WM. T.—BOWMAN BROS.—JAS. M.
Their first joint appearance was in a black-face specialty at West Point, Ky., in 1896; they then separated and played various individual engagements until 1902, when they joined the “Sandy Bottom” Company; with this troupe “Bill” Bowman did a minister, and “Jim” Bowman did a rube, which was not the right thing to do exactly; there is some excuse for “doing” a rube; but a minister—never.
That same year they joined the stock at the Orpheum Theatre in Chicago, and in 1903 were with Miss Grace George in “Pretty Peggy.”
Subsequently they did a black-face act with that “youth” Jack Sheehan; he of the “Four Planets,” likewise of the “Four-in-Hand.”
Other legitimate engagements were the “Runaways,” and their own production of the “Isle of Mirth.”
The seasons of 1907-08-09 were spent with Bob Manchester’s “Cracker Jacks” Company, where they resumed playing in black-face, and in which they still continue.
July 31, 1909, they made their first appearance jointly with a minstrel company, when they opened at Union Hill, N. J., with Eddie Leonard’s Minstrels; Wm. Bowman playing on one end, and James Bowman officiating as interlocutor; and seldom in latter-day minstrelsy have these positions been more ably filled.
James Bowman played individual engagements with Harry Ward’s Minstrels in 1900-01; with Robert Loraine in “The Tragedy at Trenton” in 1904 and Wm. A. Brady’s “Siberia” in New York in 1905.
Wm. T. Bowman played individual engagements with Wm. A. Brady’s all-star cast of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in New York in 1904, and that same year appeared with Wm. Morris in the “Business Man,” and Joe Welch in “Cohen’s Luck.”