Person

John Bryan Bowman (Mercer County, KY, attorney, educator, farmer, college regent)

b. 1824-10-16 d. 1891-09-19

Mercer County, Kentucky, attorney, farmer, educator, fundraiser, and college regent. Kentucky native. Married to Mary D. H. Williams Bowman in Bourbon County, Kentucky, on February 16, 1846. Graduated from the first class of Bacon College in Harrodsburg in 1842. Farmer in Mercer County in 1850. Owned nine enslaved persons in Mercer County in 1850. Organized and raised funds to resurrect Bacon College, which eventually became Kentucky University, from 1855-56. Resident of Mercer County in 1860. Owned eleven enslaved persons in Mercer County in 1860. Regent and founder of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky in 1865, which eventually became the University of Kentucky.

Details

Sex
Male
Race
White

Bibliography

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Mercer County, District 1, p. 240A.

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Mercer County, District 1, p. 865.

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Mercer County, p. 716.

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Mercer County, p. 50A.

Ninth Manuscript Census of the United States (1870), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Fayette County, Lexington Precinct 6, p. 130A.

Cone, Carl B. The University of Kentucky : A Pictorial History. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1989, 3.

Find A Grave, "John Bryan Bowman (1824-1891)," Memorial 38431225, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38431225 (accessed December 12, 2019).

Kentucky Marriage Records, Madison County Courthouse, Richmond, Kentucky, Bourbon County Marriages, Film #000183145, p. 204.

"Kentucky University " in The Kentucky Encyclopedia, John E. Kleber, ed. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 515.

Maria Thompson Daviess. History of Mercer and Boyle Counties ,vol. 1 (Harrodsburg, KY: The Harrodsburg Herald, 1924), 143-44.

Citation

Bowman, John Bryan. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, https://discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/S32210707 (November 12, 2026).

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