Ohio: Family Roots, Foundational Soil | Episode 102

What if the names your ancestors gave their children were actually breadcrumbs leading straight to the neighbors who helped shape their lives? In this solo episode, I trace my own Cowan family line from a young Irish weaver who had to register as an alien citizen during the War of 1812 to a doctor who built a house that became a historical society, a saddle maker who outfitted the Union Army, and a U.S. Representative who somehow kept his personal life completely out of the newspapers. But the discovery that surprised me most was buried in an 1830 census. And it's the reason two of George and Jane Cowan's thirteen children carry the names they do. Ohio wasn't just where this family landed. It was the foundational soil that grew a posterity now living in 47 states and seven countries.

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Transcript

Season Two Mission And Promise

Crista Cowan 0:00

Stories That Live in Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present, and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. Counting down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America. Tales of immigration, migration, courage, and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us. So join me for season two as we discover from sea to shining sea the stories that live in us. I don't know what you know about the War of 1812, but I have learned a whole lot more about the War of 1812 in the last few years because I have a three times great-grandfather all the way back up my paternal line and my family tree, whose name was George Cowan. Now we've discovered that George Cowan was born in County Down, Ireland, and we don't know exactly when he immigrated to the United States or who he immigrated here with, but sometime in his late 20s or early 30s, when he was still single and unmarried and had no children, he shows up in a list of people in Connecticut who had to register as alien citizens during the War of 1812. You see, because he was from Ireland, he was technically a citizen connected to the British, and we were still at war with the British. The Revolutionary War, of course, started officially with our declaration of independence on July 4th, 1776, and it went on for years. But once we became a new country in the early 1780s and formed our government and started moving forward as a nation, I don't know if we thought we were free and clear, if we thought the British wouldn't come back, but they did. And so the war of 1812 is really just kind of part two of the Revolutionary War. And because this three times great-grandfather of mine had recently immigrated from Ireland, he had to register as an alien citizen when the War of 1812 broke out. Now, I don't know a whole lot about his early years in the United States. I don't know how he went from Connecticut to Pennsylvania, but at some point he did. He was a weaver by trade, which makes sense considering where in Ireland he came from. And from everything I can find, he was a very skilled weaver. And at some point in the years following his immigration, he met a young girl who was the daughter of immigrants from the same county in Ireland where he was from. Did he know her parents before? Did he know their families? I don't know. I suspect maybe. But George Cowan married Jane Kahn and they decided to settle in a little place just west of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, um, and raise their family. Now, if you've ever looked at a map, not just a map from today, but a map that shows the boundary changes of counties and states over time. Could you just nerd out with me for a little bit? I love maps. I always have, but I love a good county boundary change map more than anything. One of my favorite websites is a website called mapofus.org. It looks like mapofus, mapofus.org, and they have county boundary change maps. And one of the things that you'll notice when you start looking at the states from Pennsylvania West is that it was just this big territory for a really long time. And that the boundaries of both the states and the counties were really, really fluid over that period of time. From the early 1800s, from the late 1700s, all the way through the Civil War and a little bit even after the Civil War. So George and Jane had to settle in this little spot of land west of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that for a time was part of the Ohio Territory. And then they lived in Pennsylvania State proper, and then they lived in Virginia, and then they moved over to Steubenville, Ohio, and then they moved back to Virginia. But then at some point, that little spit of land that pops up in between Pennsylvania and Ohio became West Virginia. And really, they never moved more than 20 miles. But because of the changing boundaries of states and counties around them, it looks like they lived in a lot of places. Really, they lived in that same region. And while they lived there, George continued his occupation as a weaver. But what is unusual about the family of George and Jane is that they, all 13 of their children, lived to adulthood. And that is pretty rare for the time. So these were healthy, hardy people. And that also means that George likely made enough of a living to care for them. Nobody was dying from malnutrition or conditions that might lead to illness. Like that was a that was a big deal. So all 13 of these children are raised in the area of the country between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Steubenville, Ohio. Now, Jane's family also lived in the area. And for a really long time, I didn't think any of George's family did. He's been a brick wall in our family tree for years. