After his marriage with Miss Catherine Mayberry, who descended from German ancestry, he settled in Dryden, Tompkins County, N.Y., where his family of nine children were born, as follows:  Mary, Sophia, Eliza Ann, Sarah, Nancy, Catherine, Kiturah D., James N. W. and John A.

Mary, the eldest daughter, married Elan Hackett of Dryden, N. Y.  Later they moved to Ohio and lived there.  They left a family of three or four sons.

Sophia, the second daughter, married John Thomas in Dryden and came to Bath about the time her parents did.  They finally purchased a farm at Coss Corners where she spent the rest of her life.  They had a family of four sons and one daughter as follows:  George, Orville, James, Albert and Parthenus.  She married a man by the name of Dewitt and died young, leaving no descendants.  The boys all married, had families of their own , and leave many descendants around Bath and vicinity by the name of Thomas.

Eliza Ann Was unmarried, died in 1842, and is buried in the old cemetery at Bath.

Sarah married Orren Ellis of Dryden, and later moved to the Bowlby district where they owned the Ellis home across from the Bowlby school house and lived there the rest of their lives.  They left many descendants among whom is a granddaughter, Mrs. Carrie Robinson of Bath.

Nancy was born in Dryden and married a man by the name of Henry Ferguson.  She lived her whole life at that place and died there.  She left no children.

Catherine married for her first husband Asa Cross and had three children, viz.: Jane, Eliza Ann and Mary.  The daughter Mary married Charles Dudley of Bath who held political jobs in Bath for many years.  After the death of Mr. Cross she married for her second husband Levi Snell of the town of Bath.  Both lived to a good old age and have been dead several years.

The youngest daughter, Kiturah Desdemona, married Cameron Caruthers in 1846 and lived in Bath on the Telegraph Road, where he built their home and lived many years.

James Newbold Wilson, the eldest son, married Miss Emily Aubert King of Bath on February 22, 1853, and lived almost their entire life on the Bowlby farm in Babcock Hollow.  They had two sons, George K. and James Hubbard.

Mr. Bowlby proved to be a very capable man in his day and that characteristic has descended to the present generations.  He was a shoemaker, carpenter and cabinet maker by trade and was an expert workman.  After several years he turned his attention to agriculture, and in the fall of 1837 he came here and purchased of George E. Guinnip a farm consisting of 125 acres.  This was originally a part of the Col. Williamson farm and was included in the Springfield Farm".  On this farm, near where the railroad is now, was once supposed to be a slave cemetery.  This supposition was strengthened when plowing the field some stones bearing inscriptions were unearthed.  Upon one of the stones was carved the name Eliza, and as history records the same name among Capt. Helm's slaves as being born March 10, 1805, this may be the same one.  Some of these stones were kept on this farm for many years but finally slipped away to unknown quarters.  There are several evidences that show that this farm was once a slave farm, such as the finding of wells, the growth of fruit trees, and the annual appearance of Poppy and asparagus beds in the fields.  It also shows where the houses stood in which the slaves lived during the time that slavery days existed in our town.

When Mr. Bowlby first came here in 1837 there was a log house on the farm and in it he lived for several years.  Later he built a small frame house and lived in that until the year 1856, when he erected the present house on nearly the same site, mostly from lumber cut from his farm.  A few years before his death he was badly gored by an infuriated bull, but partially recovered.  His death occurred September 13, 1862, at the age of 84 years.  His wife followed September 14, 1869, at the same age.  Both are buried in Grove cemetery in Bath.

