19 Facts About Rezin Bowie

Rezin Pleasant Bowie was a planter, inventor, and mercenary.

Rezin Bowie served three terms in the Louisiana House of Representatives.

Rezin Bowie lived with his wife and daughters on a plantation in Louisiana.

Rezin Bowie's father had been injured while fighting in the American Revolution, and, in 1782, married the young woman who had nursed him back to health.

The Rezin Bowie family moved to Lower Louisiana in 1802, settling on the Bushley Bayou in Rapides Parish.

The Rezin Bowie family moved again in 1809, settling on Bayou Teche in the now-American Territory of Orleans, before finding a permanent home in Opelousas, in St Landry Parish, in 1812.

Each of their homes had been on the frontier, and even as a small child Rezin Bowie was expected to help clear the land and plant crops.

Rezin Bowie converted to Roman Catholicism in 1814 and married Margaret Nevil in St Landry Catholic Church in Opelousas on September 15,1814.

The War of 1812 ended early in 1815, and the Rezin Bowie brothers arrived in New Orleans too late to participate in the fighting.

Rezin Bowie later joined the Avoyelles Battalion and was commissioned a captain of the Mounted Rifles in 1825, later becoming a colonel.

Rezin Bowie was going to skin his rabbit when he hit a bone, his hand slid down and badly cut his fingers.

James Rezin Bowie suffered several serious injuries, and was repeatedly shot and stabbed, but managed to pull his knife and use it to disembowel Wright, who died instantly.

Newspapers picked up the story, which became known as the Sandbar Fight, and Rezin Bowie's fighting prowess and his knife were described in detail.

Some claim that James Rezin Bowie designed it and others attribute the design to noted knifemakers of the time.

Rezin Bowie's grandchildren claimed that Bowie merely supervised his blacksmith who created the knife.

James Rezin Bowie moved to Texas in 1830 and became fascinated with the story of the "lost" Los Almagres Mine, said to be west of San Antonio near the ruin of Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba.

Rezin Bowie wanted the papers to help him in his land speculation dealings, but it is unknown whether he derived any benefit from them.

Rezin Bowie died in New Orleans on January 17,1841, leaving his wife and three daughters.

Rezin Bowie was originally buried in the San Gabriel Catholic Church cemetery, but in the 1850s his body was disinterred and reburied at St Joseph Catholic Cemetery in Port Gibson, Mississippi, the home of his daughter Elve.