-------------------------------
biography from Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
DAVID L. BOWMAN, of Leighton, is a blacksmith and dealer in agricultural implements. He was born in Franklin County, Va., April 3, 1845. His father, Joel I. Bowman, was a native of Virginia, and a miller and farmer by occupation, and spent his life in his native State, his death occurring at the age of fifty years. His mother, Irene (Layman) Bowman, is a native of Virginia, and still lives in Franklin County, at the age of seventy-four years. The subject of this sketch passed his early life on the farm. In 1862 he entered a blacksmith-shop where contract work was being done for the Confederate army. He did this, not to learn the trade, but that he might keep out of the service, and as he remained at that business until the fall of 1864, became quite an expert. He then ran the Confederate blockade and went to Gallipolis, Ohio. in 1865 he came to Iowa, and in the spring of 1866 resumed blackamithing, establishing a shop with S. P. Beers as partner, This association continued for three years, when Mr. Bowman became sole proprietor, and since 1881 he has added a stock of agricultural implements, of which he carries a full line in connection with his other business. Mr. Bowman has been twice married. His first wife was Mrs. Eliza Fleck, nees Hoover. They were married Aug. 3, 1873, and she died Oct. 26, 1876, leaving one son, William A. Sept. 26, 1878, he espoused as his second wife, Sarah J. Price, a daughter of L. D. Price (see biography in this volume), and by this union there have been four children, three of whom are living, namely, Charley, Mary and Anna. Politically Mr. Bowman is a Republican, and his father, though a resident of a slave State and born where the institution flourished, was an uncompromising Abolitionist. Mr. Bowman has been one of the Trustees of Black Oak Township for seven years. Religiously he is connected with the German Baptist Church. He began his career in life without money, but by industry and economy has made life a success, and with it all is enjoying the high regard of his friends and acquaintances, because of his strict integrity and his constant practice of the principles of the Golden Rule.
Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
Mahaska County, Iowa Genealogy