This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Cowan, Newcomb, Williams Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/DMQ.2ACIB/771.1 Message Board Post: The full transcript of the biography of Harry Manney Cowan from "Who's Who in Kern County, 1939" (pub by Wilson & Peterson, 1940) COWAN, H. Manney. Parents, James W. and Jennie (Williams) Cowan. Born, Cowan, Tenn., Oct. 27, 1884. Married, Anita Pearl Newcomb, July 27, 1909. Educated, Elementary schools Franklin County and Hampton Spring Bluff Academy, Meredionville, Ala. Occupation: Shovel Operator Monolith Portland Cement Co., Monolith, Calif. From 1910 to 1922, he was a member, clerk and chairman, Shafter School District Board of Trustees. During this period, the school grew from one teacher to three. Since 1924, he has been a member Tehachapi Elementary School District Board of Trustees of which he was clerk in 1927 and chairman since 1930, thus giving twenty-eight years of school trustee service in Kern County. Member of the Board that started and will complete the building program establishing the present Tehachapi schoool plant on the unit plan. Work started in 1926. He was engaged in farming in the Kern Island district, 1905-06. In the Kern River oil fields with the Imperial, Associated, Sec. 6 ! Oil Companies, 1906-1910. Back in farming on Kern Island, 1920-1923. He came to Tehachapi, 1923, and became connected with the Monolith Portland Cement Co., and has been a Shovel Operator since 1936. Member: Tehachapi Lodge No. 313, F. & A. M.; Tehachapi Grange, charter member and member executive committee; Federal Credit Union of the Farm Credit Administration, Kern County; Tehachapi Local No. 52, Cement Workers Union, of which he served as Guide. He is a past member of Oil Workers Union No. 92, Bakersfield. He came to Kern County in 1905. Recreations: Farming, hunting, fishing. Address: 129 East D street, Tehachapi, Calif. NOTE: See also bio for NEWCOMB, Anita Pearl -- her bio indicates his first name was Harry. I am not related to this family and have no other information about them. I'm just making the most of a $2.00 buy on eBay... If this helps you, please "pay it forward" by helping another researcher. Colleen Kayter

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: cowan Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/DMQ.2ACIB/777 Message Board Post: Was hiking recently in the mountains of Arizona and came across the grave of an old miner with the name David D. Cowan on it. 1843 to 1926. It was in a very isolated area miles from any road. Does he belong to anyone here?

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Cowan, Cohen, Simmons Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/DMQ.2ACIB/776 Message Board Post: Looking for parents of Henry Cohen who was b. abt. 1841 in Rutherford Co., TN. He m. Mary Simmons 25 Oct 1872 in Chattooga Co., GA and had these children: William Thomas Cohen b. 25 Dec 1874, Charles Columbus Cohen b. 20 Oct 1872, Sarah Cohen b. abt. 1876, Elizabeth b. abt. 1879, there may have been a child named Florence, Susan b. abt. 1887, James b. abt. 1882, David Lee b. 5 Aug 1888 in Summerville, GA. David worked for J. B. Hutchins in Summerville. Henry d. 1903 in Walker Co., GA and is bur. in an unmarked grave at Mt. Olive Church on Lookout Mountain. There is a possibility that our Henry was the nine year old boy listed with Varner D. Cowan and Susan Johns in Murfreesboro, Rutherford Co., TN census for 1850. Other children in the home were Joseph, Thomas, Sarah, Maria, Margaret “Mag”, Mary, William, Henry H.- this might be our Henry, Idella, Alice, William and Robert. The last two boys were in their middle teens and born in AL, possibly a relative’s children. There is a Henry H. listed in Varner D. Cowan's inventory on record in Book 26, pg. 21 of Rutherford Co., TN's record book. If you have any information on anyone listed here, please feel free to contact me. I would love to make this connection. Thank you for any assistance.

\Cow"an\ (kou"an), n. [Cf. OF. couillon a coward, a cullion.] One who works as a mason without having served a regular apprenticeship. [Scot.] Note: Among Freemasons, it is a cant term for pretender, interloper. Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. Sherry Bob Merritt [email protected]

cowan \Cow"an\ (kou"an), n. [Cf. OF. couillon a coward, a cullion.] One who works as a mason without having served a regular apprenticeship. [Scot.] Note: Among Freemasons, it is a cant term for pretender, interloper. Sherry Bob Merritt [email protected]

[email protected] wrote: > > As any Master Mason knows the Master of the Lodge cannot commence his > activities and call the lodge to order until the facility is properly tiled > by the tyler who must report to the Master that the Lodge is secure against > cowans and evesdroppers. > > Now I can understand why that august fraternity would want to keep away > evesdroppers who have no business or need to know the Masonic work, but why > cowans? Are we so closely knit as a family that knowledge of masonry would > only cement our bonds to an impenatrable degree? <snip> My great-grandfather Cowan WAS a Master Mason, so this line must have puzzled or amused him. I did ask about this use of the term 'cowan' in some groups where it was used, and found that it meant 'outsider' or 'non-member/non-enlightened one'. I never was able to run down an etymology -- anybody have access to an Oxford Dictionary of the English Language? My own guess is that it has something to do with the meaning of 'cowan' as a builder of stone walls around fields. Thanks for raising the question, jc. Valorie Cowan Zimmerman

As any Master Mason knows the Master of the Lodge cannot commence his activities and call the lodge to order until the facility is properly tiled by the tyler who must report to the Master that the Lodge is secure against cowans and evesdroppers. Now I can understand why that august fraternity would want to keep away evesdroppers who have no business or need to know the Masonic work, but why cowans? Are we so closely knit as a family that knowledge of masonry would only cement our bonds to an impenatrable degree? Remember that dramatic tale of the messenger racing to the church service to announce that word had been heard that Mary Cowan had escaped the Indian's grasp, and shouted out, is Major so and so here, or any man named Cowan? Get it, not John Cowan, not Samuel, not William, but ANY man named Cowan. That is our legacy, our pride and our honor. These days $24 will get you a good book or a better bottle of whiskey. A whiskey bottle can teach you a lot. Black Bush for instance. It is the "world's oldest whiskey distillery," with an original grant to distil dating from 1608. Now that is before Jamestown, friends. Before the King James Version. Black Bush is a product of Ireland, the north of Ireland, from where most of our grandaddy's and grandma's grandaddys and grandmas hailed. It is also where our kin learned the ancient art of distilling illicit whiskey. There is a picture of one of the olde timey pots on the Black Bush bottle. They called the whiskey "poteen," meaning little pot, because they could distil small amounts of whiskey in it. This is the mountain dew, that which fired the bellys of the Fayette County boys in Pennsylvania in the Whiskey Rebellion and smoked the morning valleys of the Appalachians from West Virginia to Georgia. So there is a story on the whiskey bottle, but it's a pale story beside a book that will give fire and drive to your life, and answer the world's greatest riddle, "Where do YOU come from? I am reading one of these books, "Donegal: History and Society," Geography Publications, Dublin, 1995. It has essays like, "Plantation in Donegal," "British Settler Society in Donegal c. 1625 to 1685," "Derry's Backyard: The Barony of Inishowen." That three out of twenty-eight. These essays get my Irish up. The writers have done their homework. They have gone to the original sources, the land records, the estate accounts, the unpublished manuscripts, the out of print forgotten records. They are scholars, and they tell it like it is. Robert Cowan recently wrote about the Laggan and Inishowen. The laggan is what the highlanders in Inishowen called the lowlands. What is new in these essays and what strikes me so much as important and new is this: The entire Inishowen penisula was granted by King James to one man, Sir Arthur Chichester for his service to the crown in the Irish wars in the 1590's. We have had the Muster Roll of Donegal from 1630 in which there are three Cowans listed among his men. That's old news. The new information is that Chichester granted long term leases to his men, 200 acres to officers, smaller grants to the regular men. Read the history of the Plantation in Ireland. You will never come across that information. The Chichester records are in the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland. His heirs became the Lords Donegal. They resided in Belfast. We must haste to seek those records out. How, we ask, how did our ancestors finance their voyages to America? They were not servants, they came as free men. This is the source that financed the emigration of the Ulster Scots from Ireland in the early 1700's. They held leases that had been in the family for 70 years or so, which they sold, they sold in mass and came, wave after wave in the first decades of the 1700'.s from Derry, from Portrush, from Killybegs and Coleraine, all the North of Ireland ports. The second major new hunk of information is that for each planned settlement, five plots of three to five acres each were designated to be held by merchants and craftsmen. Here was a another source of potential funds for emigrants. They sold their shops and wares and re-established themselves in these trades on the North American shores. Immediately abutting Inishowen to the south was the Laggan, the main parish of which was Raphoe. Raphoe was the most densely settled area of the Laggan and the center of the richest farmlands. It is a matter of record, friends. The main center of trade in the Laggan was in St. Johnstown in Raphoe. There we find John Cowan, gent., who came from the backyard of Derry to it's leadership, as Alderman, as High Sheriff, as a leading merchant. And those old soldiers in Inishowen??? Man, they kept the fires hot under those pots. Inishowen... home of poteen, notorious for its whiskey fairs, licensed, of course, to none other that Sir Arthur Chichester. jcmaclay Cowan of Cowansville "I rowed with Knox."

