Hi folks, I found this doing other research and hope someone finds this in the archives some day. In any case, he was quite a man! The archetypal Ulsterman. His siblings did not emigrate so perhaps his family survives in Ireland. He was related to several prominant families: CLARK and CULBERTSON. I found it at the free resource http://digital.library.pitt.edu/ The Old and New Mongehela p, 42 contains the life of William Cohoun. A lot of his experiences are rather typical. He was born in Donegal, Ireland 4 miles from "Letter-Keeney" [Letterkenny] 10 Jun 1796, the son of Andrew who had been born, lived, and died in the house. Only William emigrated. He left in 1818, sailing from Londonderry on May 7 for Quebec. His destination was Chambersburg, PA. He had 2 uncles there who had built and operated a paper mill and a store, where he hoped to find employment. Since there were no large vessels sailing for Philly for 2 or 3 weeks, he took what was available, to Quebec, with 3 others, on a schooner. It's rather typical that he would take what was available. P 43. After six weeks they were caught in a storm and wrecked off Nantucket,where it lay upside down for 26 hours, the captain and sailors sticking to the rigging on the outside. Inside clung the little company of passengers. One was an old sailor who cut a plank from the bottom of the vessel, made all the passengers leave through the hole, which he then stuffed with bedding, cut the mast -- and the vessel uprighted. Everything on deck was washed overboard and lost along with sails and mast. They floated for a day and then were picked up and landed at Amboy, New Jersey. William lost everything. He'd brought over $2,400 worth of linen. By coming to Canada he would avoid high duty that he'd have had to pay in the USA. He could have sold the linen to finance the next leg of his trip. Oh well!! He got to his uncles where he learned that since most of the customers were "Dutch" (German speakers), he could not be employed as a clerk. He then rapidly went to a cousin WIlliam in Clarksville, Greene County, PA, where he worked in his store for 2 years. Then Samuel Clark, the town proprietor and his brother Robert Clark of Brownsville, sent him to New ORleans with a flat boat loaded with flour and whiskey. They left Millsborough in Feb. of 1821 and returned, coming up on the first steamboat to ever run on the lower Mississippi. ON her they got as far as Louisville, then took a small boat for Cincinatti. There the river was too low for a boat so they had to buy horses that they took by way of Zanesville. There Colhoun had a cousin in the person of the wife of the Rev Culbertson, a Presbyterian minister. They stayed a day. He returned and was employed in the small town of Washington as a clerk in the store of Alexander Reed.He married in 1823 Ruth Clark, the daughter of John and Hannah Clark. His health began to fail and he was advised to teach at a country school. He taught at a number of log schools and farmed part time in the summer. In 1844 he moved and took on a neglected farm, the Cook Farm, in Rostaver Township, Westmoreland Co. Much to the astonishment of all the softhanded school teacher transformed the farm in one season and was soon teaching the farmers how to farm. He was also a crack sportsman. Becoming restless again, he moved in 1849 to a 120 acres in Adams Township, Guernesy Co, Ohio that he bought. He died there June 24, 1871 of cancer of the face. He is described as tall and erect, maybe five feet ten inches, wearing a swallow tail coat, blue, and trimmed with brass buttons. His hair was dark and bushy 'with toilet not always up to fashion'. He did not drink but endlessly chewed tobacco (thus the cancer). He had 'by constant habit worn out the Irish brogue" and spoke an English "Emphatically correct". He was a fine penman and speller. No one bettered him at arithmetic. He was always a Democrat and refused all offices as the general result was 'to give trouble and make enemies". He had eight children: John, Maria, Jane, Rebecca, Ruth, Andrew, WIlliam and Elizabeth. LInda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net