RICHARD BOWEN

• Death Notes
  • Richard Bowen
    Born:  1590
    Swansea, [parish], Glamorgan, Wales  
    Died:  4 Feb 1674
    Rehoboth, Bristol, Massachusetts, USA 
    

• General Notes
  • RICHARD BOWEN, born about 1585-1600 in Wales, probably in Glamorganshire. Said to have come from Swansea, Wales, or vicinity. Probably belonged to the Bowen Family of Kittle Hill. Came to Massachusetts about 1638. Settled in Rehoboth 1640-41, buried at Rehoboth 4 Feb. 1674-5. Said to have brought wife Ann with him, but Elizabeth is the name of the wife mentioned in his will.* Was she a 2nd wife? or is "Ann" a mythical character? His widow was buried in Rehoboth, 1675. All his children are suppose to have been born in Wales before his immigration.
    * In regard to this confusion about the wives of Richard Bowen, I received the following in an e-mail on Dec. 7, 2000
    
    "You note some confusion on the page as to another wife, Elizabeth. Richard Bowen married Anne Bourn in Wales, and the two sailed together to America. Ann died in November, 1648, and Richard almost immediately married Elizabeth Marsh. Incidentally, Richard's father James Bowen and mother Eleanor Griffith are so ancestrally tied into the web of Welsh and British royalty, nobility, and knighthood that I have been able to track their ancestors back well BC."
    
    Richard, the emmigrant, settled in Roxbury, MA near Boston, 1640. In 1643 some 40 families including his, under the leadership of their pastor, Rev. Samuel Newman, left Roxbury and penetrated the unbroken wilderness and formed a new settlement some 50 miles to the south and named it Rehoboth signifying "the Lord has made room for us." This town is about 8 miles east of Providence and in the "Newman cemetery" lie the remains of Richard Bowen and some of his descendants. (Genealogical Exchange, Mar 1911, p 81.
    
    Vital Record of Rehoboth, 1642-1896. Marriages, Intentions, Births, Deaths, with Supplement containing the Record of 1896, Colonial Returns, Lists of the Early Settlers, Purchasers, Freemen, Inhabitants, the Soldiers serving in Philip's War and the Revolution.
    The following are the names of those who made advances of money and the sum so advanced. It shows that many of those who served as private soldiers in the war also advanced money to sustain it. "Richard Bowen, £4 s.4 d.8 (King Philip's War)"