>From Chapter 1 of Alexander Lecky's 1905 book, "The Laggan and its Presbyterianism we find the following description of the district know as the LAGGAN: "On looking at a map of the County Donegal, it will be seen that the north-eastern part of the county, which is the most northerly part of Ireland, is a peninsula washed on the eastern side by the waters of Lough Foyle and on the western by Lough Swilly. This is Inishowen, a mountainous and, to a large extent, a barren country. Immediately to the south of it is a fertile and comparatively flat country, lying between the river Foyle and the upper reaches of Lough Swilly, and extending in one direction from the City of Derry to Stranorlar, and in another from Lifford to Letterkenny. This is the district which in by-gone times was known under the name of THE LAGGAN, and formed the most productive and desireable portion of the ancient territory of Tyrconnell..." This is also where many of my ancestors and yours came from; Defenders of Derry during the great siege, the defining moment in Ulster Protestant history. To an Ulsterman the Siege of Londonderry is what the War Between the States is to an American. Shortly after this event great waves of Derrymen left for America, first settling in Pennsylvania and then moving down the Valley of Virginia and into the Carolinas. This genealogical connection between the families of those who fought at Derry and those who settled in Augusta/Rockbridge counties Virgina and the Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier (Carolina Cradle by Ramsey) eventually reaches a climax on a little mountain in North Carolina on October 7, 1780. This is the area of history that myself and fellow researcher John Giocoletti from Florida have always wanted to explore in detail. This June we will be travelling to Derry and Belfast for some extended research into the family histories of those names that appear both in the records of the Laggan and at King's Mountain. Lecky's two books, "The Laggan and its Presbyterianism," and "In the Days of the Laggan Presbytery," published in 1905 and 1908 Belfast, Davidson & McCormack, North Gate Works, are a must for anyone wanting to discover their Ulster roots. The books real value for the genealogist is in the Appendix which is divided into several parts, the most important being the following: "The following are the names of men who attended the meetings of the Laggan Presbytery between the years 1672 and 1700, as ruling elders or as commissioners, together with the names of the congregations which they represented. They were doubtless the leading men in the districts in which they lived..." These lists are by Parish and I will give a couple of examples: Taboyn: Matthew Lindsay, John Aikine, Alexander Houston, Robert Cowan, Archibald Alexander, Robert Scott, Wm. Mackie, Wm. Bell, Robert M'Clellan, Richard Armstrong, Richard Moore, John Kilgore, Wm. Inglis, John Gay, John Harvey, David Paterson, George Brown, Robert Moore, James Marshall, John Graham Raphoe: Joseph Henderson, Edward Hervies, William Mills, Michael Henderson, Robert Anderson, Patrick Bell, Robert Dick, Alexander Stuart, William Ramsay, James Laird, Robert Walker, John M'Clure, Robert Gray, John Sproul Londonderry: John Craig, William Cunningham, John Campsie, William Rodger, James Fisher, Horace Kennedy, James Wilson, William Macky, James Lennox, William Smith, John Cowan, Alexander Lecky, William Davidsson, James Wallace, George Henderson, others In addition to the ruling elders there is a list of people from the Hearth Money rolls of 1665 by Parish and TOWNLAND which places a person in an area sometimes as small as a few acres. These lists are important when comparing names with the early landowners of Augusta county or the Baptismal records of the the Rev. Craig at Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church or the early settlers of the Yadkin settlement in Rowan county, North Carolina. I will be willing to furnish copies of these two books for a limited time to researchers who want to explore their Ulster genealogy. Many of you purchased copies of Professor Hagy's thesis, "Castle's Woods; Frontier Virginia Settlement" and I have received numerous e-mails about the quality of that document. I believe these two books by Lecky are superior in the information contained and if you would like a copy please contact me privately at [email protected] for the details. Any information John and I discover specific to your surname will be posted on the appropriate list after our return from Ireland. I will provide a list of surnames that have "made the cut" so far, the requirements being that the family is found in Derry and also found at King's Mountain. Any suggestions for additional names will be considered as long as the request is substantiated with a reasonable amount of documentation. Regards, Robert Cowan 525 Harrogate Rd. Matthews, North Carolina 28105 Names on the list so far: Alexander, Anderson, Bell, Black, Blair, Brown, Buchanan, Campbell, Cowan, Craig, Cunningham, Denniston, Edmondson, Finley, Fleming, Gillespie, Graham, Hamilton, Houston, Irvin, Kilgore, King, Knox, Lindsay, McClure, Maxwell, Moffatt, Montgomery, Moore, Ramsay, Robinson, Russell, Scott, Steele, Stewart/Stuart, Thompson, Walker, Weir, Young spellings may vary John and I will stay in touch with the various lists as best we can. It will not be possible to remain of all the surname lists all the time for obvious reasons. Feel free to contact me at [email protected] if you have any suggestions or questions. This may make a nice book one day.

