James S. Bowe was born in Washington County Virginia on July 4, 1834. He was the son of Joel and Nancy (Porter) Bowe. James married Millie Hatfield in Floyd County Kentucky, in 1857. Their children were: Martha J., William H., and two who died young- Elias and Elizabeth.

James enlisted at South Point, Ohio on October 23, 1862, as a private in Company A, 39th Kentucky. He was hospitalized at Louisa, for rheumatism. He took part in the battles at Mt. Sterling and Cynthiana, against General John Hunt Morgan's guerillas. After the war Bowe resided at Paintsville, where he was a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He departed his native Virginia and migrated northward down the Big Sandy Valley as a part of the "Great Migration" in the last summer and fall of 1861.

This information came from the Big Sandy Valley Heritage, a publication of the Big Sandy Valley Historical Society and was contributed by Edward R. Hazelett.