M O W E R F A M I L Y N E W S L E T T E R

APRIL 1990

The month of March really rolled by and here we are into April. We have made some progress since our last newsletter. Tedi Jeen and I have visited the Family History Library in SLC twice since our last newsletter. On March 3rd, we spent the entire day working on the Mower line in Bedford, Pennsylvania.

On March 17th we made our 2nd visit to the FHL. Our purpose was to get more information on Bedford, Pa Mowers. We are trying to get information on Samuel Mower who we know had 12 children and was living there in 1820. I worked studying census records of 1830, 1840, and various family group sheets submitted by other researchers. TJ studied published Pa materials. We didn't have much luck with Samuel.

Towards 4:30 p.m. that day, after we had been there 9 hours, TJ and I were out of clues as to where to look for more information. She said that she was going to go look in the Pennsylvania book section and possibly find something. (The Penn. book section has thousands of volumes and is huge!). She wasn't gone 5 minutes and she came back with a rather remarkable story. As she walked down the isle of books, her eye caught a section that had many volumes all the same. All the volumes were the same color except one was a slightly different shade. She picked it out and checked the index. There in the back was the Revolutionary War reference to Andrew Mower! None of the other volumes were even indexed, but the one she picked out was. He served in the Northampton County Volunteers in Sept 1781 and was involved in the Sugar Loaf Massacre. He was a private.

This was an incredible find. Now that we had him pinpointed as to living in Pennsylvania in 1781, we had a good clue. We know in 1789 he was living in Maryland, so he must have moved sometime after the Revolutionary War was over.

I photocopied information from the Church International Genealogical Index for work done in Pennsylvania for Mowers, Maurers and similar names before I left the library. Upon getting home I began a study of these IGI names and located where an Andrew Maurer and wife Margaret had a daughter, Sarah, christened in Bucks Co. Pa. in 1781. I also found a listing of a Jacob christened in Bucks Co. in 1783 born to Andrew and Margaret. It looks like we may have runs on to pertinent information because in Andrew's Will in 1813, he mentions his daughter Sarah and son, Jacob.

There was also a listing for an Andrew Maurer being born in 1752 in Bucks Co. which may be his birth. Our records show he was born about 1755. This could be the breakthrough we have been hoping was coming. Keep your fingers crossed. I am passing that information on to the genealogist.

I received a nice packet of information this month from Jack Rasmussen, Aunt Audrey Mower Rassmussen's son. In the packet it listed the birth place of Henry Mower Senior as Shepherdstown, Frederick County, Maryland in 1798. That is new information to us. That may help us in learning more about the Mowers when they lived in Maryland. There was also a lot of information about Elizabeth Hall---the wife of Henry Mower Jr. Aunt Audrey got information on the parents of Elizabeth and other Hall relatives. That will prove very useful.

Thanks to all of you who are helping. See you next month. We are going over Easter to the FHL in SLC again.