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until we started researching all of his children and eventually his grandchildren that we even knew anything more about where he came from, other than Ireland. He shows up as a non-citizen in early census records. So as far as we could tell, he never naturalized. He signs as a British citizen when he registers as an alien in the War of 1812 list. Every census just lists him as born in Ireland. All the censuses for his children just list him as born in Ireland. But one day I found a little local history. Now, if you don't know about family and local history books, they are one of my favorite resources because they oftentimes include little snippets of biographies of the founding individuals or families or prominent people in communities. And these books, many of them, were written between 1876 and 1976. And the reason they were written was because in 1876, the US government put out a request for the hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. They wanted the communities across the country to write a local history about how their community was founded. And many communities responded to that call. And those books were submitted to the Library of Congress. They were published and disseminated across the country as a history of the communities throughout the United States. Well, a lot of communities didn't participate in that, but in the ensuing decades, they eventually did. And so what you see is starting in 1876, going through about 1920 or 1930, you see this huge influx of these community histories, local histories being published. And then in the run-up to 1976, when we were getting ready to celebrate the 200th anniversary of our country, a bunch of other communities who hadn't participated in the first two rounds decided that they wanted to get their books published as well. And so you see a little flurry of some additional local histories being published in the mid-1970s. So these local history books published over the course of those hundred years have made their way, many of them, onto Ancestry. And they've been digitized. And as a matter of fact, they're now full text searchable, which is kind of exciting. But back when I first found this little book from this little community in Iowa that mentioned one of the grandsons of George and Jane by name. And it listed that his grandfather had come from County Down, Ireland. And to this day, that is the only specific Irish location that I've been able to find any mention of in any records of George or Jane or their children or their grandchildren. So I know where George comes from because of one of those little local histories. But I've learned some things about George and Jane and who they were as parents because I did a deep dive into the lives of their 13 children. Now I could probably tell you all sorts of stories about those 13 children. I'm only going to share with you three today. George and Jane are my three times great-grandparents. My two times great-grandfather is one of their children. As a matter of fact, I pulled it up so that I could look at it and make sure that I get it correct. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. He is child number nine out of 13. He was born in 1833, and his name is Robert Watson Cowan. Now here's the weird thing. There's nobody in the family with the last name of Watson. So for a really long time, I wondered why did Robert have the middle name Watson? Well, he has an older brother. One, two, three, four. Child number four. So child number four and child number nine. Child number nine, my great-great-grandfather. Child number four is a son named Jacob Pitzer Cowan. There's no Pitzers in the family either. So why on earth were these boys being given these names? It was something that puzzled me for a really long time. Well, we had a little family story that Roberts, my two times great-grandfather, had been a saddle maker during the Civil War, and that he had worked for one of his uncles. And so I went digging into records. And here's what I found. This young man, born in about 1833, in uh in that little spit of land east of Pittsburgh as you head towards Steubenville, Ohio, had moved into Steubenville, Ohio during the Civil War. Now he was in his 30s. He could have joined the war effort, but he had a unique and particular skill at which he was very, very talented, which was saddle making. And they needed saddles for the war effort. And he had an uncle who had a shop in Steubenville where he was able to then go in and grow the business, get enough of a supply chain going that they could provide those saddles for the army during the during the war. And so he didn't enlist because he was helping his uncle run that business. That meant that he was now firmly entrenched in the state of Ohio. And so even though his family was his parents and his siblings, a lot of them were still living in that little spit of land in West Virginia at the time. It became West Virginia, of course, because of the sentiments around the Civil War. Um, he decided to stay in Ohio. Several of his brothers also started moving to Ohio. They moved into Steubenville, and then a couple of them moved to a little town called Ashland. Now, Ashland, Ohio is in the middle of the state. The first time I went to Ashland, I had been in Toledo on a business trip. And I looked it up and realized that Ashland was only about a little over a hundred miles away from Toledo. So I rented a car, I stayed an extra day and a half, and I drove to Ashland because I knew I had family history there. Now, of course, this was in the mid-90s. So just a couple of years before Ancestry came online, I didn't have the resources readily available to me at my fingertips. But I had done just enough research at the family history library, just enough research in some of the early online message boards that I knew that there was information available in Ashland. And so as I drove into town that first time, my first stop was going to be at the Historical Society. And as I walked into the Historical Society, a lovely gentleman there asked me my name and I told him, I said, My name's Krista Cowen. And he said, Are you related to John Cowen? And I said, I don't have any brothers or father named John Cowan. And he