I pulled out one old folder from my old files. The following may be of interest. It is one of several biographies don on my g-g-grandfather in various “Who’s Who” type books. This one is particularly good as Judge Speers was a friend and fellow Mason with J. B. Cowan, and supposedly obtained much of his information directly from the good doctor. Much of this can be verified through other records. The genealogical information represents what Dr. Cowan believed, and is therefore no more accurate that his understanding was. It does, however, fit with a lot of what we know. I particularly like the wording of the last line and the fact that Mr. Speers added Dr. Cowan’s dimensions to the sketch. Jim Source: Speers, William S., ed. Sketches of Prominent Tennesseans. Nashville: Albert B. Tavel, 1888. JAMES BENJAMIN COWAN, M.D. TULLAHOMA. JAMES BENJAMIN COWAN, one of the most prominent surgeons and physicians in Tennessee, was born in Fayetteville, Tennessee, September 15, 1831. His grandfather, Maj. James Cowan, was a soldier in the Seminole and Creek wars; was with Jackson in 1812, and held a commission from the United States government for a number of years as commander of what was known as “Regulators,” engaged in keeping Indians off the frontier of Tennessee. He was a farmer, originally from Virginia, and came to Blount county, [sic] Tennessee. At the age of fifteen he was captured by the Cherokee Indians, kept prisoner a year, but managed to escape. At the same time of his capture his mother, nee Mary Walker, was also captured and carried to the northern lakes, kept a prisoner seven years, when she also made her escape. The Cowans are of Scotch-Irish descent. They emigrated to Ireland at an early day amid the difficulties in Scotland. They were Presbyterians, settled in Londonderry, Ireland, and from Londonderry emigrated to Virginia, before the Revolution, and are now scattered west and south. Dr. Cowan’s father, Samuel Montgomery Cowan, was born in Blount county, Tennessee, March 10, 1801, and moved with his father to Franklin county, [sic] Tennessee, in 1806, when that country was a wilderness, his father being the second man that moved into that county. At the death of his father, in 1815, he found that the support of the family devolved upon his exertions. He went to work upon the little farm left by his father and did support and take care of his widowed mother, four sisters and one brother, all younger than himself At eighteen he determined to educate himself, worked upon the farm, continued to support the family, and began a private course of study, and ultimately succeeded in acquiring a finished and classical education. In 1822 he entered the ministry of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, and became one of the most distinguished men of that denomination, both as a scholar and popular pulpit orator, and followed his vocation until age and declining health forced him to resign his mantle to others. Probably no man of his age was more popular or better known in Tennessee and adjoining States. [sic] He married, July 20, 1830, Miss Nancy Coker Clements, of Fayetteville, Tennessee, daughter of Maj. Benjamin Clements. She was born December 6, 1811. Her parents emigrated from South Carolina to Lincoln county, [sic] Tennessee, in the spring of 1811. Her mother, Sarah Brazil, was a daughter of Joel Brazil, of South Carolina. Her paternal grandfather, Maj. Reuben Clements, was of French Huguenot origin. Maj. Clements made an immense fortune surveying government lands in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. He made the first coast survey of Florida, in connection with his oldest son, Gen. Jesse B. Clements, who afterwards served as United States marshal under Presidents Polk, Pierce and Buchanan, and died in 1877, in Edgedfield, [sic] Tennessee. Dr. Cowan’s mother is a most remarkable lady, universally beloved for her purity of life, her good influence in society and her high Christian character. She has but one child, James Benjamin Cowan, subject of this sketch. In 1842 Dr. Cowan’s father removed from Fayetteville to Horn Lake, DeSoto county, [sic] Mississippi, and remained there on his plantation and in Memphis until 1851, when he returned to Fayetteville. Here it was that the young man Cowan began reading medicine, under the eminent Drs. William and Moses Bonner, which he continued eighteen months. He then entered, in 1852, the University Medical College of New York city, [sic] and graduated in March, 1855, under Profs. Valentine Mott, John W. Draper, Martin Paine, Alford C. Post, Gunning S. Bedford, William VanBuren, [sic] J. T. Metcalfe and Chancellor James Ferris. In the same year he graduated as so M.D. from Aylett’e Institute of Medicine, and from the faculty of the University Medical College of New York city [sic] he received a certificate of honor, in addition to his diploma. The reason of his lengthened medical course was that he spent eighteen months in taking a full course of clinical instruction in the New York city [sic] hospitals. Thus exceptionally equipped for his profession, he practiced two years at Meridianville, Madison county, [sic] Alabama, and next practiced at Memphis, and out on his plantation near that city, until the war broke out, when he went to Pensacola, Florida, with the first troops that volunteered from Mississippi for the Confederate army. On March 27, 1861, he was commissioned acting assistant surgeon, and assigned to duty with the Ninth Mississippi regiment, Col. Chalmers commanding, then at Pensacola. The latter part of November, 1861, he accepted a commission as surgeon in charge of Forrest’s cavalry battalion, then at Hopkinsville, Kentucky. In June, 1862, he was appointed chief surgeon of cavalry, and assigned to personal duty with Brig-Gen. N. B. Forrest, then organizing his brigade in East Tennessee, and remained on the staff of that cavalry chieftain until the close of the war. In January, 1865, he was promoted to medical director of Lieut.