Thursday, August 08, 2013

Second Sea Captain's wife: Nancy Bowler

Photo by Brian Zoldak, 2013, used with permission

Nancy B.  BOWLER
Bowler Genealogy found at Archive.org, (out of copyright)

Second wives are always interesting and there certainly have been enough of them in my family who have played a large part in the family history picture.

Nancy's is a long story! She was married to William Smith before she married Capt. Palmer Hall and had two children (Harriet and Albert) by him. She was born in New York but moved to Ohio with her parents and married him there. After William died in a railroad accident, she married at her daughter Harriet's home in Buffalo, NY, Capt. Hall. Harriet was the wife of George Langdon. Harriet must have liked her new step-father because she named her last living child, Palmer Hall Langdon. 

It states in the Bowler genealogy, that Nancy's marriage (in 1865) to Capt. Palmer Hall was "unusually happy" and that they led a busy life of social parties at India Point and that they traveled a lot. (I have found India Point. It is amazing.)

In 1904, the genealogy states that Nancy's daughter, Harriet Smith Langdon lived in the house on India Point.  She died in Illinois in 1916. The house "at India Point" then inherited by Harriet's daughter Carolyn Belle Langdon.

The son Albert, never married and was interesting in all "sporting matters", traveled abroad and went to the California gold fields!

The Bowler genealogy gives us a good description of Nancy's character and temperament which is quite rare in these complied genealogies of the time period. It is do interesting that it kept me going to find out more!

1 comment:

Colleen G. Brown Pasquale said...

always wonder: who gets buried by the husband: the first or second wife or both?