Scotch-Irish-L Archives
Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 2002-06 > 1025394659
From:
Subject: Re: [Scotch-Irish] Who is your favorite Ulster Scots or Scotch-Irish Ancestor?
Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 19:50:59 EDT
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"
This thread: