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Surveyed for John Cowan, heirs, etc. 230 acres of land in Washington County, by virtue of a certificate (some kind of deed), lying on both sides of McKinney's Run (Cowan Creek), a south branch of Clinch River, and beginning at the foot of Copper Creek Ridge at a popular corner to William Cowan's land he now lives on and with the lines thereof etc. March 25, 1783.         We the Commissioners for the district of Washington and Montgomery Counties do certify that John Cowan, heir at law of Samuel Cowan deseased, is entitled to 284 acres of land by settlement in the year 1772, lying in Washington County on a branch known by the name of McKenney's Run, and adjoining William Cowan.  At witness our hands the 8th day of August 1781.  Teste James Reid, C.C. Jos. Cabell, Harry Innes, M. Cabell, Commission

On the same page in the Book of Surveys is an entry for John's uncle David Cowan's land.  This makes it likely that David Cowan had moved to Greene County Tennessee also.  Where the Cowans moved to was the part of Green County that became part of Knox County in 1792 and in 1795 became Blount County.  Many of the Scotch-Irish were moving to this area: the Cowans, Walkers, Houstons, Gillespies, McClungs, Weirs, etc.      On 18 November 1788, the following document was recorded in the new Russell County, Virginia, clearly a sale of the land Samuel Cowan had settled upon arriving in the Clinch Valley, the same land that had been surveyed in 1783:

THIS INDENTURE, made the eighteenth day of November in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, between James McKinney, of the County of Russell, in the State of Virginia of the one part and John Cowan, of Green County and state of North Carolina (Tennessee was still officially part of North Carolina at this time), of the other part witnesseth that the said John Cowan for and in consideration of the sum of sixty-six pounds of current money of Virginia to him in hand paid by the said James McKinney doth grant, bargain and sell unto the said James McKinney and his heirs a certain tract or parcel of land in the County of Russell containing two hundred and thirty-five acres by survey bearing date the twenty-fifth day of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, lying and being in the County of Russell, on both sides of McKinney's Run a short branch of Clinch River and bounded as followeth, to wit: Beginning at the foot of Copper Creek Ridge at a popular corner to William Cowan's land and with a line thereof north fifty-one degrees west one hundred fifty-three poles to a white oak and ash sappling on the east side of the ridge.  North thirty degrees east one hundred and fifty-five poles to a black oak and a white oak at the foot of a rocky ridge thence, leaving said line, North forty-seven degrees East, one hundred and forty-nine poles crossing the branch to two white oaks at the foot of a ridge South thirty-two degrees east forty poles to a black and white oak of the side of a ridge south forty-three degrees west forty-five poles to three white oak saplings on the west side of a ridge south Twenty-five degrees east eighty poles to a beech near a branch south four degrees west one hundred poles crossing the branch to a white oak and ridge at the foot of Copper Creek ridge and along thereon south forty four degrees west one hundred and twenty-six poles to the BEGINNING, together with all its appurtenances to have and to hold the said tract or parcel of land with its appurtenances unto the said James McKinney and his heirs to the sole use and behoof of him the said James McKinney and his heirs forever, and the said John Cowen for himself and his heirs doeth covenant with the said James McKinney and his heirs that the said John Cowan and his heirs the said land with the appurtenances unto the said James McKinney and his heirs against all persons what so ever will forever warrant and defend.  In Witness whereof the said John Cowen hath hereunto subscribed his name and affixed his seal the day and year above written.  John Cowen. (seal) At a Court held for Russell County the 18th day of November 1788.  This indenture of Bargain and sale of land from John Cowen to James McKinney was acknowledged in court and ordered to be recorded.  Teste: Henry Dickenson, C. R. C. A Copy, Teste: E. R. Combs, Clerk Circuit Court, Russell County Virginia.

The next story extracted from "The Shadow of Chilhowee" by Dr. James Benjamin Cowan of Tullahoma, TN, James Benjamin Cowan's grandson, as written by P.D. Cowan.

