"The Bowers Family
John and W. P. Bowers were two brothers who were early settlers in this area.  W. P. Bowers married a Middleton girl, and he was one of the four men who organized the first school in Harper.  John Bowers had four sons:  John, Charlie, Stonewall, and Bob.  He came to Harwood about 1884.  He was a Confederate veteran from Georgia and had many stories to tell about the war and its ravages.  He was well off financially, his health was good, his sons were strong, and they made a good addition to the town.

John Bowers donated the land for the Harper Baptist Church.  He was a deacon in the Baptist Church and led the prayer meetings on Wednesday nights.  The young folks always enjoyed going to prayer meeting and hearing him tell his war stories, which always had a good moral.  He also taught a singing school.  He predicted the end of the world when a total eclipse of the sun was mentioned in the almanac.

Once when there was an unusually severe drought, Mr. Bowers called an extra prayer meeting and prayed for rain for two days.  His prayer was answered immediately and the rain came in torrents.  Fences were washed away and gardens destroyed.  The Perdenales was on the biggest rise ever known.  Some of his friends then insisted that Mr. Bowers specify the amount of rain he would ask for after that experience.

Mr. Bowers finally moved to Segovia where he had an irrigated farm on the Llana and didn't have to pray for rain any more."

UNQUOTE

I know that they will not publish a correction to the book... but I was curious... if you would be interested in publishing an errata or correction in the Gillispie County GENWEB space that you maintain.

Below are some corrections based on my own research and knowledge of my family:

Bowers notes:

While some elements of this account may be accurate, and some of the humorous elements true, some elements are incorrect.  There was no W. P. Bowers.  James P. Bowers Sr. moved to Texas from Georgia in 1870 after the Civil War.  (We know the year due to his stating it in his application for Texas Confederate Pension).  According to an Uncle, he came with his entire family, in a small wagon train, driving a herd of brood mares.  He was a private in the 61st Regiment, Company F, GA Infantry (also known as the 7th Battalion).  He enlisted in 1861 from Stewart County, GA.  He was wounded in Sharpsburg, MD in the hip in 1862.  He was a POW in Fredricksburg, VA from December 1862 until he was paroled in May of 1863 in Richmond, VA.  He apparently returned to the Confederate Armies because he was later captured and was a POW again at Spotsylvania, VA in May of 1864.  He was paroled for exchange in March of 1865.

In 1919, he applied for a Texas Confederate Pension and was approved.  He received said pension until his death in 1925.  He is buried in Junction, Texas.

The John Bowers mentioned in the above account was actually J.P.'s oldest son John William Bowers, born in 1858 in GA.   His other children were:  Mary Francis, George W. (mentioned above), Julia A., James P. Jr, Edward T., Stonewall J. (mentioned above), Robert Lee (Bob from above), and Charles Joseph.

The "W.P. Bowers" mentioned above who married a Middleton girl, was actually James P. Bowers Jr.  He married Maggie Alma Middleton, also of Harper, in 1887.  But he was married again two years later to Minnie Ford White in Gonzales County.  I can only assume that Maggie Middleton died in the intervening two years, presumably in child birth, but I have no proof of this, and know nothing else of her.

Another member of my family who is descended from James Jr and Minnie, has in his possession, a child's "memory book" or diary.  The name of the person to whom it belonged is inscribed inside as "Alma Middleton".  It has an initial date in it of 1886.  There is an entry in it, dated in 1887 that reads "Dear Mifs Alma, let not our love like the roses wither and die, but like the evergreen may it last forever. Your friend James Bowers.  (for images scanned from this memory book.

Since it is in the possession of a Bowers descendent, I can safely assume that our g grandfather James Jr. made the entry.  And I can assume there was a relationship of some kind.  I did get a copy once from a Middleton descendent of Gillespie County, Texas, a marriage record of the marriage of James P Bowers and Maggie Alma Middleton.  This same person had information of her DOB and at the time of the marriage in 1887, she would have only been 16 years old.

It seems clear to me that my ancestor James Bowers Jr had a marriage previous to Minnie Ford White, to a Maggie Alma Middleton.  But in less then two years from the date of that marriage, he was married to my g grandmother Minnie White.

I would like to find additional information about James and Maggie Alma Middleton.  I would like to find information about her and when and where she might have died.  I assume that she may have died in childbirth.

Is there any way to find death records for that period? Or anything that would show how / when / where she died?

Another researcher indicated to me recently that they felt that Maggie may have been killed, with her mother, by Indians in some kind of uprising or attack.  I noticed some interesting entires in the texas genweb pages about Indian attacks and how some people were recovered etc... but this was a couple of decades earlier than 1887.  Are you aware of any Indian uprisings, attacks on white settlers etc during the years 1885 - 1890?

I am sending a PDF file document of the scanned contents of the Maggie Alma Middleton book.  Feel free to post this as a possible research resource on your web pages.

Thank you again for your time... and I look forward to hearing back from you.