MySource:Scotishmariner/Chronicles of Oklahoma

Capt Ed. Nowland, a veteran steamboatman, died at his home in Memphis, Tennessee, on the 20th of April, aged eighty-five years. He was born at Fort Smith. His father was K W B Nowland, who was post sutler or military storekeeper at Fort Gibson, from 1829 to 1840, having received his appointment as such through President Andrew Jackson, who was his warm personal friend. President Jackson also appointed him postmaster at Fort Gibson, in 1832. Ed Nowland began his steamboat training when but nine years old, as a cabin boy on a packet that ran the Arkansas River under the, command of his brother, Capt. Will Nowland. The latter was a native of Fort Gibson. Both served in the Confederate army during the War between the States. Capt. Will Nowland was killed on the Mississippi, below Memphis, by the explosion of a boiler on his boat, in 1870. Capt. Ed Nowland continued to operate steamboats on the Arkansas River, when the stage of water would permit, as far as Fort Gibson, until the building of the first railroads into the Indian Territory, in 1871-2, led to the decline of river navigation on the Arkansas above Fort Smith, after which he operated boats between Memphis and Little Rock. He was reputed to have naviagated the Arkansas longer than any other boatman that ever ran that stream and it may well be doubted if there were many who ran the Mississippi whose years of river service exceeded his. In his old age after he had retired from life's activities, when he visited Fort Smith, he was wont each day, rain or shine, calm or storm, to go down and take a look at the old river, the glories of whose days of navigation had departed, but the memories of the associations and incidents of which ever held a haunting fascination for him. His body was laid to rest in the Oak Cemetery, at Fort Smith.