John's mother resurfaced in a rather dramatic way about 1785.  A half-breed French-Indian and his Indian wife arrived at the Shawnee village where Ann was captive.  She convinced them to help her escape.  They buried her under a pile of furs in their canoe and headed to a French trading post somewhere in Kentucky.  Arriving at the trading post and knowing that the Indians would follow after discovering Ann's absence, the half-breed and the owner of the trading post, hid Ann in a small cellar under the trading post floor and sent a rider to seek help among Ann's people.       The rider rode day and night to what is now Blount County, Tennessee, where Ann somehow had learned that her Scotch-Irish community had moved.  The Blount County settlers were assembled outdoors at meeting (religious services) listening to a sermon.  He rode to a stump, which served as the podium, and called out, "Is there a man here named Russell, Major Russell? Or Colonel Walker or any man named Cowan?"      Major Russell Spke up. "I'm Major Russell. What is it you want?"      The rider spoke excitedly, "There is a woman at the French trading post making her escape.  Her name is Ann Cowan and the Indians are in pursuit to recapture her, and I am to come here and tell her friends to come quickly as possible to rescue her.  Within an hour, a well-provisioned army of one hundred men was on a forced march northward toward the trading post, among them Ann Cowan's sons.      It was dark when the small army reached the trading post.  The Indians had been loitering around the trading post asking questions about their missing slave and probably buying whisky at the post.  Hearing the approaching hoofbeats, the Indians fled as Major Russell and his men arrived.  And from the dark depths of the cellar, still in the dress of the Shawnees, Ann Cowan emerged and was reunited with her now grown sons.

In Deed Book 1, Page 44 refers to John being in Green County on the 10th of November, 1788      From the Book "American Militia in the Frontier Wars, 1790-1796", page 102, we learn that John Cowan served in Captain Hugh Beard's Company of Guards at the treaty on the Holston River near the mouth of the French Broad River, May 28 to July 11, 1791.      On September 24, 1799, in Deed Book 1, page 298, a transaction was recorded between John Cowan of knox County, Southwest Territory and James McKinney of Russell County.  It is probably a lease or a deed of sale.      On June 23, 1796, John Cowan II, his uncle William Cowan, and Robert Wood, were among the registered surveyors of the Powell Valley Tract in Southwest Virginia and Tennessee.  John was a newlywed at the time. (pg 66 Calendar of the Tennessee and King's Mountain Papers of the Draper Collection of manuscript, Wisconsin Historical Society Publications, Madison , WS, 1929)      John's mother had retreated to Rockbridge County after her captivity among the Indians.  On May 9, 1796, John paid a $150 marriage bond there to marry Margaret Weir, a daughter of James Weir of Rockbridge County.      William Gault Wear, Blount Co, Tennessee 11 Dec 1817- Eureka Springs Arkansas c. 1900 m. Cooper Co, Missouri, 02 Nov 1837; son of James Hutchenson Weir.      James Hutchenson Weir, Virginia, 30 Sep 1789 - Cooper Co Missouri April 1832, Knoxville Tennessee 27 October 1812

