It's just like Robert Cowan to select a Cowan from his Derry line as his favorite Ulster ancestor. Surely, a reasonable Cowan-kin with a knowledge of the facts of the matter would select from my line John Cowan of County Down as the favorite Ulster Cowan. My John Cowan certainly ruffled more feathers, having relocated from Scotland to settle in Sheepstown to the north of Newry "in 1637 in consequence of a duel," according to Ashworth P. Burke, FAMILY RECORDS. Only the scions of the better families resolved their differences by dueling in that distant century. No farther complaints have been recorded from the Cowan contestant. This swordplay seems not unlike the antics of John Cowane of Stirling in the late 1580s who was rebuked and reprimanded by the Stirling Council for "brandishing his wanger." In his maturity, by 1653, John Cowan had gained notoriety as an individual who, by his "known attachment to monarchial and Presbyterian principles, and by [his] station and influence" had become "most obnoxious" to the Cromwellian Parliament in Dublin, and designated for transportation to Munster. [Declaration by the Commissioners for the settling and securing the province of Ulster; dated at Carrickfergus, the 23rd of May 1653.] In the 1700's the Cowans of Newry were prominent merchants in the linen industry. Robert Cowan, advocate of Sir Robert Cowan as his favorite Ulster ancestor, is not alone in having a distinguished Cowan attend to the family line, for my fourth great uncle, Robert W. Cowan, is noted in the HISTORICAL CYCLOPEDIA OF INDIANA AND ARMSTRONG COUNTIES PENNSYLVANIA [Philadelphia, 1891], as stating that his "paternal grandfather, John Cowan, was born in county Down, Ireland, and settled in [1796] at Cowan's, Armstrong county." My Cowans, too, followed the mercantile tradition, by maintaining a country store along the railroad line, in the village named for them, Cowansville. Interestingly, my son, somewhat like a homing pigeon, now resides in Havertown, Pennsylvania, in Chester County, where Hugh Cowan of Co. Down, the first Down Cowan immigrant, settled in the 1720s. John Cowan Cowan of Cowansville My kids call me "Collect"