Bowie, James, & Rezin Pleasant Bowie | John Goodman & Co. v. James Bowie

Bowie, James, & Rezin Pleasant Bowie

Document signed by the Bowie brothers ("James Bowie," with paraph; "R P Bowie"), being a bond for $16,000 in the case of John Goodman & Co. v. James Bowie

Partially printed broadside document (355 x 210 mm, irregular) on paper, accomplished in a hurried hand, Adams County, Mississippi, 19 January 1831, also signed by Richard King, William King, and Henry Herrion, countersigned by Horace Gridley, sheriff of Adams County, all signatures against pre-printed seals, docketed on verso with the case name ("John Goodman & Co. vs. James Bowie") and the names of those pledging security; browned, marginal fraying, some short fold separations and marginal chipping. Framed and double-glazed.

A legal document bearing the very rare signature of frontiersman and Alamo defender James Bowie and the virtually unobtainable signature of his older brother, mercenary and inventor Rezin P. Bowie.

"Know all men by these presents, that we James Bowie Richard King William King Henry Herron [sic] & Rezin P. Bowie of Adams county, state of Mississippi, are held and firmly bound unto Horace Gridley, sheriff of said county, in the just and full sum of sixteen thousand dollars … to which payment well and truly made, we bind ourselves, our executors and administrators, jointly and severally, firmly by these presents. Sealed with our seals, and dated this 19th day of January 1831[.] The Condition of this Obligation is such, That if the above bounden James Bowie shall be and appear before the Judges of the state aforesaid, at a Circuit court, to be holden at the court house in and for the county aforesaid, on the third Monday in May next, to answer to Solomon John David Goodman — Abram R. Harris Merchants and lately partners in trade under the firm of John Goodman and Company in a plea of trespass on the case to their damage Eighteen Thousand dollars; and in case the said James Bowie shall be cast in the same suit he shall also pay and satisfy the cost and condemnation of the court, or render his body to prison in execution for the same, or on failure thereof, that the said Angus McNeill & Richard King shall do it for him then the above obligation will be void, otherwise to remain in full force and virtue. … I, Horace Gridley, sheriff of the county aforesaid, do hereby assign the above obligation and condition to John Goodman & Co their executors and administrators, to be sued for according to the statute in such case made and provided."

Angus McNeill was initially listed as one of Bowie's financial guarantors and he had originally signed this document. But his name was struck through at the heading of the document and from the docket, as was his signature. Through oversight, however, his name remained with that of Richard King as being responsible for serving Bowie's jail sentence, should one be mandated. McNeill, like the other guarantors, was acquainted with Bowie principally through land speculation.

Rare Book Hub cites just six letters and documents signed by James Bowie as having been sold since 1893 and has no listings at all for Rezin Bowie's signature.

The eponymous Bowie knife is popularly associated with James, and he did in fact wield one to deadly effect in the notorious Sandbar Fight of September 1827, when a formal duel on a large sandbar in the Mississippi River, a few miles north of Natchez, Mississippi, devolved into a bloody brawl, even though the principal combatants had resolved their duel with a handshake.

Rezin Bowie claimed to have invented the Bowie knife and he probably did play at least some role in its development. The name came to be applied to a number of close-combat sheathed edged weapons featuring a blade of five to twelve inches, a crossguard, and clip point.