Then the farm passed into the hands of his son, John A., who was born in Dryden, Tompkins County, N. Y., February 6, 1829.  He was the youngest of the family.  He grew up to be a man of great determination, upright in all his business relations, very active as a member of the Republican party, for several years was assessor of the town, and was respected by all who knew him.  He was the first assessor that carried the assessing of railroads to law and made the railroad companies pay taxes.  By that act the Bowlby District gained quite a percentage of taxes from the railroads.  He was an ardent lover of fine stock and especially interested in Devon cattle, of which he had many.  In his religious belief he was a Universalist, and in occupation he was a successful agriculturist.  He was a man who was positive in his likes and dislikes, and strong in his friendships and attachments.  On September 30, 1854, he married Miss Lydia R. Hunter of Bath, who parents were Orange County Dutch from Orange County, N. Y. and came to Bath about 1823.  The them four children were born, viz.:  Helen C., Frank H., John H. and Carrie L. The youngest daughter, Carrie, wife of Dexter M. White, now owns and occupies the old farm.  The story of a mud turtle which has been a resident on this farm for a great many years will be told.  When the sons of John A. Bowlby were small boys they caught a mud turtle and carved their initials on its back.  Several years after they had grown to manhood the same turtle was found, bearing the same initials and still residing on the same farm and near the same place where it was first found.  It had grown in age but not very much in size.

Another story which is deserving of space in this history will also be given:

About the year 1800, when Henry McElwee was in early manhood, the government offered an acre of land for each rod of ditch that anyone would dig to drain the land which was practically all a swamp on the present Wilkes, Bowlby and Walker farms.  Henry McElwee accepted the offer and dug 1000 rods beginning at the Conhocton River on the Walker farm and digging a ditch about five feet wide through the Bowlby farm and to a depression in the swamp on the Wilkes farm between their house and barn where he found the underground outlet of the present Williamson Lake, which since it formation and the building of the Williamson road, has silently wended its way underneath and known only to a few people. 

When Mr. McElwee found this outlet his ditch job was finish and he got his 1000 acres of land which he took from choice the Robie and McElwee farms just above the village of Savona.

Much credit is due Mr. McElwee for obtaining his land in that way.

Generations come and generations go, as the wheel of time rolls on.  In this particular case we are glad to say that the third generation of the Bowlby family still own the old home.  To them it is their old home; to them it is an ideal place; to them it is the dearest spot on earth where they all love to gather and chant "Home Sweet Home".  The family name itself has died out among the descendants of this district, but a monument to the name is left, which, no doubt, will remain for many years to come.  It is the Bowlby District, so named because the giver of the land for the erection of the school house in 1863 was John A. Bowlby.  Prior to that year the district was a part of the Babcock Hollow school district.

John A. Bowlby died in the family home on Jan 17, 1899, in his 70th year, and was buried in Grove cemetery in Bath.  His wife followed on March 25, 1908, in her 72 year.  She was a woman who was noted for her evenness of temper and one who had a vocabulary of kind words for everybody, no matter who or what they were.  She left a record of devotedness to her family, and to them her memory was ever green.  She was laid to rest by the side of her husband in Grove cemetery.

Helen C., familiarly called Ella, the eldest daughter of John A. and Lydia Hunter Bowlby, was born on the Bowlby farm July 16, 1855, and lived there all her life until the fall of 1908, when she moved to one of her own houses in Bath on East Morris Street.  She is remembered as not being a rugged type of person, but having a sunny disposition she loved to live and see others live.  She died July 15, 1919, at the age of 64, with a diabetic carbuncle on her back.  She was unmarried.

Frank H. Bowlby, like the rest of his father's family, was born on the Bowlby farm, and he paved his way to a very successful career.  He was one of the early teachers in this district.  He also taught on Mt. Washington and in Babcock Hollow, where the writer remembers him with a great deal of pleasure as one of her teachers when she was a little girl.  Later he took up the study of law in the office of the late William Rumsey of Bath.  After being admitted to the bar he associated himself with Martin W. Cook of Rochester, and later went into business for himself.  He graduated at Columbia College and was a classmate of Theodore R. Roosevelt.  He wrote four years for the Co-operative Co. of Rochester.  As a writer he quite distinguished himself preparing a book entitled, "Jurisprudence of Insanity".  He married Miss Julia Viance of Rochester and two children were born to them, viz.:  Helen M. and Frank Jr., who died in infancy. Frank H. Bowlby died October 20, 1911, in the city of Rochester from an apoplectic stroke at the age of 54.  His wife died 13 years previous.  Both are buried in Mt. Hope cemetery in Rochester.  The daughter Helen is the only survivor.  She married Herbert Grabb of Rochester, a cousin to the Rev. Carl Grabb of Painted Post.  They have three children, and for the past 17 years have been living in the sunny clime of California.

