John did not receive his land scrip for his wife’s entitlement before they returned to Ameliasburgh in mid-1797. He submitted a second petition for land on behalf of his wife in York (Toronto, Ont.) on 3 July 1798. It was even more specific than the first. In his second petition, John identified his father-in-law as “Jacob Bowman of Stamford”. This second petition was read by the Land Board and his scrip for an additional 200 acres of land was granted on 5 July 1798.

Egerton Morden (1834-1911) was a grandson of John Morden’s. Egerton’s obituary indicated that the 19^th century 3^rd-generation Morden family was well aware of its Loyalist heritage. The obituary also included a terse reference to an 1880 book by Egerton Ryerson, the father of Ontario’s education system. A quick check of the reference revealed a 4-page letter written to Ryerson in 1861 by Elizabeth Spohn, a granddaughter of Jacob Bowman of Stamford through Eve Bowman’s brother Peter Bowman. It’s a good read, well worth a few minutes of your time. Word doc

2. Discovering and Tracing a Competing Claim

In 2002, Marjorie Van Damme completed her fourth volume on the Mordens of the Bay of Quinte.(cover) This volume was entitled “John Morden and Eve Bowman of Ameliasburgh and Their Eight Children”. On p. 17 she cited John Morden’s petition of 3 July 1798 claiming that Eve Bowman was the daughter of Jacob Bowman of Stamford. On p. 19, Van Damme wrote that she "believed" Eve Morden was the granddaughter of George Adam Bowman. Then, on p.20, she cited a 1977 book by Marylys Penrose entitled “Baumann/Bowman Families of the Mohawk, Susquehanna and Niagara Rivers”. This volume claimed that Eve Bowman, daughter of Jacob Bowman of Stamford, married Matthias Lampman of Ancaster. Van Damme ignored the evidence of John Morden’s 1798 petition, deferred to Penrose, and set the ancestry of John Morden’s wife as the grand-daughter of George Adam Bowman, Jacob Bowman’s brother.

Who was Matthias Lampman of Ancaster? “Imprints on the Sands of Time”, a Lampman family genealogy (cover), has been published in 5 editions beginning in 1939. The 5^th edition, published in 1997, p. 163 makes the claim that Matthias Lampman married Eve Bowman citing Maryly Penrose’s book. The earlier 1991 edition has no mention of his marriage.

We are left with the Penrose book (cover) as the most authoritative source for the Matthias Lampman marriage. Maryly Penrose was a well-respected genealogical researcher. She was the recipient of the Jacobus Award in 1978 for her 1977 book on the Bowman genealogy. This award is given annually by the American Society of Genealogists “to encourage sound scholarship in genealogical writing”.

Penrose states (p. 141) “Eve Bowman married Matthew Lampman, circa 1792, in the District of Niagara.” Her citation for this assertion is “Ancaster’s Heritage, A History of Ancaster Township”, p.17.

The Ancaster’s Heritage book (cover) was published in 1970 by the Ancaster Township Historical Society. Matthias Lampman settled in Ancaster Township.

The Ancaster volume (p.17) states: “Matthew Lampman (1761-1830) ..... married Eve Bowman, the sister of Abraham and Peter (Bowman)”. There is no source for the marriage offered in the Ancaster book nor is there any source offered for the wife of Matthias Lampman being the sister of Peter Bowman. There is no reference to a marriage date, so it is unclear where Penrose found her date of “circa 1792” for the marriage.