goes, No. Are you related to Dr. John Cowen? And I said, I don't know who Dr. John Cowan is. And he said, Well, this is his house. And I said, Oh, well, then I might be related because a lot of my great-great-grandfather Robert's family ended up here in Ashland. As a matter of fact, he died here in Ashland because he had family living here. And so he moved here for the end of his life. And as we looked it up, we realized that John was one of those 13 children in the family of George and Jane. And at the time, I didn't know anything about John or his life or his family or why he ended up in Ashland. And what I came to learn that day in the Historical Society that was in the home that John built a century, almost a century and a half, maybe earlier, was that John had gone to medical school and he had moved to Ashland to be the town doctor. And not only was he the town doctor, but he had also set up a pharmacy in the town. And he and his wife had had a whole family of daughters. And while he was serving as the town physician and running the town pharmacy and raising this family of daughters, he had also been part of the state legislature. So this was a group, a man who had become educated, gotten involved in his community, and unfortunately, towards the end of his life when he was in his late 60s, we're not sure exactly what happened. We know he started drinking heavily. And one day he walked into the pharmacy and he uh took some morphine. And we don't know if it was to for a pain. We don't know if he had some sickness, if he was just self-medicating, how he was treating himself, but he knew enough what he was doing that when one of the clerks noticed what had happened and followed him out of the pharmacy, he just said, No, I'm fine, I'm fine. And he went into his office where he had arranged his couch and he laid down. And by then, some of the employees had gathered, some of his family had gathered. And uh unfortunately he passed away there on the couch with them trying to pump his stomach and trying to revive him and get him to um to get some help. Um, so we don't know exactly what happened at the end of his life, but if we look at all of the rest of his life, the civic service that he offered was so great and his contribution to the community was so great. And then the house ended up being donated to the city, and it is now the historical society. And I learned all of that, right, as I visited the place. And so that one of the things I love about family history, of course, you know this, is walking in their footsteps, being in the places that they were. And now that I had a little bit of his story, I was able to connect a little bit more with that place. Now, that sweet little gentleman that helped me that day in the historical society gave me some directions to the local cemetery. He gave me directions to the local library, and I proceeded to just have a wonderful day in Ashland where I got to do some deep dives into some additional records. And in the process, I uncovered a little bit more about my great-great-grandfather Robert and why he had moved to Ashland. Turns out, after his service making saddles in the Civil War, he had been appointed, I think it was by Grover Cleveland, to be the postmaster general for that region of Ohio at the time. And so he moved there to do that. Uh, and that was kind of his occupation for the last several years of his life. Now, that's John, that's Robert, and then we're back to Jacob Pitts or Cowan. So Jacob was an interesting individual because he actually served as a Ohio state um legislator um at the in the House of Representatives. So he went to the federal government while his brother John was a state legislator. And that everybody talked about him. There were biographies about him, there was all sorts of information about him. Um, and it was really easy to find information about his civil career. But as I started digging into it, I wanted to know more about his personal life. And that became a little bit more difficult to find. And what I understood as I dug into it was that he was a very private man. So he wanted to serve as a civil servant. So he ran for office and he served in local offices and then eventually, like I said, made it to the um the House of Representatives and served at the federal level. But he managed to keep his personal life really personal. Now that may not sound like a big big deal if you're thinking, oh, in the 1800s, like everything was private, right? Today, everything's so public. We have instant, you know, instant information on Facebook and on Instagram and the news and the internet just makes everything so pervasive and public. And it must be that, you know, before all those things existed, stuff was so private. But the reality is, if you've ever read an old newspaper, you know things were not that private. As a matter of fact, when John died, the circumstances surrounding his death were splashed across newspapers all over the state of Ohio and weird, intimate details about conversations and his family. And so the fact that John's death had been so public and his life had been so public, the fact that his brother Jacob, who had served in a higher position in government than him, had such a private life was a really interesting contrast to me. And so I went digging into the life of this, you know, state representative from the state of Ohio to see what I could learn about the brother of my great-great-grandfather. And I was able to uncover some information. As a matter of fact, most of the information I was able to uncover came from information about his wife and her service in the community. So not only was Jacob a civil servant, but his wife was the kind of woman who volunteered in civic organizations and civic community uh uh activism. And because of that, she gained a little bit of notoriety. And so once I figured out who she was, I was able to learn a lot more about the family. Unfortunately, they weren't as lucky as. George and Jane, they had several