Hello, My name is Robert Cowan and I am a member of several lists dealing with the Scotch-Irish in Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Recently I sent the following e-mail to my list members and have decided to include your list because of the importance of this thesis. If any of your ancestors ended up in the shenandoah Valley, southwest Virgina or east Tennessee this document will be of special interest to you. It is not copywrited and therefore part of the public domain however it is a very obscure document and I searched for years before finding an original copy. "I have recently obtained an original copy of the following thesis which was presented to the faculty of the Department of History, East Tennessee State University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts. It was published in June 1966 as follows: CASTLE'S WOODS: FRONTIER VIRGINIA SETTLEMENT, 1769-1799 by James Hagy This is one of the most fascinating bits of research I have ever read and it is an excellent research tool for anyone with Clinch River connections which is just about all of us. It is exceptional because of its extensive foot notes which reminds me of Carolina Cradle. There is one long passage which begins, "The first settlers apparently were William Snoddy, William Cowan, John Cowan, and Patrick Porter. Others soon followed. To some extent the settlement was a family affair......... The Cowans and Porters had moved from County down in Ireland to Pennsylvania about 1726..... it goes on and on and is the same story we have all heard many times over and always either attribute it to White or family legend. Sometimes we get so used to calling something undocumented or unsubstantiated because we forgot where the original source came from. At the end of this long paragraph, Hagy gives us a real clue and suggests we look at the following: M.B. Wood to Draper, August 23, 1883, Draper MS 4C27; William Russell to Governor Harrison, September 25, 1783, in William Palmer, Calendar of Virginia State Papers and other Manuscripts, from Jan 1, 1782, to Dec. 31, 1784, p. 532, and Thomas W Carter to Draper, Draper MS 4C26 and other sources including Maxwell History and genealogy by Florence Houston and Laura Cowan Blaine. The Draper Manuscripts, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison are cataloged by letters and numbers the C being the papers of Daniel Boone. I am not talented enough to wiggle through all of Lyman Drapers papers but I bet Laura Cooper could find what is in these two Draper conversations. I would be willing to make copies ONE time for anyone who wants a copy of this 140 page thesis. I will have it hole punched and put in a three ring binder and ship it to you for $25.00. I repeat, I will make as many copies as necessary and I do recemmend this work as it is the best expression of life on the virginia frontier I have ever read, but I will only do it ONCE." This thesis is full of all those Indian battles that made Daniel Boone famous, in fact Boone is mentioned often in this work. Also, William Russell, Evan Shelby, the Montgomery's and many other famous names of our Revolutionary War . If you ever wanted to know how life was on the Virginia frontier before the settling of Kentucky this thesis is invaluable. I travel to the UK often and as a former director of the Irish Children's Summer Program have a special fondness for Belfast and all of Northern Ireland. I descend from John Cowan, Sheriff of Londonderry in 1695 and Defender during the Siege. If this thesis is of interest to you contact me at [email protected] You can even pay in punts or pounds as I am planning a trip to Derry this year. Regards, Robert Cowan 6th great grandson of Samuel Cowan, killed by Indians on the Clinch River 1776 525 Harrogate Rd. Matthews, North Carolina 28105