Bowman And The Loyalists Of America

Sufferings Of The U.E. Loyalists....(265  Bowman):

...dated February 15, 1875. "To the Editor of the Christian Guardian. " My Dear Sir — " At the request of the family, I have prepared, and I send you herewith, a brief obituary notice of Mrs. Elizabeth Bowman Spohn, only child of the honoured and widely-known late Peter and Elizabeth Bowman, near the village of Ancaster, in the county of Wentworth.

The delicate state of my grandmother obliged him to remain at home, while nearly all that remained lirm to their allegiance left for the British army. He was surprised at night, while his wife was sick, by a party of rebels, and with his eldest son, a lad of sixteen years of age, was taken prisoner; his house pillaged of every article except the bed on which his sick wife lay, and that they stripped of all but one blanket. Half an hour after my grandfather was marched off, his youngest child was born. This was in November. There my grandmother was, with an infant babe and six children, at the commencement of winter, without any provisions, and only one blanket in the house. Their cattle and grain were all taken away.  My father, Peter Bowman, the eldest son at home, was only eleven years old. As the pillage was at night, he had neither coat nor shoes; he had to cut and draw his firewood half a mile on a hand-sleigh to keep his sick mother from freezing; this he did barefooted. The whole family would have perished had it not been for some friendly Indians that brought them provisions.