About 1800, many of the residents of Blount County were moving southwestward into the Sewannee Valley in what was to become Franklin County, Tennessee, Alabama State Line.  John's brother Jim moved there and John moved there briefly, but we are not sure when.  There was another John Cowan there, a cousin of our John's no doubt, so it is impossible to discern which of the records are our John Cowan.  The other John Cowan was elected as one of the first county commissioners of Franklin County in December of 11807.  The first court met at the home of Major William Russell, the man who had lived at Castle's Woods with the Cowans in Virginia, and then in Blount County with them. L ater in Franklin County, a town would spring up that would be named Cowan, Tennessee, named for a family member.      We know that John moved his family to Mercer County, Kentucky, about 1804.  In Beckwith's History of Montgomery County Indiana, in John's son's biography, it states that John lived in Tennessee for twenty years, so our dates are about correct here.  It was in Mercer County that John and Margaret's daughter Sally was born.  There were probably Cowan relatives already living in Mercer County.  Another John Cowan had taken the census of that county in 1777.  That john waslikely a brother to the subject John Cowan's father, Samuel Cowan.      About 1807, the Cowans moved again, to waht is now Charlestown, Clark County, Indiana.  John had purchased the land grant of one of George Rogers Clark's soldiers there.  The grant contained 8 acres in the settlement and 100 acres outside for farming.      Margaret Weir Cowan died about 1811, leaving John alone with their seven or more children.  It is believed that John turned over the care of Esther and an infant daughter, to Isaiah and Elizabeth Montier Cooper at this time.  This was a common occurence on the Frontier.  The men had to work and had no one to care for an infant.  Why Esther also was let go may have been because Esther was attached to Rachel Cooper, who was her own age, or perhaps because she was very attached to the baby.  This can only be speculation, but it was a common occurence.       Margaret may have already been dead when John served under General William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Tippicanoe on 07 November 1811, in Captain Charles Begg's Company of Light Dragoons of the Indiana Militia.  In this battle the Shawnees, fighting under the leadership of "The Prophet," brother of Tecumseh, were defeated.  Shortly thereafter, the War of 1812 began and the Indians allied themselves with the British.      On 01 April 1813, at Charlestown, Clark County, Indiana, John joined Captain James Bigger's company of mounted rangers who roamed throughout Indiana to prevent Indian attack.  The company was mostly made up of men from Clark County, but there were also about eleven men from Vallonia.  John's fifteen year old son, James Weir Cowan, also enlisted in the company.  Isaiah Cooper, whose son Enoch would one day marry John's daughter, Esther Cowan, was also a member.  Each ranger received a dollar a day and had to furnish his own horse, arms, provisions, and ammunition.  John and James were privates.  Their company was in the regiment of Colonel William Russell, the man who had commanded Fort Russell at Castle's Woods.  The soldiers were fighting against the famed Shawnee Indian Tecumseh and his allies.      Captain Bigger's company took part on June 11, 1813, in a deployment commanded by General Joseph  Bartholemew.  They attacked the Delawar Indians' upper towns on the west fork of the White River.  When the force reached the Indian towns, they found that they had mostly been destroyed already, probably by a company from White Water settlement.  They did find one band of Indians near Strawtown and surrounded them.  The indians were boiling deer heads in a large copper kettle.  The Indians fled with but one casualty to the whites: David Hays was wounded.  David Maxwell (one day to be John Cowan's brother-in-law) dressed Hays' wounds.  The patient was then carried on a horse litter to the mouth of Flat Rock, now Columbus, Indiana, where two canoes were made.  With a guard, Hays was sent back to his family in Vallonia, but he died shortly afterward from his wounds at the fort.  The captured Indian horses and kettle were sold to the highest bidder in the expedition.       John remained unmarried through most of the decade.  His daughter Mary Ann Cowan, about twelve when her mother died, probably assumed the househodl duties.  Mary Ann died in August of 1819, and this probably prompted John to remarry.  Four months later, on 30 December 1819 in Jefferson County Indiana, he married Anna Maxwell, 37, a spinster woman who was the sister of David Maxwell, who had served with John Cowan and Isaiah Cooper in the same company during the War of 1812.  Their marriage was performed by Rev. John McClung, who was a minister in the Reformed or Newlight Church.      Apparently John was feeling that it was time for some changes in his life.  Not only did he take a new wife, but, in 1820 soon after their marriage, he moved his family to the newly-created capital of Indiana, the village of Indianapolis.  They lived there about two years.  During that time a son, John Maxwell Cowan, was born on 06 December 1821.  Because Anna was along in years, this was to be John and her only child.      The following year, 1822, the Cowans moved to Montgomery County, Indiana.  There they purchased land 2 1/2 miles southwest of the town of Crawfordsville on Oldfield's Creek.  John was fifty-four at the time.  The land would have needed clearing.  John had two grown sons at home, Jim 23, and Walker 20.  The three men would have worked together to make a cabin and farm out of the virgin land.  Original land patent entries of Montgomery County show that on 04 july 1822, John purchased or claimed 80 acres that were the east one half of the southeast one quarter of Township 18, Section 11, Range 5.  It was patent #135496.      For the next ten years, John and Anna lived on this land, but in 1832 John became ill.  He was either visited or taken to the home of his daughter Sarah "Sally" Cowan Maxwell in nearby Frankfort, in Clinton County.  Sally was married to Anna's nephew Samuel Dunn Maxwell.  John's son probably took care of the farm in his absence.  It was in Sally's home that John died on 17 Aug 1832, at the age of sixty-three.  He was buried in the Old Town Cemetery in Frankfurt.      By then, John's daughter, Esther Cowan, had married Enoch Cooper adn was living in Pike County, Illinois.  Only the previous month she had given birth to their first child, and Enoch was just returning from having served in the Black Hawk War.       Whether or not Esther had maintained contact with her natural father is lost to us.  She is  not mentioned in his will.      James Montgomery was the executor of John's will, which was filed for probate on 13 May 1833, in Montgomery County, Indiana.  It stated as follows:

