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Tapestry
Source
From:Terry Cowan, Personal Communication, 12 December 2013
Related
- The British Origins of the Pequea Valley Cowans
- Pequea Creek Cowans
- Records for Cowans of Chirnside, Berwickshire, 1662-1762
Research
With minor adjustments for purposes of flow…
Cowans of Chirnside
Terry Cowan
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The complete Scottish parish records are housed in the National Archives of Scotland. These parish records are of the established church—Episcopal in governance up until the “Glorious” Revolution and Presbyterian in governance afterwards. These records do NOT include the largely poor and persecuted “Covenanters”, who supplied most of the immigrants to Ulster and who would later become the Scots-Irish. All the records that have survived are in this collection and searchable, although there are additional records The early records are spotty, as would be expected. By the time of the “Glorious” Revolution and shortly thereafter, however, the parish records are remarkably complete. In addition, the Archives contains a detailed index of the 3,000 private collections stashed away in Scottish castles and country houses around the country, including that at Castle Duns, which, as it turns out, may have particular relevance to the Pequea Creek Cowans
|  Duns Castle, Berwickshire, Scotland. The core of the castle dates to 1320. It was transformed in the early 1800's to look like a Gothic Castle. |
| In searching for the lineage of Person:John Cowan (32) I searched the National Archives of Scotland, using their online database. I entered the names of their children: John, David, William or Henry, all born between 1685 and 1705, with a father named David. The ONLY matches were in Chirnside Parish, with sons John born in 1686 and David born in 1693. Parish records show the father, David Cowan, was born in 1665. I did not have to evaluate different options—Chirnside was the ONLY hit given my search parameters. Only then did I check the maps and see that Chirnside is located just outside the Cheviot Hills in Berwickshire.
It is significant that these records are of the established church, not the Presbyterian church. If a birth record is found, for instance, among these records, we can assume that the parents were in fact Episcopalian. In this case, we can assume that David Cowan born 1665 according to these records, would in fact have been Episcopalian. That is consistent with the family history of the Pequea Creek Cowans who are known to have attended St. John's Episcopalian Church in what is now Lancaster County.
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All of this was highly suggestive, but I wanted a more complete picture. I engaged the services of Ms. Diane Baptie, a noted Scottish researcher and historian. Based in Edinburgh, she works in the Archives on a daily basis and is extremely skilled in searching the nooks and crannies of that library. Much of her work is in translation, for the 16th and 17th century official records are as often as not in Latin, and the script is unlike anything I have ever seen. And so, she also spent a wintry day at Duns Castle, where the gracious laird of the manor obligingly brought out the bundles of records she requested.
These records gave flesh to the bare bones information from the parish rosters. All sorts of records came to light. The Scots were a quarrelsome and litigious bunch. They borrowed money and did not repay. They contested inheritances. They got into fights. And all this found its way into the official minutes. The Cowans were tenants at Edington (Edingtoun, Idingoun, Islingtoun, etc.), a 1,300 acre estate owned at that time by the Ramsay family who were lairds at Duns Castle. They first appear there by the mid 1550’s and were originally part of a group of small landholders in the area. Their land was eventually taken by the Ramsay family—though still in litigation well into the 1600s. Tenantcy during that era was something different from the landless peasantry we might imagine. Farms might stay within tenant families for generations.
The Cowans seemed to occupy positions of responsibility. On numerous occasions, from the 1620s into the 1690s, they often served as agents for the Ramsay family. For example, David Cowan, grandfather of the emigrant David Cowan, served as constable. When King Charles I and his retinue traveled from London to Edinburgh, it was the duty of each parish to provide carts and horses to transport the king’s luggage across their borders. The records reveal the number of carts and horses Cowan arranged for the king’s transport.
The last record I have of Cowans at Edington (though not in the general area) is in 1697. A terrible 7-year drought, coupled with gross mismanagement by the dissolute young Ramsay heir devastated the Edington estate. The hearth tax from the early years of the 1700s was greatly reduced from that of the early 1690s. And so, I cannot say exactly where our Cowans were between 1697 and 1719--perhaps close-by, though perhaps not.
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Earlier Lineage
A Paul Cowan appeared in Edington by the mid 1550s. By 1590, there are two brothers, James and George. About 1610, brothers David and William Cowan (or Cowane), no doubt sons of either James or George, make their appearance. Both have numerous connections with the Ramsay family. William had no children, but David compensated with a large family—son James born about 1605, followed by David, Jr., William, George, James, Andrew and Margaret, at least. Younger son Andrew’s marriage to Helen Innerwich, daughter of John Innerwich, is recorded in the Chirnside parish records. The parish record shows their children as John, David, William and Grace. It was this son David Cowan (b. 1665) whom I believe emigrated from Scotland with his sons, also John, William and David in 1719 or 1720.