I found this in a 1909 Confederate Veteran magazine, Vol. 17, pg. 424. Dr. J.B. Cowan, chief surgeon of Forrest's Cavalry throughout the war and one of the best known men of the great Confederate organization, his appearance being of high distinction and his service in the medical association ever being active at Reunions, died in tullahoma, Tenn., July 24th, 1909. He had never missed a general Reunion until the last at Memphis. He had been in ill health for several months; but on the day of his death he was on the street with his youngest son, and remarked a little while before the end that he felt unusually well. A little later, however, he went into a drug store for some medicine; but the prescriptionist being busy, he went to another drug store, and ere he could be waited upon he fell on his face dead. Dr. Cowan was a graduate of the medical colleges of Philadelphia and New York, and had attained a high rank in his profession. When the war began, he took an important place in the confederate army. He was made chief surgeon of Chalmer's Regiment of Mississippi, and was later transferred to the command of N.B. Forrest, and under that notable chief served with distinction until the close of the war. He was on the staff of General Forrest nearly all the war, and he was the last survivor except Capt. John W. Morton, of Nashville, who was General forrest's chief of artillery. Dr. Cowan took part in all the big battles of that famous command, winning great distinction for daring while attending to the duties as surgeon. More of Dr. Cowan and Forrest's staff later. As "the bravest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring," Dr. Cowan was ever conspicious by his courtly bearing and his courtesy, which marked him as one of nature's nobility. He married Miss Lucy Robinson, and for fifty years lived with her in the holy ties of wedlock. He leaves his wife with seven children and many grandchildren, together with a large circle of friends, to mourn their loss. The funeral of Dr. Cowan was largly attended, quite a number of army officers and personal friends going from a distance-the veterans and a large number of Odd Fellows attending and officiating. A large number of the townspeople were present also to show their sorrow and esteem for the most distinguished man of that section. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church could seat but little more than half the attendants. Dr. Cowan was a loyal, devout member of that Church, while his father had been one of its eminent ministers for half a century or more. He was first cousin to General Forrest's wife, and was perhaps his most intimate friend for many years. Dr. Cowan was born in Lincoln County, and had resided in that section all of his life. DEO VINDICI Robert Cowan