In the name of God, Amen.  I, John Cowan, of Montgomery county of the State of Indiana, considering the frailty of my body and the uncertainty of this mortal life, and being of sound mind to make this my last will and testament, in the manner & form following, that is to say, I give & bequeath to my beloved wife Anna all of my personal property to have the use of while she lives single: after my death I also give & bequeath to my two sons, James W. Cowan and John M. Cowan, my land with all the apurtenances (sic) thereon & belonging; situate in Montgomery county & state above written to belong to them and their heirs forever, and at the death of either of them, if he died having no issue, then his part to descend to the other, and also that my beloved wife Anny is to have her part support off the plantation while she does live single, after my death, and at ther death all my personal property to descend (sic) to my two sons above named, each to possess an equal part; I also give and bequeath to my son Samuel W. Cowan, ten dollars to be paid to him in twelve months after my death; I also give & bequeath to my daughter Sally Maxwell ten dollars to be paid to her in twelve months after my death.  I hereby appoint James Montgomery of Parke county, and state aforesaid eecutor of this my last will and testament.  In witness whereof I do have here unto set my hand and seal this first day of november, in the year of our Lord 1828.  Signed, sealed, and delivered by the above named John Cowan to be his last will and testament in the presence of us who have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses in the presence of the testator. Michael Montgomery                                                                                                 James Cowan James Montgomery

This was an inventory filed 10 July 1833 of the personal property of John Cowan

1 sythe (sic) and findings 2 hoes 1 shovel 1 log chain 1 falling axe 1 iron wedge    horse geers 1 set brest chains 4 augers 1 pot rack 1 man saddle 1 side saddle 1 cory (?) plow 1 double tree 1 shovel plow 1 drawing knife & sundries 1 kettle & bales 10 kettle & hooks 1 sythe & cradle 1 old tea kettle 1 waffle iron 1 little skillet & lid 1 ovin & hooks 1 ovin (sic) and lid (probably a dutch oven) 1 smoothing iron 1 Bible Some old tine ware Shovel tongs and hand irons 1 set of hand irons 9 chairs 1 cotton wheel 1 check (?) reel cupboard furnature (sic) 1 table 1 umbrella 1 clock 1 old gray horse 1 Reep (?) hook 1 waggon (sic) 1 bed and furnature 1 ash bedsted bed & bedding 1 lot of books 1 candle stand 1 lot of hogs 2 cows & calves Total Amount One Note of hand on John Hughes And William Galloway for Total