-Gen. Forrest’s cavalry corps, and surrendered as such at Gainesville, Alabama, May 12, 1865. For a more detailed war record of Dr. Cowan, the reader is referred to Dr. J. Berrien Lindsley’s Military Annals of Tennessee. He has the reputation among medical men of having performed more capital operations than almost any man in the service. After the war, finding himself prostrated in fortune and his family refugeeing [sic] at Marion, Alabama, he joined them at that place. The September following, having collected sufficient means to pay his way to Memphis, he returned to that city, where by the assistance of friends, he was enabled to open an office and resume the practice of his profession. The following fall he found himself enabled to return to Marion and move his family to Memphis, where be remained until the terrible cholera epidemic in 1866, when he was seized with that dreadful disease himself, and upon recovering from it found his general health utterly broken down. He then moved his family to Franklin county, [sic] Tennessee, and after several mouths’ recuperation, resumed the practice of medicine. In 1870 he received an invitation from friends at Selma, Alabama, to locate there. He found, after remaining there two years, that his family was completely at the mercy of the malarial influences of that low latitude, and that he would either have to take them back to the mountains or bury them. Therefore, in 1873, he abandoned bias lucrative practice at Selma and brought his family to Tullahoma, where they rapidly regained health. In 1877 he opened an office in Nashville, at the solicitation of his friends, and remained there seven months, until he saw a practice rapidly growing up around him with most encouraging prospects for the future. These brilliant prospects he laid down and returned to Tullahoma for the purpose of nursing and taking care of his invalid father, which he did with exemplary filial devotion, until his death, May 5, 1881, in his eighty-first year. Since then Dr. Cowan has continued to reside at Tullahoma, enjoying a large practice, and devoting his leisure to scientific researches. Dr. Cowan was married at Huntsville, Alabama, October 20, 1857, to Miss Lucy C. Robinson, who was born in Madison county, [sic] Alabama, October 5, 1883, daughter of James B. Robinson, a cotton planter and large slaveholder. Her mother, Frances Otey Robinson, now living with the daughter at Tullahoma, in her seventy-sixth year, is a cousin of Bishop Otey. She was horn in Bedford county, [sic] Virginia, May 19, 1810, daughter of Capt. Walter Otey, an officer in the war of 1812, and a prominent planter. Her mother, Mary Walton, was born in Roanoke county, [sic] Virginia, daughter of William Walton, who married a Miss Leftwich. Mrs. Cowan’s paternal grandfather, Littleberry Robinson, wan a native of Russell county, Virginia; a merchant in Virginia, but a planter in Alabama. He died in Madison county, [sic] Alabama. Mrs. Cowan was educated at Huntsville; is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, as are also most of her family. She is a lady of culture and accomplishments, the pride of her parents, a devout Christian, and has nobly filled her station in life. During the war she underwent all the privations of separation from her husband, and of refugeeing, [sic] without a murmur. By his marriage with Miss Robinson Dr. Cowan has seven children: (1). James M.., born September 3, 1858; now in the insurance business at Cincinnati; is a Knight Templar, and is noted for his piety, steady habits and fine talents. (2). Mary Lou Coker, born October 19, 1859; graduated at the Cumberland Female College, McMinnville, and is now a member of the faculty of Tullahoma Female Seminary, (3). Otey Clements, born August 18, 1861. (4). Lilly Forrest, born November 1, 1863; married Robert Johnson November 20, 1883. (5). Presley Strange, born May 9, 1867. (6). Minnie Horton, born April 1, 1869. (7). Fannie Robinson, born January 27, 1871. In 1851 Dr. Cowan was made a Mason in Fayetteville, Tennessee, and took the Chapter and Council degrees in 1854; the former at Columbus, Mississippi, and the latter at Verona, Mississippi. He was made an Odd Fellow in 1855, at Huntsville, Alabama. He is also a member of the Knights of Honor, Knights of Pythias, and of the Independent Order of Red Men, and in all of these orders is a past officer. In politics be is a Democrat, holding his faith as an inheritance from his grandfathers down, but has never held office, being wedded to his profession as a science. His motto in life has been to do right, act honorably with all men, and let principle be the foundation of all his actions, with thoroughness in qualification for every duty. He is, when occasion calls forth his animation, among the most earnest and impressive orators of the State. Social and convivial in his temperament, he in liberal to a fault, impulsive, quick to resent an insult or an injury, and has always been a stickler for the ethics of his profession, preferring an honorable position among his professional brethren to the emoluments or esteem of the world. He is always ready to lend a helping hand to young men in the profession, to lift them up and advance them to higher planes. He is six feet high, weighs two hundred pounds, and is in physique a fine specimen of Tennessee manhood. “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.” -- Edward Gibbon ____________________________________________________ Yahoo! Sports Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com