Date: September 12, 1820
Paper: Edwardsville Spectator

State of Illinois,
Madison County Cicuit Court.
To the Circuit Court of Madison County.

The undersigned, your humble petitioner, states, that on the twenty-second day of December last, in the county aforesaid, she was married to one Matthew C. Bowles, hoping and fondly expecting happiness from their matrimonial connection. But to her unutterable chagrin, the said Bowles, since their intermarriage as aforesaid, has been wasting and squandering the property that he acquired by his intermarriage with your petitioner; and he has taken from her, her bed, and left her destitute of property, and in necessitous circumstances, and threatens to take from her what every little property she has, or may have, and affirms that he married your petitioner for her property alone. Your petitioner further observes, that at the time of her intermarriage as aforesaid, she was in regard to property capable of living comfortably, and that he was then worth nothing. She says he has now left her, and she knows no where he is. She also states, that at the aforesid time of her intermarriage with the said Bowles, he, said Bowles, had then another wife living in Kentucky. Your petitioner therefore humbly prays this honorable court to decree her a divorce from the bands of matrimorny, entered into as aforesaid, with the said Bowles; and also make what other or further order or decree may seem meet in premises, And your petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

              her
POLLY (X) BOWLES.
             mark

Teste. Joseph Conway.


Date: October 24, 1820
Paper: Edwardsville Spectator

The People of the State of Illinois,
TO MATTHEW C. BOWLES

You are hereby commanded to be and appear before the Judge of our Madison Circuit Court, on the first day of the term of said court, to be held in the town of Edwardsville on the fourth Monday of October next, to answer the above libel for a divorce: otherwisw the same will be taken as confessed.

(SEAL) Witness Joseph Conway, clerk of said circuit, and seal of said court, at Edwardsville, this twenty-eighth day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty, and of the Independence of the United States the forty-fifth.

JOSEPH CONWAY, clerk
Aug. 29 -- 668tg