2.00  .75  .37 4.50 1.50  .37 8.50 1.00 2.25 1.00 1.00 2.00 3.50  .75 1.00  .25 3.00 2.00 2.50  .25 1.25  .50  .75 2.00  .50  .18  .37 1.37 1.00 2.50 1.00 1.00 2.50  .75  .75 15.00 1.00  .37 5.00 16.00 12.00 2.00 1.25 7.50 15.00 $141.68 50.00 $191.68

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John's second wife, Anna Maxwell Cowan, had been born 11 December 1781, in Virginia, and died 09 January 1854, in Frankfort, Clinton County, Indiana.  She was also buried in the Old Town Cemetery in Frankfort.  Anna received a 160 acre land grant in the early 1850's for her husband's military services in the War of 1812.  She was the daughter of Bezaleel Maxwell II (175101829) and Margaret Anderson (175501834).  Her grandfather, Bezaleel Maxwell I had emigrated from Scotland to Philadelphia then to Albemarle Co, VA.  Her father was born in Albemarle and died in Jefferson Co, IN.  Her brother John Maxwell, was the father of her nephew Samuel Dunn Maxwell, who married Sally Cowan.  Her brother Dr. David Hervey Maxwell, later of Bloomington, IN, was in the same military company as John Cowan and Isaiah Cooper in the war of 1812.

CHILDREN OF JOHN COWAN AND MARGARET WEIR COWAN (1)  James Weir Cowan was born 30 June 1797.  He was married to Isabel Hunter (21 January 1810-?) on 02 Aug 1831.  He was living in Clinton County, Indiana, as late as 1851.  Two of his known children were Samuel Walker Cowan, born 25 Sep 1833.  Company B Seventy-Second Indian Volunteers, U.S. Army during Civil War from 09 Aug 1862 to 24 July 1865, married Mary Richards Sep 1865, died 04 February 1900, buried in the Masonic Cemetery in Crawfordsville, IN; and Margaret Ann Cowan, born 06 Oct 1835, married Issac N. Reath 18 Feb 1857, died 03 Jun 1904. James obtained 160 acres of bounty land in the early 1850's for his service in the War of 1812. He was in the same company as his father and Isaiah Cooper when he was just fifteen years old.  He had a horse stolen, killed, or lost during the war on March 01, 1814. (See Maxwell History and Genealogy for more descendants.) (2) Mary Ann Cowan was born 18 April 1799 and died in August of 1819.  She is not known to have married.  She was no doubt the woman of the house after he mother's death.  It was probably because Mary Ann died, that John Cowan decided to marry a second time to Anna Maxwell, which he did four months after Mary Ann's death. (3) Samuel Walker Cowan ("Walker") was born 02 December 1801.  He died 30 August 1834 in Vicksburg, Mississippi.  Nothing else is known about him at this time.  His obituary, which gives the impression that he was not married, says:

He was a vigilant and faithful public officer, an ardent friend to human nature; one who wept with, and soothed those who wept, and aided and lifted up those who were bowed down.  Those who were allied to him by ties of blood have felt the parting pang, and while they have loved to remember that he was an honor to the name which he bore, they also remembered the presence of the Deity; their murmurings have been repressed.  Oh! They know that God has taken one of his noblest works.   C.

(4) Esther Cowan 1803-1865.  Because Esther is our direct ancestor, her biography is more lengthy and is placed elsewhere in this work. (5) Sarah "Sally" Tilford Cowan was born 30 October 1805, in Mercer County, Kentucky.  She married Samuel Dunn Maxwell (19 Feb 1803-03 Jul 1873), the nephew of her stepmother Anna Maxwell Cowan (1782-1854).  He was the son of John Maxwell (1775-1824) and Sarah Dunn (1780-1817) and grandson of Bezaleel Maxwell (1751-1824 and Margaret Anderson (1755-1834).  They married on 15 December 1822.  Sally died 01 Jan 1856, in Pisgah, Kentucky.  John Cowan died in his daughter Sally's home in Frankfort, Clinton County, Indiana.  Samuel Maxwell was a lawyer and the justice of the peace in Frankfurt in 1851 and twice mayor of Indianapolis Indiana (1860-1864).  One of Sally's children was Margaret Maxwell Allen.  Sally's narrative about her family was written by Margaret:

