Countelow M. Bowles (Bolivar County)
State House: 1870-1871
State Senate: 1872-1874, 1877-1878
Born: c. 1841 in Kanawha County, [West] Virginia
Died: May 10, 1880 in Cleveland, OH
Born in Kanawha, a county in present-day West Virginia, to mother Leonora Bowles. In 1846, Leonora married Thomas Boston McAfee in Cleveland, OH, and Countelow (or Contolo) is listed in their household in the 1850 and 1860 census.
Bowles served with Company A of the 38th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops, enlisting in Rochester, NY in the spring of 1865. He was promoted to Corporal in July of that year and discharged in 1866. His occupation is listed as cooper. He moved to Mississippi after the Civil War.
He returned to Cleveland in the late 1870s and worked as a schoolteacher until his death from tuberculosis in May 1880. He was buried in Cleveland’s Erie Street Cemetery.
Links:
Memorial on Find A Grave
This page was last updated on April 29, 2026.