children and they lost four out of their nine children as died as children. And the heartache that comes with that, and the I just I can't even imagine. And some of those children died at less than a year old, but some of them died at seven and eight years old. And it just breaks my heart when I think about here's this woman serving her community and being active. Here's this man, you know, trying to serve his community. And their family is having these struggles all through that period of time. And just it just really makes me sad. I dug into some additional family files and actually was able to uncover information, though, about their children who survived to adulthood and the stories that they shared and the pictures that they had. Just such a treasure to be able to have those. Well, those are three of the 13 children of George and Jane, John, Jacob, and Robert. And again, still didn't know where Jacob Pitzer Cowan came from or Robert Watson Cowan until one day I was going through my family tree and I realized that I hadn't fully um transcribed all of the census records for George and Jane. I had just kind of attached them or linked them in my tree. And so I decided to go back and transcribe those census records. And as I was digging through them, one of the census records that I came across was the 1830 census. They were um living just outside of Steubenville, Ohio at the time. And of course, the 1830 census, if you remember, it only lists the head of household. And then it has tick marks across the page for the uh individuals in the household based on age and gender. And so we've got George Cowan, and there's two males in the household under the age of five, and three males in the household between five and 10, and a male between 10 and 15, and then of course George is 40 to 50 years old, and there's an under five-year-old female, and a 10 to 15-year-old female, and then Jane is over 40 years old, and all family members are accounted for. And I could have stopped there. But one of the things that I have learned in family history is that the stories are sometimes told in the records around the person. And so I thought, I wonder if anybody else is living around them. Is George's family? I'm still looking for his parents. I've managed to identify a brother or two because of DNA. Jane's family, I've got a document that lists all of her siblings. So I know who I'm looking for. And so I'm looking up and down the page of these heads of household with the tick marks, and I go forward a page and I go backward a page. And what I discover is that enumerated directly above George and his family is a man named Robert Watson. And here is Robert Watson in 1830, living next door to George and Jane. And three years later, my great-great-grandfather is born, and he is named Robert Watson. Cowan. And as I'm going through the census, I keep looking at a few pages before and a few pages after, and two pages later, there on the page in the same community is a man named Jacob Pitzer. And Jacob Pitzer, Cowan, had been, I presume, named after him. As I dug into the lives of these two men, what I uncovered was that Jacob Pitzer was the town doctor at the time. And so I suspect he may have been involved in the delivery of those children. And I wonder how much involvement he had in their lives later that might have convinced John to become a doctor. I still haven't figured out exactly who Robert Watson is or what his significance was to the family. But that's one of the things I love about family history, and one of the things that I love about family stories is that there's always something new to uncover. Now, the second trip I made to Ashland, Ohio, I had been in Cincinnati for the Jewish Genealogy Conference. Ah, it was in like 2017 or 2018. And so it had been almost, well, over 20 years since I had been to Ashland. And if you look at the state of Ohio, Toledo side, on the north, and Cincinnati is over on the northeast side. And if you just kind of draw a triangle a hundred miles down toward the center of the state, that's where Ashland is. So it was a little over a hundred miles from Toledo to drive to Ashland. It was a little over a hundred miles from Cincinnati to drive to Ashland. And so I decided once again to make the drive. And I went to the house of John Cowan, that is still the County Historical Society. And the sweet man that had helped me 20 years earlier was not there. But there was a woman who was kind enough to show me around and show me some of the recent acquisitions of local historical ephemera. And when I told her what my last name was, she instantly asked, Oh, are you related to John Cowan? And this time I was able to say, Yes, I am, and I know exactly who he is. And would you like me to tell you some things about his family? And I was able then to share some things with her that she didn't know about his 12 brothers and sisters, and the one that was the saddle maker during the Civil War in Steubenville, Ohio, and the one who was the US representative, and the other brothers who slowly made their way across Ohio, some of them eventually ending up out in Iowa, a couple of them ending up in Canada as land opened up there. And now here we are, several generations later, and the descendants of George Cowan and Jane Kahn from those 13 children who magically lived to adulthood have managed to spread their way not just deep into the state of Ohio, but all the way across the country. And descendants of George and Jane can now be found in 47 of the 50 states and seven countries around the world. I think that's pretty remarkable from a weaver in his late 20s who made his way from county-down Ireland into Connecticut and eventually settled in Ohio and raised a family in a new country that was still trying to find its footing, that fell into civil war and that eventually led to a posterity that valued civil service and contributing to their communities in really meaningful ways. And Ohio was the foundational soil in which that family grew.