge, and after her death married in 1702 Frances Barnard, widow of Richard Barnard.14 Thomas and Frances lived at first in Concord, Chester County, later moved to New Garden Meeting, then to Haverford.15 The dates of their deaths were not recorded, but Thomas was still alive in 1734 when he signed a marriage certificate. Children (with Sarah): Sarah, Thomas.
William, d. 13 Oct 1697 in England, m. (?) Sarah.16 He signed the wedding certificate of John and Frances as a close relative, so he was probably a brother of John and Thomas. He stayed around Bromsgrove, and his death was recorded at Warwick North Meeting.17 Children: John Samuel.
Children of John and Mary:
Jonathan, b. July 1687, d. 1688, age 7 months.
Mary, b. Feb 1688/89, d. before March 1734 in Virginia, m. James Wright.18 Mary immigrated in 1705, just after the death of her parents. She was just sixteen. She married James a few years later. James and Mary lived in Nottingham, Chester County, then moved to Monocacy, Frederick County, Maryland, where they were members of Hopewell Meeting.19 Around 1735 they moved to Orange County, Virginia, where in 1755, when the French incited the Indians of the Shendanoah region, James and Mary were “driven from their habitation” and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting took up a collection for them.20 James died in 1760, leaving a will naming his wife and children.21 In an unusual clause, James added that “I would have no appraisement upon my goods.”22 Mary died in 1764, and named the same children. Children: Mary, Hannah, Martha, Elizabeth, John, James, Thomas, Isaac, Ann, Sarah, Lydia.23
John Bowater the Quaker minister is often confused with his son John, also a Quaker. They died within a year of each other: the father in London, the son in Westtown, Chester County, Pennsylvania. The father did not immigrate. (See the discussion at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bowater-5, accessed April 2019.) ?
1.“Nail-making in Bromsgrove”, online at bromsgrovenailmaking.wixsite.com, accessed April 2019. ?
2. “Bromsgrove”, Wikipedia, citing Bygone Bromsgrove. ?
3. Stewart Baldwin, “John1 and Thomas1 Bowater and their sister Mary1 (Bowater) Wright”, p. 41, in The American Genealogist, 2000, vol. 75(1), pp. 37-46 and 75(2), pp. 117-123. This is the most reliable source for the Quaker Bowater family. ?
5.Baldwin. ?
6.Roger Heacock, The ancestors of Charles Clement Heacock, 1851-1914, online at www.kennyheacock.com/writings/ccheacock.doc. This genealogy, better written than many, includes other Chester County families such as Pyle, Sharpless, Pennock and Mendenhall. It does, however, confuse John Bowater the preacher with his son John. (Heacock, p. 78) ?
Heacock, Baldwin, 2000. Note that the name can be found as Bowyter, Boweter, Boeter, Bowitter, Bowetter, etc. Baldwin says the name must have been pronounced as Bow’-e-ter, not Bo’-water. ?
Baldwin, 2000, p. 45, citing Joseph Besse, Sufferings of the People Called Quakers, 1753, vol. 2, p. 76. ?
Baldwin, 2000. He lists William as possible, based on William’s signing of the marriage certificate of John (the son) in 1683, but I find this evidence persuasive enough to list him as a child. Ann’s last name is unknown. When the son John was baptized in 1652, John and Ann were living in Catshill, a hamlet two miles north of Bromsgrove. (The parish record of baptism, cited in Baldwin) ?
Baldwin, 2000, p. 45. ?
History of Spitalfields, online at: http://www.spitalfieldsforum.org.uk/history, accessed April 2019. The origin of the name is not clear. ?
Baldwin, 2000, p. 117. ?
Chadwick was eleven miles southwest of Bromsgrove, a comfortable ride on horseback. Sedgley was further north; how did John meet Frances? ?
Baldwin, 2000, p. 120. A Findagrave entry for Frances Lambe Barnard Bowater claims that Frances did not marry Thomas, based on an erroneous date of death for him. He was still alive in 1720 when they received a certificate for New Garden Meeting. ?
Some sources confuse New Garden Meeting, Chester County, with New Garden Meeting, North Carolina. There is no evidence that they ever moved out of Pennsylvania. ?
There is no birth record for him that would show conclusively that he was a son of John and Ann. However he signed the marriage certificate of John Bowater and Frances Corbett in 1683 as a close relative, right after Thomas Bowater, John’s known brother. Baldwin lists him as a probable child of John and Ann, and there is no other known William in the family who would be at the wedding. (Baldwin, 2000, p. 46) ?
Baldwin, 2000, p. 46. Warwickshire is just east of Worcestershire. The range covered by Warwick North Monthly Meeting would include Bromsgrove. See the detail map at: https://theironroom.wordpress.com/2014/08/25/a-lesson-in-good-record-keeping-from-the-quakers/. ?
Some researchers claim that James Wright married Mary Davis. This error apparently started with Walter Farmer’s 1987 book In America Since 1607. He gave a date for Mary’s birth that does not match the birth date for her in Hopewell Meeting Records. (See the WikiTree page for Mary (Bowater) Wright (1789-1764)). The marriage to Mary Bowater has been proven by Stewart Baldwin using evidence from English and American Quaker records, especially the witnesses who signed as close family at the marriages of the children of James and Mary. (Stewart Baldwin, “Quaker Marriage Certificates: Using Witness Lists in Genealogical Research”, TAG, vol. 72, 1997, pp. 225-43. A researcher who argues for Mary Davis as the wife of James Wright published her argument on the Findagrave entry for Stephen Ailes. She correctly noted that there were two men named John Bowater, father and son, but confused the Mary Bowater born to each of them. She produces as evidence the 1726 will of John Beals, which named a kinswoman Mary Davis of Philadelphia, but by 1726 James Wright had been married for almost twenty years. His wife would not have been named by anyone with her maiden name. She also failed to grasp Quaker marriage culture, arguing that James Wright would attended some Bowater marriages as a traveling minister, which was not typical for the time. (Findagrave ID# 116561689 for Stephen Ailes). See the marriage certificates for Hannah Wright and Mary Wright, daughters of James and Mary, on Ancestry, New Garden Monthly Meeting, Marriage Records 1704-1765, Image 57 and image 65, where the witnesses included many Bowaters and no Davis. The Findagrave entry for Mary Bowater Wright (ID# 32113214) gives the correct parentage for Mary, provides the text of her will, and lists her ten children. Other careful researchers such as Martha Grundy support the Bowater identification. Grundy provides details of the lives of James and Mary in their Quaker community. (her website at: https://sites.rootsweb.com/~paxson/griffith/Wright.html, accessed April 2019) ?
Baldwin, 2000, p. 121. ?
Grundy web page on James Wright. ?
21. His will was written in 1751, proved in Frederick County, Virginia in 1760. ?
22.Without an inventory his executors would not have to produce a balanced account of their credit and debits. ?
23.The daughter Martha married John Mendenhall Jr and was noted as an “able minister of the Gospel”. (Grundy) ?
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