Known for his famous "Bowie knife" and a sometimes reckless

adventurer, Jim Bowie is now immortalized as one of the

true folk heroes in early Texas.

Bowie was born near Terrapin Creek in Kentucky, probably on

April 10, 1796. While still very young, he moved with his family,

first to Missouri, then in 1802 to Louisiana, where he spent most

of his youth. It was there that he first acquired a reputation for

his bold and fearless disposition.

In 1827, Bowie participated in a bloody brawl near Natchez, Mississippi,

where several men were killed and Bowie was wounded. Rezin Bowie,

his brother, wrote he had the first Bowie Knife made at Avoyelles,

Louisiana, for his brother James to defend himself, and that James

used the Bowie knife in the sandbar duel.

After recovering from the wounds he received in the sanbar fight

the following year, he moved to Texas.

Although the records were destroyed by fire in 1850, he is recognized

as a member of Loge L'Humble Chaumiere (Humble Cottage Lodge)

No. 19 at Opelousas, Louisiana.

Bowie came to Texas in 1830 and settled in San Antonio,

where he married the beautiful Ursula Veramendi, daughter

of the Vice-Governor of Coahuila and Texas. With these connections

to the established aristocracy, Bowie became one of the most trusted

Americans in Texas. But just when the future seemed brightest, his wife

and two children died in the great cholera epidemic of 1833.

Before the revolution in Texas, Bowie took part in many adventures.

He spent considerable time cultivating friendships with Indians in his

search for elusive silver and gold reported to be hidden in the interior

of Texas. By some accounts, he is said to have found the fabled

San Saba mines, also known as the Bowie mines, near the geographic

center of present day Texas.

Bowie joined the struggle for Texas Independence at the siege

of Bexar, and accepted the command of the volunteers at the Alamo.

On February 2, 1836, he wrote, "we will rather die in these ditches

than give them up ...." True to his word, he chose to remain with the

defenders of the Alamo, although confined to his cot with pneumonia.

The British historian Thomas Carlyle said of Bowie, "By Hercules!

The man was greater than Caesar .... The Texans ought

to build him an altar."