My grandfather Cowan (Samuel Cowen) was killed by the Indians, and his wife (Ann Walker Cowan) taken prisoner at the same time, and was with them six years before she was rescued.  Later, was taken the second time and was with them six months.  They lived at the Fort at this time.  The son (John Cowan) just escaped by fleetness of foot, and got inside the gate of the fort as the Indian's tomahawk was uplifted to kill him.

Sally had the following children: Sarah Jane Maxwell, 11 Sep 1823 - 21 Oct 1823; John Cowan Maxwell born 21 Nov 1824, married Julia Ann Firestone 11 Mar 1851, died 12 Jan 1888; Irwin Maxwell, born 29 Sep 1826 - died 26 Nov 1826; Margaret Ann Maxwell, born 23 Oct 1827, married Rev. Dr. Robert Welch Allen 06 Apr 1846, died 15 Apr 1905 in Los Angeles CA; James Maxwell, born 13 Mar 1831 - died 09 Mar 1832; Sarah Maxwell, born 30 April 1934, died 10 Oct 1934; Martha Ellen Maxwell, born 27 Sep 1837, married Lewis Jordan; Samuel Howard Maxwell, no information; Williamson Dunn Maxwell, born 1 May 1842 - died 26 Jun 1873; David Maxwell, died 1845; Emma Turpin Maxwell, married first Elisha Brown, married second Mr. Lemist. (See Maxwell History and Genealogy for more descendants. CHILD OF JOHN COWAN & ANNA MAXWELL COWAN (6) John Maxwell Cowan was the only child of the second marriage of John Cowan.  His mother was Anna Maxwell. He was born in the new town o Indianapolis on 06 Dec 1821, being the first white child born in that town.  John was born when his father was fifty-three years old and his mother, forty.  He was his mother's only child.  In 1822, the family moved to a farm near Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, Indiana.  When young John was ten, his father died, and hard times fell on the boy and his mother.      He entered the preparatory school of Wabash College in 1836 and graduated in 1842 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.  Soon after his graduation he was appointed Deputy Clerk of Clinton County and moved to Frankfort, where his sister Sally and her husband Sam Maxwell lived.  There he studied law in his spare time and was soon able to attend the University of Indiana Law School at Bloomington.  Graduating after one year, he returned to Frankfort and began practicing law.      On 13 November 1845 he married Harriet Doubleday Janney in Stockwell, Indiana, with whom he had four children.  Harriet was born 29 July 1826 and died 28 June 1905, in Springfield Missouri.  In politics, John was a strong Whig and later a strong Republican after the rise of that new party.  Like most Scotch-Irish of the time, he was Presbyterian.  He was also a member of the Society of Colonial Wars.  He was of medium height, slender build and erect carriage.      In 1858 he was elected judge of the Eighth Judicial Circuit and re-elected in 1864.  In 1870, after finishing his second term on the bench, he moved his family to Crawfordsville, where he had grown up, forming a law partnership with Thomas M. Patterson, who would later become a United States Senator in Colorado. He afterward went into law practice with M.D. White and his second son, James P.E. Cowan.  After three years he retired from practice and began working for the First National Bank of Crawfordsville as assistant cashier and legal advisor.  He was for a number of years, a trustee of Wabash College.      In 1881, his wife became ill.  A friend of John's had moved to the Ozark Mountains near Springfield, Missouri, and recommended the climate as highly healthful.  This influenced the Cowans to move to Springfield Missouri, where he purchased a farm two miles south of town, where they farmed and raised stock.  In 1889 the Cowans' sold the farm and moved into a new home they had built on South Jefferson Street in Springfield.  John was a pioneer in the development of Walnut Street as a business center.  