The Vault at Pfaff'sAmos Bowman was born in Ontario, Canada in 1839. Bowman attended college in Ohio after his family moved to the United States. At just seventeen years old, Bowman traveled to New York City to continue his studies. While there, Bowman learned the skill of shorthand. He displayed such proficiency that he soon secured a position on the New York Tribune through Horace Greeley (Lythgoe). Bowman first appeared in the Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries in 1860. He became housemates with Gunn himself and James Willard Morris at 132 Bleecker Street. While Morris did not take to Bowman’s company, Gunn and Bowman remained acquaintances over the course of two years. Bowman was one of the few who saw Frank Cahill at Pfaff’s before he [Cahill] fled for England. Bowman’s last encounter with the Pfaffians came in 1862, the year Bowman moved to California.
He briefly held a journalistic position in Sacramento before he traveled to Germany to pursue a mining and civil engineering degree. While there, he continued his tenure with the New York Tribune as a European correspondent. Bowman had a prolific career as a surveyor and scientist upon returning to America. He led the California State Geological Survey for four to five years, and his work soon took him to the Pacific Northwest. Bowman believed that Washington state’s Fidalgo Island held “potential as a great port and terminus of the transcontinental railroad” (Anacortes Museum). Bowman built the area up and established the Anacortes Post Office on March 24, 1879, which he named for his wife, Annie Curtis Bowman (Anacortes Museum). Though the island was bypassed by the railroad boom, Bowman focused his energy on maintaining the Northwest Enterprise. Bowman launched the Enterprise as Fidalgo Island’s first newspaper. His family spent a great deal of time traveling until Bowman’s untimely death by a boat excursion illness in 1894 (Anacortes Museum).