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/DMQ.2ACIB/598.663.1.1 Message Board Post: Jodie-- Contact me I know all about Luther & Clara, Okemah, Ok. They are my Uncle and Aunt. Luther is my dads brother. Their chlidren Leonard, Clarence, Roy, Lula, Bessie, Clintice, Kenneth, Bonnie, Ira & Murl. [email protected]

Dear Chuck....I just realized I haven't sent you the postage yet for the package of Cowan stuff you sent to me. I am so sorry!!!!! I meant to do that the next day. I see the postage was $1.33 but how much for paper & your time? Thank you so much. Dear List...Did I tell you what I am trying to do? I am trying to track as many as I can from PA, TN, SC, NC, etc. from the Cowans of County Down & 'other sources' to see who came west in late 1700's & early 1800's to KY & IN before the rest of the west opened up. So many Johns, Williams, etc. I know a lot moved, later to TX, OK, MO, Iowa, & etc. but I feel if I can get some feel for the ones who started the early trails, we just might be able to sort out some of our ancestors. I feel like some of the DAR stuff is misleading some & as far as the LDS records...it is only as good as the correct info. that has been fed into it. Only a few Cowan lines are there to explore. Maybe we can contribute some of our too to further our roots. I know that my own line did not take time to write anything down & I have had to find them the down & dirty way....hitting courthouses, census, voting, & later the newspapers. My big problem is that even tho I am an excellent typist...I am computor illiterate & do not know the best way to type my findings so that others can go to it & benifit on their own searches. I have a fortune in all these things copied in my files & I want to share & meet some long lost cousins. I will be gone for a month to FL but am taking my laptop & hope to get a lot done. Also, I will check my e-mail every 3 days in case anyone wants to get ahold of me. Best regards, ...Carolyn Cowan from Greenfield, IN

[email protected] wrote: ... I > know that my own line did not take time to write anything down & I have had > to find them the down & dirty way....hitting courthouses, census, voting, & > later the newspapers. My big problem is that even tho I am an excellent > typist...I am computor illiterate & do not know the best way to type my > findings so that others can go to it & benifit on their own searches. <snip> I just want to urge anyone with "excellent typing skills" and a lot of information to put it up on a webpage. It is really simple and easy to just put data out there. The 4 pages I recently posted with the Cowans in Selkirkshire took only a few minutes per page. If you right-click on a page, you can see the 'source', which is the HTML coding and the data. Besides the <head> and <body> tags, these pages only use one other pair of tags, <pre> and </pre>, and a little bit of stuff in the footer, which you wouldn't have to have. They aren't pretty, but they load fast, all browsers can read them, and doing a quick page leaves one more time for research to do another! Typing up the info is the main thing, and then uploading the page. And telling people about it. :-) Valorie http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~valorie/cowan PS: If anybody needs any help getting Cowan information up on the web, I'll be glad to help.

