Booth, the Garretts and an Invitation to Tea

[L Verge]

Bowie is a very prominent name in Maryland history - especially Prince George's County history. Plantations, governors, all that other stuff related to wealth. Walter Bowie was of that Maryland family and is buried in the town that bears the Bowie name today. He was shot and killed not far from where Rick Smith lives today.

Looking at the other names in your last sentence makes me think that the Brockenbrough family is the connection. That family built what we now know as the Peyton House where Booth and Herold attempted to be taken in until Miss Sarah Peyton thought better of it. Champe Thornton was the owner of the ferry that crossed from Port Conway to Port Royal, and the Lightfoots were prominent citizens of Port Royal. The Sgt. Bowie may have had a father that came from the Bowies of Maryland. Maybe the fourth son who stood to inherit nothing and didn't choose to go into either the military or the priesthood -- which was the "line of succession" to the manor in England that was passed down to the early land grant holders in the colonies (at least south of the Mason-Dixon Line). Maybe one of the Bowies hopped across the Potomac from Southern Maryland the generation before and married a lovely Brockenbrough maiden. Sons' middle names often reflected their mother's maiden name.