Jesse Lowther (the fourth son of Col. William) was born on July 21, 1773, six weeks after the arrival of the family in Harrison county. He is said to have been the first white male child born on Harrison county soil.
Near the year 1790, when he was but a boy, he was married to Miss Mary Ragan, a rosy-cheeked Dutch girl, who was born on December 25, 1770, and settled where West Milford now stands. Mrs. Lowther was the daughter of a Revolutionary soldier, and the sister of Mrs. Alexander Ireland, senior. In 1797, they removed from West Milford to the Ohio river, and established a home on Neal's island, four miles below Parkersburg, but they returned to their old home at West Milford, after a few years, where he died in October, 1854. After his death, his wife, Mary, came to this county, and spent the closing years of her life with her daughter, Mrs. William Hall, at Pullman. Here she fell asleep, in April, 1857, and in the Pullman churchyard she lies at rest. Her husband sleeps in the family burying-ground near West Milford.
The writer now has a cane which was once the property of Jesse Lowther, and one which he presented to his brother, William. Upon this piece of antiquity is a silver plate which bears the initials of his name "J.L."
The children of this family were eleven in number:
- William, the eldest (born in 1791), married his cousin, Mary or Polly Lowther, ...
- Mary Ann was the wife of William Hall, ...
- Sallie married William Norris, ...
- Margaret married William L. Mitchell, ...
- Jesse, junior, who was a physician, went West, finally to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he died.
- Uriah died in youth.
- Dr. Robert married Mrs. Ellen Stringer Huffman...
- Sudna married Armstrong Maxwell ...
- Elizabeth Lowther married Conrad Kester ...
- Drusilla became Mrs. Bradbury Morgan, of Zanesville, Ohio ; and
- Millie was Mrs. Daniel Wyer, of Woodsfield, Ohio.
- Elias Lowther, who was born on Neal's island, in 1801, during the residence of the family there, was married to Miss Selina McWhorter, ...
