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Belgians in the Civil War

Emigrants arrival

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BELGIANS IN AMERICA:    Biographies of Belgian settlers  

WILLIAM L. BOWEN, junior member of the firm of Bowen Bros., founders, at Hobart, was born in November, 1840, in Belgium, within thirty miles of the Waterloo battle-field. He is the youngest of four children born to Thomas and Mary (Griffis) Bowen, both natives of Wales. The elder Bowen was led to go to Belgium to found a blast furnace, the second one in that country, which now employs a immense number of men. Mr. Bowen lived with his father in Belgium until five years of age, when they returned to Wales, and he has been at foundry work more or less since his seventh year. He spent about six years as journeyman in England, after his nineteenth year, when he came to America, and settled in Pottsville[Schuykill Co.], Penn., where he remained until 1872. He then spent about six months in Chicago, and then moved to Hobart, but worked in Chicago for about three years. The brothers established their Hobart foundry in 1874. Mr. Bowen was a member of the Knights of Pythias and Odd Fellows in England, and his political opinions have always been Republican. He remains unmarried, and his parents are still living with him-seventy-six and seventy-eight years old respectively.

Source : (collective work) : Counties of Porter and Lake, Indiana : historical and biographical : illustrated; Chicago: F.A. Battey & Co.,, 1882, 770  pgs.