John, the second son and namesake of his father, John A. Bowlby, was born January 25, 1864, and died at his home on East William Street in Bath on May 9, 1925, after a long illness.  He acquired a good education, and in early life taught school a couple of years in the Bowlby District, but was not fond enough of the vocation "to keep at it".  He was one of the prominent men of our town.  He had been a successful farmer for many years but was forced to retire on account of ill health.  For many years he was a member of the Bath Presbyterian church, and in that belief he lived and died.  He was also a member of the Bath Masonic Order.  In politics he was a staunch Republican, and was very active in all local politics.  He served three terms as supervisor from the town of Bath and faithfully executed the duties devolved upon him.  To say the least he was a good supervisor, a good farmer, a good business man, a good citizen, very conservative, intelligent and level-headed, and to him "Honesty was the best policy".  In early life he married Miss Helene, daughter of the late Thomas Boileau of Savona, who survived him about six years.  They were the parents of two children, viz.:  Thomas B. and Margaret.

Thomas married Miss Thresa McQuinn of Buffalo and they have two children, Virginia and Thomas Jr.  Thomas Bowlby and family live in Elmira, where he has held the responsible position of County Clerk of Chemung County for three terms.

The daughter, Margaret, is the wife of Kennard Brookmire of New Canaan, Conn., who is a playwright with much experience.  Mrs. Brookmire is a graduate of "Old Haverling" and of Cornell University.   She was born Dec 13, 1902 - just seven years to the very day after her brother, which is a rather strange coincidence.  She has one little daughter, Anne Boileau Brookmire, about three years. old.

Carrie L., the youngest of the family, owns and occupies the old homestead.  She attended our district school, was a very apt student and later attended Haverling High School, where she graduated at the age of 15. On September 20, 1899, she married Dexter M. White of Fremont and four promising children blessed their union, viz.:  Lydia P., Erwin B., Helen C. and Chester R.

Lydia, like her mother, started on her education career in the Bowlby school house.  Then she attended "Old Haverling" and graduated in the class of 1915.  She was among the youngest that ever graduated from that school.  She won, for the highest Regents average, the Dr. L. D. Miller scholarship of $100.  A year later she attended the Cornell University and graduated there at the age of 20.  She then became a teacher and was a very successful one.  She taught two years at Middletown, N. Y., and two years at Hackensack, New Jersey.  She finally married Oscar Cooley, who is editor of a paper called "Co-operative Builder".  He is very prominent in the National Consumers Co-operative Association of America.  Little is known of that association here, but the middle west is full of it.  Mr. and Mrs. Cooley are now residents of Superior, Wisconsin.  They have one little son named Dexter H., for his grandfather. 

Erwin, the eldest son, resides at home.  He graduated at Haverling in the class of 1925, and then took a three-year course in Mechanical Engineering at the mechanics Institute in Rochester.  He is now employed at the glass works in Corning.  Formerly he worked there about three years as mechanical draughtsman, but is now one of the workers in the experimental division of making textiles.

Helen Celinda graduated at Haverling in 1925.  She also graduated at the Eaton Business Institute in New York City, and had three years in Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Later she got a job in the General Utilities in New York.  She is a very capable, wide-awake person and remained here for several years.  On November 2, 1931, she married Emerson Cooley, a brother to her brother-in-law Oscar Cooley.  They are now living at Basking Ridge, New Jersey, where he does advanced mathematics for the Prudential Life Insurance Co.

Chester, the youngest of the family, was born May 9, 1910.  He graduated at Haverling High School in the class of 1933.  He was somewhat handicapped by an illness in his younger days but bore it all with a smile and bravely kept on with his studies until he graduated.  He won the highest standing in science of anyone in his class.  He is now secretary for the Soil Conservation in Ithaca.  He is a young man of pleasing personality, wit, determination and integrity and has every promise for a brilliant future.