Our cousins across the sea, as well as some of the branches in America, preserve the original spelling of the name. But for others of this family in America, it has undergone an interesting evolution. Behind this change lies a traditional story. John Dieter Bauman, son of Heinrich Bauman, Sr., wishing to educate his twelve children, hired school-masters from New England to teach them as well as the other boys and girls of the neighborhood. These school-masters, not possessing a knowledge of German, spelled the first syllable 'Bau' B-o-w 'Bow' pronouncing it 'bow' meaning to bend in salute. In time, others not versed in this foreign tongue, pronounced 'bow', bow (as if it were a bow and arrow). Therefore we find numerous Bowmans. We also find the name written Boughman and Boman, among several families in the far western part of the United States.
A German tradition relates that our ancestors were German Swiss. They migrated to Alsace and then to Prussia. Some of the ancestors were of great height - a characteristic of the Prussian nation and therefore further proof that the Bowmans came from that section. The Bowman power of dictation, aloofness, and stubborness also denotes that racial strain. These stalwart men inter-married with the artistic French and thrifty Swiss, finally settling in the Palatinate along the Rhine.
... I quote the following from Rev. Shadrach Laycock Bowman's history of the Bowman family published in 1876:
'The Christian name of the last of our ancestry that lived in Germany is not known to us. Something, however, of his character and position in society has been learned from our trans-Atlantic cousins who represented that he was a man of wealth, who built up a large village and founded a school; that he had many men in his employ to whom on occasion he issued letters which served as passports from province to province. In short, he appears to have exercised the rights and perogatives which once belonged to the old fuedal nobility, and in fact, the family coat of arms is said by heraldic authority to have been the grade of Earl....
Wendel Bauman landed in Philadelphia in 1709 and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He is the first of this family to come to America. Wilhelm Bauman came in 1710 settling in Germantown. Michael Bauman came in 1721, and went to Lancaster County. Six years passed and on October 2, 1727, the ship 'Adventurer' arrived in Philadelphia with three Baumans on board - Daniel, Jacob, and Hans Dieterick. Whether these were brothers or father and sons we have not been able to ascertain. Possibly some of them brought their families. The same month, October 16, Albrecht Bauman landed in Philadelphia. Probably they were cousins and all wished to be together in the new world. More than thirty thousand German, Swiss, and Dutch came to America from south Germany before the Revolutionary War. They were a war weary people. Peace and freedom to worship God in full accord with their own conscience in this new land had been guaranteed to them. According to records (Rupp's "Thirty Thousand Names of German, Swiss, etc. Immigrants") there were between the years of 1709 and 1773, FORTY-SEVEN BAUMANS who landed in Philadelpha and settled in Pennsylvania. Some came alone and some brought their families. Hans Dieterick, or Hans Dieter Bauman as he is more generally known, settled in Marlboro Township, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania where he owned a mill, 400 acres of farm land, and had merchandise to sell at his trading post...
Shadrach L. Bowman, author of the 'Bowman Annals' states, 'Although the relationship of all these Baumans is hard to trace, it is an interesting fact that from this original stock there have sprung in one generation three Bishops in the Church, in three different denominations, and all living at the same time: namely, Bishop Thomas Bowman, D.D. of the Evangelical Church, a resident of Allentown, Pennsylvania; Bishop Samuel Bowman, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, a resident of Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and Bishop Thomas Bowman, D.D., LL.D., of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a resident of St. Louis, Missouri.' There is also another bishop - Bishop Henry Bowman of the Mennonite Church.
He further states that the ancestral home of their family in America was in Bucks County where his ancester, Christopher Bauman, located. Hans Dieter Bauman, who came to America in 1727, located in Marlboro Township, Philadelphia County near this locality. It was the custom then, as it is now, when emigrants arrived in America to seek those of their own kin who had preceded them and located in the same vicinity. Bucks County adjoined Philadelphia County. There are no records to substantiate this relationship of cousin which is according to family tradition and was always recognized by the two bishops whose names were Thomas Bowman and the descendents of these two emmigrant Baumans - Christopher and Hans Dieterick Bauman...." pp. 15-18.
"Hans Dieter Bauman's family is of the same line of which the Reverend Shadrach Laycock Bowman writes in his account of "The Bowman Family" of which the Methodist Bishop Bowman was a member. Hans Dieter Bauman was already settled in what was then early Bucks County, after which they went West as the book states." p. 401.
From The Bowmans: A History of Hans Dieterick Bauman
and His Descendents,
by Augusta Dillman Thomas, 1934.