Few people realize that the family of James, or Jim, Bowie, who made the Bowie knife famous and later died at the Alamo, spent time in Southeast Missouri at the beginning of the 19th Century. Family stories state that James Bowie’s birth occurred in Logan County, Kentucky, April 10, 1796. Jim was the 9th of 10 children of Reason (or Rezin) and his wife Elve Ap-Catesby (Jones or Johns). His parents allegedly met when Rezin sustained a wound fighting in the Revolutionary War and Elve served as his nurse. The family initially lived in Georgia, then moved to Kentucky.
Rezin Bowie sold his Kentucky land in 1800, then moved to Upper Louisiana, Missouri. Rezin Bowie, Sr. had an older son David who settled in the same area of Tywappity Bottom in present-day Scott and Mississippi counties. Bowie led a group of Kentuckians to the region, and other family members in this group included his brothers Rhesa or Reece and John, his sister Elsie who married Moses Burnet, and another sister who lived with the unmarried Rhesa. Louis Houck in History of Missouri described the region that greeted these settlers: “The soil of this Tywappity Bottom is of wonderful fertility. It was then covered with great forests, interspersed with small prairies, numerous lakes (the remnants of former beds of the Ohio and Mississippi), and many sluggish streams called bayous flowed through it. Part of this bottom produced rushes eight feet high, so large and thick that it was difficult for a man to make his way among them.”
Rezin Bowie applied for and received two Spanish land grants. The first contained 300 arpens and lay in the main part of the bottom on the Mississippi River near his brother Rhesa and brother-in-law Moses Burnet. By 1802, he no longer farmed this land and had assigned power of attorney to Abraham Bird to sell it. The second one was 380 arpens and appears to be where Bowie and his family lived, on Fish Lake south of present-day Charleston.
Witnesses testifying to the board charged with confirming land grants after the Louisiana Purchase stated that Bowie arrived on Fish Lake in August 1800 and immediately began building a house, completing it, and sowed and harvested turnips. He obtained permission from New Madrid administrator Henry Peroux to settle on December 19, 1800, had the property surveyed on June 8, 1801, and deeded it to Charles Lucas on October 23, 1802. At the time he sold it, he had 50 acres cleared and cultivated and an orchard of about 800 or 900 fruit trees. The family included his wife and eight children.
The family moved on to Bushley Bayou to what became Rapides Parish, lower Louisiana, in 1802, then moved to Bayou Teche in 1809 and finally to Opelousas in 1812. So, after an auspicious start for the Kentucky settlers led by Rezin Bowie, Bowie and others moved on for unknown causes. His brother Rhesa stayed long enough to have his land grant confirmed. Fame for Rezin Bowie’s sons Rezin, Jr. and James would await exploits beyond Missouri.
And what about the famed Bowie knife? Jim’s older brother Rezin supposedly invented the knife. The knife became famous after Jim’s participation in the Sandbar Duel, more accurately a brawl, in 1827 on a Mississippi River island between Natchez, Mississippi, and Vidalia, Louisiana. There were similar knives in use before the Sandbar Fight by others and the name was used for many fixed-blade long knives.
