Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,857

This is the grave of David Bustill Bowser.

Born in 1820 in Philadelphia, Bowser grew up free. His family had fought for Black rights going back a couple of generations and his father owned a popular restaurant. So he was raised to continue that struggle, and indeed he would. Bowser was artistically minded and received training in it, particularly the printed arts. They made a living by painting signs and insignia. This could be for a wide variety of things–fraternal organizations, fire company signage, political stuff. This wasn’t just in the Black community. The Know-Nothing Party hired him to paint banners. The abolitionist Jacob White hired Bowser to paint his portrait. It took awhile for him to make a living as a painter. For awhile, in the 1840s, he worked as a barber, including on steamboats working the Mississippi River. But he eventually returned to Philadelphia and was able to make a living as a painter.

Bowser was also a deeply political man. He was highly involved in the battle to change the Pennsylvania constitution to allow Black men to vote in the 1850s. His home was an important stop on the Underground Railroad and that was really important because after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, Philadelphia was very much not safe for freed slaves. He got to know a lot of the nation’s leading abolitionists. That included John Brown and he painted the radical’s portrait in 1858, a year before the raid on Harpers Ferry.

For a lot of Black activists, the fraternal organization world was a big deal and so it was for Bowser. He was deeply involved in the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America. He was Grand Master for the Order in Philadelphia and a lot of what they did was engage in social programs for widows and orphans, the kind of necessary charity work in a nation that had no social safety net for white people, never mind Black people.

During the Civil War, Bowser was heavily involved in recruiting Black soldiers for the Union Army. This started even before the Emancipation Proclamation. People such as Bowser and Frederick Douglass not only anticipated the demand for Black soldiers but wanted to use their willingness to fight as a way to pressure the federal government to allow them to do so. This really mattered too, as in the end, even a lot of racists could be persuaded by the idea of Black soldiers getting shot instead of white soldiers.

Then, Bowser was the designer for the cool regiment flags of several Black regiments. Here is the one for the 3rd U.S. Colored Troops.

And here’s one for the 127th Regiment.

Those are some pretty super designs. I don’t have a picture for the 22nd Regiment, but it showed a Black soldier pointing his sword through a Confederate who then drops his own sword, so obviously I like it.

After the war, Bowser remained deeply involved in the struggle for Black rights. First, that meant working within the Odd Fellows. He worked with such Philadelphia Black leaders as Octavius Catto and William Forten to pass a civil rights bill in Pennsylvania banning segregation on public transport, which was successful. He led a group of Black Philadelphians who met with Ulysses Grant at the White House in 1872. He remained a leading figure in the Black community for the rest of his life. Mostly he had to support himself doing his commercial work in the Black community. He also painted for fun and a few of pictures are known today, including a portrait of Lincoln that hangs in a retirement home in Philadelphia. Occasionally, his art got noticed in various places, including one case of a notice all the way back in 1852 in the New York Herald, but very little of it survives.

Bowser died in 1900. He was 80 years old.

Unfortunately, the original Bowser battle flags, stored at West Point, were thrown away in the 1940s.

David Bustill Boswer is buried in Eden Cemetery, Collingdale, Pennsylvania.

If you would like this series to visit other Black painters, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Jean-Michel Basquiat is in Brooklyn and Alma Thomas is in Suitland, Maryland. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.