Oden Bowie (November 10, 1826December 4, 1894), a member of the United States Democratic Party, was the 34th governor of the State of Maryland in the United States from 1869 to 1872.
Childhood
He was born in 1826 at Fairview Plantation in Collington, Maryland, the oldest son of Colonel William Duckett Bowie and Eliza Mary Oden.
Career
Military
In 1846 Bowie enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private at the outbreak of the Mexican–American War. He was promoted through the ranks, cited with "conspicuous bravery at Monterey" by Captain Taylor and eventually promoted to the rank of Captain by President James K. Polk, serving in the Voltigeur Regiment.
Politics
In 1849, he was elected to his first political office, as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, followed by the Maryland Senate from 1867 to 1869. On November 5, 1867, he became
the first governor of Maryland to be elected under the post-Civil War Maryland Constitution of 1867, and as such, he did not assume the office of governor until January 13, 1869. Bowie's term of governor ended on January 10, 1872, ending his career in politics. and also president of the
Baltimore City Passenger Railway in 1873.
Thoroughbred racing
Oden Bowie was an avid horseman who served for nineteen years as President of the Pimlico Jockey Club, and as President of the Maryland Jockey Club.
Slavery
Before the Civil War, Fairview had many slaves. Charles Branch Clark wrote in 1946 in the Maryland Historical Magazine that 70 of Bowie's slaves enlisted in the Union Army.
Family and private life
Bowie spent most of his life at Fairview Plantation. He married Alice Carter on December 3, 1851. She was the daughter of Charles H. Carter and Rosalie Eugenia Calvert Carter of Goodwood, Prince George's County. Alice's mother was a descendant of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore the first colonial proprietor of the Province of Maryland. His cousin was state delegate Reginald Bowie.
Death
Bowie died after a brief illness
Legacy
- The city of Bowie, Maryland, was founded as Huntington in 1870 at a junction of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad. The town was renamed Bowie in the 1880s after Governor Oden Bowie.
- Odenton, Maryland, began as a junction of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad and the Annapolis and Elk Ridge Railroad, named after Oden Bowie in 1872.
- A 1,800-home subdivision, Fairwood, was built on the land of Oden Bowie's thousand acre plantation, Fairview, in Prince George's County, Maryland. The Fairwood community, which was approximately 73% African American in 2015, was heavily impacted by the Subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–2008, despite its affluence. Bowie descendants lived in the large Federal-style plantation house until 2015.