Need information on: Palmyra Brown Cowan born 1830 married Joseph Ford Does anyone know this Cowan? "Marion Cowan, has a monument to his memory on the battlefield of Chattanooga." Will appreciate anything! Thanks again list, Linda

Hello list, Can anyone give me information on: Elijah COWAN and wife Prudence STOVALL? My Cowan line has always been my brick wall, I'm hoping Elijah and Prudence's son Marion proves to be my greatgrandfather. Any help will be very appreciated. Thanks list, Linda

I'm sure you have all heard that Soundex is only available for a few Southern states in the 1930 US Census. So, to narrow down the search, we will need to find our city ancestors and other relatives in old city directories and such. Once the street address is found, step 2 is locating the "E.D." - Enumeration District. In today's Ancestry Daily News, I found mention of an interesting site, in an article my Megan Smolenyak. The entire article is available here: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir.asp?sourceid=831&key=A529701 ONLINE FINDING AID Those of us with big city roots should all be grateful to Stephen P. Morse, Joel D. Weintraub, and David R. Kehs for the tool they've just launched at: http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/census/ Building on data transcribed by Weintraub, this site is called "Obtaining EDs for the 1930 Census in One Step (Large Cities)" and that's exactly what it helps you do for a number of major cities that weren't indexed in the M1931 microfilm series mentioned above. So now if your family resided in Jersey City or one of about one hundred other cities, your research just became a lot easier. Researchers with Ellis Island ancestors are already familiar with Morse's one-step tool to help search the Ellis Island database (http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/ellis/ellis.html), and luckily for us, he's at it again. As with his other tools, I strongly recommend that you read his Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), which will help you understand how to get the most from this site as well as what its limitations are. You'll also get a quick education in the 1930 census. Essentially, the site helps you determine the ED or EDs in which a given street was recorded. <snip> There is more good information about the release of the 1930 Census, and finding aids that will be available, at NARA: http://merrimack.nara.gov/genealogy/1930cen.html

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Cowan/Bohannan Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/DMQ.2ACIB/775 Message Board Post: Does anyone have anymore info. on these people? Thomas Miles Cowan b. 10-24-1839, in Iowa Married- Adeline A. Bohannan Adeline b. 12-8-1842, in Indiana I

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Cowan/Colville Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/DMQ.2ACIB/774 Message Board Post: My Robert Cowan b.1784 in Va. Married Elizabeth Colville 1808 in TN. She was b. 1793 in Tenn. Childrens names: John Gillespie b. 1827, Athens, Tenn. d. 1-6-1915 m. Elvira Hubbard b. 1829 in Tenn. Jane m. George Creager Laura Catherine m. George McGarrah Martha Ann m. Columbus Nail Larken Farrell m. Martha E. Stroud Walker S. m. Nancy Wilmoth Robert and Elizabeth are buried at Goad Springs Cem.,Benton Co., Ark. Most of his children & brother's family are buried here.

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/DMQ.2ACIB/773 Message Board Post: There is a name index on this site noting the people that have photos in the book and others mentioned in the book. It is a 1965 church history book for Shelbyville, which I think use to be part of NC. http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1707733622&r=0&t=0&showTutorial=0&ed=1015115054&indexURL=0&rd=1 Jamie

>I have been drawing a blank for literally YEARS on my gggrandmother >whose name was Grace Cowan. According to what little information I >do have, she was b in 1831, possibly in Aberdeen, Scotland. She m. >Eli Millard. I have no marriage date or place but I do know their >children were born in New York...probably in Ogdensburg, St Lawrence >County. Their first child, my ggrandmother (Lily A.) was b. >1860...she appears in the 1870 NY Census. She m. Harvey T. >McCarter who was b. in Lisbon, St Lawrence Co. I have yet to see >anyone on this Cowan list refer to St Lawrence Co! the City Clerk >in Ogdensburg could furnish only a birth certificate for my >grandother, Blanche Evaline. Any help would be much appreciated! >Lynne Welch [email protected] > > --

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/DMQ.2ACIB/762.1.1.1 Message Board Post: Thanks Janie, I will let you know if I am rich. Marge