John purchased the Springfield Republican, which his two sons, James Cowan and William Cowan, ran.  John lived to an advanced age, dying at the age of ninety-eight on 03 June 1920.  He was buried in Crawfordsville Indiana.      The oldest child of John Maxwell Cowan and Harriet Janney was Edward H Cowan.  He was born 21 Dec 1846 and was still alive in 1915, living in Crawfordsville Indiana.  In the spring of 1864 he graduated from the Preparatory Department of Wabash College in Crawfordsville Indiana. He joined Company H of 135th Indiana Infantry and was discharged Sep 29, 1864.  He re-entered Wabash College and received a Bachelor of Arts degree and a M.D. in 1873 from Miami Medical College in Cincinnati Ohio.  He started a medical practice in Crawfordsville at that time and remained there for the rest of his life.  He married Lucy L. Ayars on13 Nov 1877.  They had two children; John Ayars Cowan (1880-1891) and Elizabeth L Cowan, born 21 Jun 1884, who was a home economics teacher at Crawfordsville High School in 1915.  This line probably died out.      The second child of John Maxwell Cowan was James Porter Ellis Cowan, born 1848.  He was a special pension examiner for the federal government in Washington DC in 1915.  On 30 Jan 1873, he married Louana Burnett.  They had one child: Harriet Janney Cowan, born 12 Nov 1873.  She married Lewis T Gilliland and lived in Portland Oregon in 1915.  They had one child, Maxwell Porter Gilliland born 15 Aug 1901.  James married a second time to Lalula R Bennett on 31 Dec 1883, and had Janet L Cowan on 07 Jul 1885; Mary Bennett Cowan on July 20 1888, and Anna J Cowan.  All three lived in Marietta Ohio, while their father worked in Washington.  In 1914, James and his family were living in Springfield Missouri where he was the editor of the Springfield Republican, of which his father was the co-owner.      The third child of John Maxwell Cowan was his only daughter, Laura Ann Cowan, born 14 Mar 1851 in Frankfort, Clinton Co, Indiana.  Laura graduated from Glendale Female Academy in Ohio.  She married Allen Trimble Blaine (1846-1880) on 16 Feb 1876, a Civil War Veteran, and was widowed at age twenty-nine.  Laura was living in Springfield, Missouri, as late as 1920.  She co-authored Maxwell History and Genealogy about 1915.  She never remarried.  Her only child from her four year marriage was Mary maxwell Blaine, born 03 October 1877.  Mary graduated from Drury College with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1898.  She obtained a Master of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1900.  She married Rudyard S Uzzell on 14 Feb 1906.  As of 1914 she had two sons: William Cowan Uzzell, born 14 Jan 1910; and Rudyard S Uzzell, Jr., born 26 Jun 1912.      The youngest of the four children of John Maxwell Cowan was his son John William Cowan, born 06 Oct 1853 in Frankfort, Clinton Co, Indiana.  John William never married.  He was living in Springfield in 1915, running the Springfield Republican with his brother James. [Sources: History of Clinton County, IN, pp. 197-8; written in 1912, sent to me by the Clinton County Historical Society; U.S. Census Clinton County 1850 page 625; Beckwith's History of Montgomery County Indiana pp. 160-1); Bowen's History of Montgomery County, IN pp. 707-710; Beckwourth's History of Montgomery County, IN, pp 160-1; The Cowans from County Down, by John K. Fleming, Derreth Printing Company, Raleigh, NC, 1971, pp 363-4; History of Green County, MO, pp 992-995, 1915; Death certificate of John M. Cowan, 1920; Maxwell History and Genealogy, by Florence Wilson Houston, Laura Cowan Blane, and Ella Dunn Mellette, C.E. Pauley & Co, Indianapolis IN, 1915; Baird's History of Clark County, Indiana, pp 37-8; Will E Parham Papers, McClung Collection, Knox County Library, 301 McGhee St., Knoxville TN; Tennessee Cousins by Worth S. Ray.]

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