https://www.google.ie/maps/place/Xalapa,+Ver.,+Mexico/@19.5354278,-96.9100715,13z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x85db321ca1f225d9:0x584837bc4340a47c
‘At Zalapa (Xalapa), Mexico, 12th March [Fri.], George O’Gorman, Esq. Chief Commissioner of the Tialpuxahua Company, to Elizabeth Barry, daughter of the late Richard Barry, Esq., of Cork.’ Death of Richard Bowden, his former secretary From Yellow Fever, founder of St. Patrick’s Society, Mexico City.
Cork Constitution c 3rd June 1830.
Courtesy: Paschal McDonnell
Bowden, Richard, Esq. [Cork] city, Britannic Majesty‘s Vice-Consul, Tampico,
Mexico
In August last, [1827], at Tampico, Richard Bowden, Esq. his Britannic Majesty‘s
Vice-Consul for that por, he ventured forth into a foreign country, destitute of
friends or money, or the ordinary means of obtaining them ; and in less than four
years, he elevated himself to a degree of respectability, competence and usefulness, to
which it is the lot of few, at any period of life, to attain. A native of Ireland, (the
nephew of Messrs. Ronayne Brothers, of the City of Cork, and was by his Mother‘s
side the relative of many of the oldest families in the South of Ireland) he
accompanied his mother, and other relatives to this city, where, however, neither he
nor they, succeeded in winning back the smiles of fortune, and in 1823 he took his
departure from this city for Mexico-a country, in which his hopes pictured a wide
field for commercial enterprise. At this period he was twenty-three years of age. In
Mexico he introduced himself, to his Britannic Majesty‘s Consul-General, Mr.
O‘Gorman, an incomparable man, who employed him as his Secretary. While in this
situation, Mr. Bowden wrote a Treatise, on the Resources and Trade of Mexico,
which attracted the attention, and admiration of men of thought and intellect. He was
recommended as a fit candidate for the office of Vice-Consul at Tampico to Mr.
Canning, who, with his well known disinterestedness and discrimination, appointed
him to that office without hesitation. This appointment, at once placing him in a
responsible and conspicuous situation, served to facilitate his commercial
speculations, and his sphere of usefulness was extended with active and beneficent
effect. But death arrested him in his career of promise, and it may be truly said,
from information which has reached us, that he fell victim to a refined sense of duty.
Though the yellow fever had nearly depopulated the district in which he resided, yet
he remained at his post ; two British men-of-War had arrived, together with a ship
consigned to him from the Real Del Monte Mining Company, and thus came
augmented inducements tempting him to remain in the midst of desolation, pestilence,
and death. The contagion reached him, and in a few days he was a corpse. In the
premature decease of Mr. Bowden, we have not only to lament the loss of an
inestimable young ; but we have to sympathise with an afflicted mother and her truly
interesting family, whose support and pride and hope he was. To his native country
Mr. Bowden was a friend as well as an ornament—he was the principal founder of the
St. Patrick‘s Society in the City of Mexico ; an association established for the relief of his indigent countrymen, and which has already accomplished much good.
New
York Paper, Dec.1. [1827]‘ CC (10/01/1828)
Boyce, John, Esq. Strand Crescent [now part of Iarnród Éireann Rail Yard
West Cork History 
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