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The Bowman House originally stood in northern Rockingham County, Virginia.  The oldest section of the house dates to 1773 and was built either by or for a naturalized German immigrant named Georg Baumann who purchased 260 acres of land in what was then Augusta County in 1772.  Baumann arrived in America in 1751, and lived in Berks County, Pennsylvania until the early 1770s when he relocated to Virginia with his son John.  Early in Georg Baumann's time in Virginia his name began to appear in official records as George Bowman.