Ah the Somerset Bowers

Alexander G. Swasey Sr. has been the subject of much of my posts lately.  His father was Jarmathmel Bowers Swasey. That Bowers is the direction we go today...

His mother of course was a Bowers of Somerset, MA, married to Joseph Swasey (1714-1801)

She was daughter of Jonathan Bowers; he had been born in Cambridge, Charlestown, MA, but lived in Somerset, and he was one of the well to do founders of the town.

I will try to bring a you copy of the news article from 1905 from the Boston Sentinel, which scathingly speaks of Jonathan's rise to riches, and then speaks mainly about his youngest son and his adventures.

But Mary Bowers Swasey is mentioned in it as well.

Oh fiddlesticks...it's a huge PDF file, which I've been able to copy into WORD as an image, but it doesn't translate to jpg, so can't show the original newspaper to you here.  I would love to!  It's so fun of ads, and pictures of various Bowers' houses...I'll keep working on it.

Jonathan Bowers house, 616 Main St, Somerset, built 1723

And there was a quilt done of the various historic homes which includes this view of the house.

It's third down from the top, second column from right, if you can try to focus upon it.

Part of the original Bowers property is the grave yard, established in 1708.

 Mary is bottom of right hand column.

There are some wonderful original census reports of Somerset, which will give me a glimpse at how the Bowers and Swaseys were living close to each other...and perhaps I can guess at birth date for Mary.  I only know she appears in 1823 in the Boston directory as a resident of a boarding house, as widow of Joseph Swasey.