Biography:
Born in the late 1830s, Ms. Bowen may have been enslaved, although we find her free in the 1860 census. She is with her parents and siblings, living near New Market in Frederick County. Her father is a farmer, and she would have worked on the farm alongside her parents. Schools were not available for African Americans in antebellum Maryland, and she never lived to read or write.
Sometime in the 1860s, she married Mr. Isaac Ireland. She may have been his second wife, since two children in the household in 1870 were old to have been her natural-born children. (They were 11 and 9, and she was only 25. While it is certainly possible that they were her children, a third child — and infant — and no children born in the intervening years, suggests that Hannah and Isaac were wed in the late 1860s.) The couple lived in Westminster, and their two older children are enumerated has attending school.
In 1880, the family is still in Carroll County near Westminster. Mrs. Ireland is keeping house and has had additional children. Their older children are both working out.
By 1900, Mr. Ireland had passed away. Mrs. Ireland is living with her daughter and her family. The census records that four of her eight children are still living. That winter, she died unexpectedly, following a Republican party celebration in the city.
Mrs. Hannah Bowen Ireland is buried in an unmarked grave in Ellsworth Cemetery in Westminster, Maryland. Her husband is likely buried there as well, although we have yet to find records of his death and burial.
