Mary Lincoln Stover 1796 - 1859 My 3rd Great Grandaunt

Daniel Stover Sr. home where Mary grew up

Mary Lincoln Stover was the second child of Daniel Stover Sr. and his wife Phoebe Ward. She was one of seven sisters of my third great grandfather, William Ward Stover. Mary was born on January 20, 1796 in what was then considered the Southwest Territory and today is part of Carter County, Tennessee.

When Mary was nineteen, she married John Teter Bowers on February 3, 1815[1]. John was also born in the Southwest Territory on January 27, 1792. He was the son of John Leonard Bowers and Rebecca Nave. John enlisted in the Tennessee militia on January 5, 1814 and was discharged on May 18, 1814. This was during the War of 1812. He served as a private with Captain Adam Winsel’s Company.

Pension application for War of 1812 service

Mary and John had ten children. They were Mary Lincoln Bowers born ca. 1815, Daniel Stover Bowers b. ca 1817, David B. Bowers b. 1820, William Carter Bowers b.1823, Teter Nave Bowers b.1826, Jemima Bowers b.1829, Rev. John Leonard Bowers b.1830, Christian Nave Bowers b.1836, Isaac Stover Bowers  b.1839 and Samuel Murray Stover Bowers b. ca. 1841.

In 1850 Mary appeared on the census for Carter County. She was fifty-four at the time and was living with John 58 and four of their children. The children were listed in this order on the census form: Christian 14, Isaac 11, and Murry 7, followed by John 19, Mary 21 and Isaac N. one month. Since their daughter Mary Lincoln Bower would have been 35 in 1850, I believe the Mary listed below their son John Leonard was his wife and the one-month-old Isaac N. was John L. and Mary’s son – John Teter and Mary L. Stover’s grandson.

John T. and Mary Bowers on the 1850 census

 John Tater was identified as a “Collier” in the occupation column whereas every other male aged 15 or older on the page was identified as a farmer. A collier is a coal miner.

According to Robert Nave, a Carter County historian, Mary and John were divorced  - a somewhat unusual occurrence for the time. Then on April 20, 1856, John Bowers married a second time to Mary Jane E. Crawley, the widow of Griffin Pearce. John T. Bowers and his wife Mary (Crawley) applied for a pension based on John’s service during the War of 1812. John died sometime before 1870 in Carter County.[2]

Bond for John's marriage to Mary Crawley

Most records suggest that Mary Lincoln Stover Bowers died in Elizabethton in Carter County in 1859 at the age of 64.

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[1] Tennessee US Marriage Records 1780-2002, TN State Library and Archives shows this marriage date as 3 Feb 1811. Other sources show 1814. The 1815 date comes from Robert Nave’s book on Teter Nave whom I trust.

[2] Dale Jenkins, a descendant of Solomon Hendrix Stover, one of Mary’s brothers, says John died after 1871 but Nave says before 1870.

John Bowers and Mary Lincoln Stover marriage record

John Bowers and Mary Pearce (Crawley) marriage record

David B. Bowers and his wife. Two of his brothers below

Sources for this Post: 1850 Census, Teter Nave East Tennessee Pioneer His Ancestors and Descendants bu Robert T. Nave and Margaret W. Hougland, War of 1812 Pension document, Carter marriage records, FamilySearch, Ancestry, Google, Watagau Historical Association,  a family history of Phoebe Ward, a page from the family bible of Daniel Stover Sr. (given to me by Robt. Nave), and correspondence with Dale Jenkins.