Notes
From Terry Cowan 14 December 2013
A bit of clarification: I did not mean to imply that we had an exact
match on all 3 brothers--I was looking for John, David and William, and
found John, David, and James. This was not surprising to me at all, as
I have never believed that these 3 brothers were the only sons born to
the senior David Cowan. They were simply the ones of whom we had a
record. The brother James might have died young, he might have not
emigrated from Scotland, or he may have emigrated and chosen to locate
somewhere other than the Pequea valley.
Long before I knew of these Chirnside records, I had an idea of the
approximate ages of the 3 brothers, and their order. John was deemed
the eldest, as several of his children would have had to have been born
in the early to mid 1720s. All of his children were adults at the time
he prepared his will in 1758. David's 1757 list 4 children who were
still minors--one known to have been born in 1748. Clearly, David was
younger. William did not marry until 1731 and his calculated date of
birth from the 1787 Rowan County, NC tax register is 1701. And so, the
order was John, then David, and finally William in 1701 (In my inclusion
of Henry Cowan in this grouping, I tentatively placed him between John
and David.) The parish records for John and David fit very nicely
indeed.
At this point, I should say that the extended Cowan family branched out
into neighboring parishes around Chirnside. William Cowan--uncle of
senior immigrant David Cowan--settled in Bunkle and Preston Parish. His
son, James Cowan (1648-1711) is buried in the Old Preston Graveyard.
Another son, David Cowan, died in 1699 in Ladykirk Parish. The
scapegrace George Cowan operated out of Hutton Parish. You might say
that Chirnside, and the Edington estate in particular, was like a hub of
a wheel, with Hutton to the southeast, Preston to the northwest, and
Ladykirk to the southwest. This may partially explain the lessening
number of Cowan entries in the Chirnside parish records after 1698. The
catastrophic 7-year drought was undoubtedly a factor. And then there
was the implosion of the Edington estate itself. This from memory--the
dissolute young heir murdered a townsman in Chirnside after an argument
in a pub. Soon afterwards, he committed suicide. The Edington farms
were much-reduced, and soon the estate was sold. The last record I find
of our immediate Cowans in Edington was in 1697. Their removal
elsewhere during these troubled times is not surprising and may explain
why there is no record of William (born 1701) in the parish records.
An earlier gap is explainable, as well. There is a gap in the Chirnside
records from 1688 through 1691. This was during the period of the
"Glorious" Revolution. The Chirnside pastor, Rev. James Lawtie, refused
to repudiate his oath of allegiance to James II. He, along with about
400 other ministers, were removed once William and Mary gained the upper
hand. Consequently, the Chirnside parish was considered sympathetic to
the Episcopal governance rather than the Presbyerian (in reality, in
Scotland, the allegiances were more political, than religious. As the
Bunkle and Preston parish book shows, there was little real practical
difference in the Scottish version of either.) Anyway, in 1688, the
Episcopal minister of Chirnside was forced out by the government, and
the church remained closed for several years (and I might suggest that
possible son Henry was born during this period.) In May, 1691, the
church was reconstituted under the Presbyterian auspices of Rev. Henry
Erskine. Brothers David and John Cowan of "Idingtone" were listed as
founding members, as was their kinsman, David Cowan of Ploughlands (a
farm on the north edge of Edington.)
Further note from Terry, 17 Dec 2013
Concerning what we can know about the probable ancestors of immigrant David Cowan (1665-c.1730), here it is in a nutshell:
From parish records—marriage of parents Andrew Cowan and Helen Innerwich (Innerwick) in 1660. Andrew was an adult in 1645, so he married in midlife, it seems. Using that 1645 date places his birth probably no later than 1624.
By deduction, Andrew seems to be one of the sons of David Cowan (1580s-before 1655). David was known to have a brother William. My interpretation of one particular record leads me to conclude that William had no children. Consequently, the initial assumption is that the younger generation of Cowans were sons of David. They were:
- 1. James, born ca. 1605, married 1630
- 2. George
- 3. David, Jr.
- 4. William
- 5. Andrew
Various records prove the relationship of James and George as sons of David. David and William are assumed sons of David. Our Andrew Cowan (or Cowane, as it was often spelled) signed as bond for George Cowan in 1645. The assumption is that he was probably George’s brother and thus David’s son.
Around 1590, there were 2 adult Cowans in Chirnside—James and George. We have no way of knowing whether brothers David and William were sons of James or sons of George. David did name his probable oldest son, James, so that might tilt the probability ever so slightly in that direction, but there is really no way of knowing.
The James and George of 1590 were perhaps the sons of Paul Cowan of the 1750s.
Beyond David (born 1580s), it becomes highly speculative, to say the least. No doubt he was related to the earlier Cowans, but there are no records that give any indication of what that exact relationship might be.
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