Bowton, Olive A. bio

Portrait and Biographical Album of Fulton County, Illinois: containing full page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county: together with portraits and biographies of all the presidents of the United States, and governors of the state; Biographical Pub. Co., Chicago, IL; 1890; page 475-476; Transcribed by Margaret Rose Whitehurst
Olive A. Bowton. "Our schools are the hope of our country," and no more fitting subject for representation in a Biographical Album can be found than one whose talents are given to promote the cause of education. Our subject is engaged in teaching and is using her most earnest efforts to elevate and enlighten the minds of those who are placed under her instruction. She was born in Orion Township, September 5, 1868, and is the fourth of the nine children who made up the family of John and Lizzie (Cox) Bowton. The other surviving members of the family circle are Fred, born September 15, 1865; Horatio, February 18, 1873; Algie, January 26, 1878; and Lillie L., August 26, 1880.
The father, John Bowton, was born in the city of New York, September 29, 1828, of English parents, Mark and Mary Bowton. While he was very young his parents removed to Dearborn County, Ind., where the old homestead still retains the Bowton name. Not many years after the removal Mark Bowton died, leaving five sons to support their widowed mother and themselves as best they could by such labor as was presented to them. During the gold fever of 1850 John Bowton and an older brother, James, went to California, enduring many hardships on their journey, at one time subsisting nine days upon tough beef alone, broiled without seasoning. The party was taken over an untried route by a guide, who was tempted by an offer of $1,000 to lay out a new way across the plains and mountain ranges to the great gold fields. At one place they were led to a summit, where their belongings had to be let down a seventy-five-foot descent with ropes.
Troubles do not come singly, and upon reaching California Mr. Bowton was caught in a freshet, which threw him into the inflammatory rheumatism. After his recovery he began mining, but his labor did not pay his expenses, and after sinking $500, he returned home in 1851 by way of the ocean and Isthmus. At his old home he set industriously to work to replenish his pocket book. In 1858 he came to Illinois, purchasing a farm of about two hundred acres, where he still resides. On New Year's Day, 1861, he married Lizzie, daughter of David and Mary (Hand) Cox. This lady was born in Orion Township, this county, December 14, 1838; and was four years old when the parents returned to their former home in Indiana. There Grandmother Cox died when her daughter Lizzie was twelve years old, leaving her little family to shift for themselves as best they could, the father being a happy-go easy man, who in his younger days spent much of his time hunting deer and other wild game with the Indians.
The following lines, written by Mrs. Lizzie Bowton, will give the reader an understanding of the situation:

"When at the age of twelve years old,
I gazed upon my mother cold,
Three sisters we and brothers five:
No one to guide our youthful lives.
Now worse than orphans left were we
For our father often took a spree.
And when a father's brain is wild
He little thinks of starving child.

So we scattered from the lonely hive.
We sisters three and brothers five.
Where are they now? I cannot say
For one is lost and strayed away,
And one has crossed the river deep
And is laid to rest in her long last sleep,
And one lives down in Fithina town
A soldier boy was he.

In battle's roar he was drenched with gore,
As he faced the battle wild,
No mother near to drop a tear
On her suffering, lonely child.

May God to the rest his mercy show,
Forgive and guide them where'er they go,
And when the storms of life are past
United be in Heaven at last.

Yet I know that God is kind,
And with the fire gold is refined.
This, dear reader, bear in mind.
A friend in Him you'll always find.

Owing to the unsettled state of the country the early education of Mrs. Bowton was somewhat limited, although she spent the winter of 1858 at the Presbyterian Union Seminary, in Danville. In 1860 she returned to this county to become an inmate of the home of her grandparents, Aaron and Margaret Hand, under whose careful instruction her mother had grown to womanhood with the most desirable qualities of character. Although reared principally under the religious teaching of the Methodist denomination she is identified with Christ's Church. She takes an active interest in all Christian work.
Aaron Hand, the grandfather of Mrs. Bowton, was born in Maryland in 1793, and died in this county March 7, 1873, at the age of eighty years. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, was honorably discharged, but would never accept of a pension, declaring his belief that it was not right for people who were able to live without it to accept Government aid. He was an old-line Whig, very firm in his belief, and a member of the Free-Will Baptist Church, strictly adhering to the Golden Rule. His daughter Mary, who became the wife of David Cox, was born in Ohio in 1814 and went with her parents to Indiana among the first settlers in their section of the State. When she was about six years old she barely escaped being carried away on an Indian pony by an old squaw who had become attached to her. The days of her childhood were trying times, the family often retiring with drunken Indians lying a short distance from the door, whom they dared not drive away for fear of offense. Mr. Hand named a town, Rockville, which was laid off on his farm in Parke County, Ind. Early in the '30s he removed to Fulton County, Ill., accompanied by his daughter and her husband, who afterward returned to the Hoosier State, as before mentioned.
The lady whose name initiates this sketch was reared in a home where honesty, truthfulness and industry were thoroughly instilled into her nature. Her family being of that substantial class which is equally removed from the rich and poor, she has been happy in comparative exemption from the temptations which are incident to both poverty and riches. She attended school in the country district from the age of seven to fifteen years, after which she spent nine months at the Canton High School. She still further advanced her education at Knox Academy, Galesburg, during two terms in 1887. While there the Christian spirit which had been formed by the close sympathy of a parent was fully developed, and she firmly resolved so to live as to be an accepted daughter of the Great King. She is a member of the Young Women's Christian Association, Woman's Auxiliary, and a promoter of the Christian cause.