John Bowie Sr. was born in Scotland in 1688 and died in Maryland in April 1759. He was the first of the Bowie family to arrive in colonial Maryland, emigrating from Scotland between 1705 and 1706 and settling near Nottingham, Prince George's County, Maryland on the Patuxent River. He and his wife, Mary Mulliken, established the colonial manor, Brookridge, near Nottingham after their marriage in 1707.