Hon. John Bowman "Kentucky Colonel"

Soldier and frontiersman

Visiting Kentucky in 1775, he served on the safety committee at Harrodsburg the following summer and was appointed as Colonel of the Kentucky militia by Virginia Governor Patrick Henry in the fall. The following year, Bowman was named as the first county-lieutenant of Kentucky County on July 14 and, with his officers Captains Henry Pauling and John Dunkin, marched with two companies numbering 100 men from Holston River area to Kentucky County stopping at Boonesborough on August 1 and Logan's Fort on August 26 before finally arriving at Harrodsburg on September 2. Immediately after his arrival, he was elected a presiding judge in the first court of quarter sessions held at Fort Harrod and included Richard Callaway, John Floyd, John Todd and sheriff Benjamin Logan on September 2, 1777.

During the Illinois campaign, he received a message from General George Rogers Clark shortly after the capture of Kaskaskia requesting support for his planned campaign into Detroit. Promising Clark at least 300 men, Bowman began gathering men and provisions during the spring of 1779.

Accompanied by Benjamin Logan and Levi Todd, Bowman led between 160 and 300 militiamen against the Shawnee town of Old Chillicothe May 29. Dividing their forces, he and Logan attacked the camp from both sides but their forces were eventually repulsed. Unable to draw the Shawnee from their single blockhouse, Bowman burned much of the camp and left with 163 horses valued at $32,000. He and his men repulsed the Shawnee as they marched two days south to meet Clark at the mouth of the Licking River. Militia casualties were 8 killed and 4 wounded; Indian loses were about 4-5 killed (Including Chief Blackfish (died of wounds) and Chief Red Hawk killed Later they participated in Clark's expedition along the Little Miami and Ohio River.

Although initially blamed for not taking the Indian blockhouse, as well as the dozen casualties suffered, Bowman and Logan were credited with the raid at Chillicothe as a major victory for the Kentuckians. With the destruction of a major Shawnee settlement and the death of Chief Blackfish, additional Indian war parties were discouraged from moving against Kentucky colonists. According to Theodore Roosevelt in The Winning of the West, "the expedition undoubtedly accomplished more than Clark's attack on Piqua next year."

In the fall of 1779, he and Col. Abraham was instrumental in the founding Bowman's Station on Cane Run in present-day Mercer County, Kentucky. Originally housing seven families during the "Hard Winter" of 1779–80, the settlement grew to thirty families during the next year. Bowman's position was reaffirmed by then Governor Thomas Jefferson and he used the settlement as his base of operations. He was often traveling to organize the defense of Kentucky County.