Transcript:Portrait and biographical record of Macoupin County, Illinois, 1891, pgs 320-21 for Robert S Cowan

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George Cowan (9)

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Pgs 320-21

Robert S. Cowan, M.D., has been practicing medicine at Girard for more than twenty years, and his high professional standing among the physicians of this county is indicative of the success that he has attained in his career. He is a native of Sullivan County, Tenn., born March 9, 1833, a son of George R. Cowan, a native of East Tennessee and a grandson of Robert Cowan, who was born in the North of Ireland, being a descendant of Scotch ancestry. He came to America before the Revolution in the prime of young manhood and when the war broke out between the Colonists and the Mother Country he entered the Continental army, and did brave service in the cause of liberty. He fought under Gen. Washington, and was with the army when it crossed the Delaware. When peace was declared he resided in Virginia for a time, and then removed to Tennessee, of which he was a pioneer, and there his life was brought to a close at a ripe age. The maiden name of his wife, great-grandmother of subject, was Nancy Rutledge. She is thought to have been born in South Carolina, and she died in Tennessee. She was the mother of five sons, --James, Andrew, William, George and John. The three elder sons served under Jackson at the battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812.

The father of our subject was reared and married in Tennessee, Mary May becoming his wife. She was a native of that State, and a daughter of Dr. Samuel and Catherine (Shelby) May. Her father was a native of England, and a surgeon by profession. Mr. Cowan early learned the trade of a tanner, and engaged in the business at Paperville, Sullivan County. He also had an interest in a paper mill and other manufacturing industries. He was a man of marked energy of character, of many resources, and very capable. In 1838 he resolved to try his fortunes in the State of Missouri, that was still in the hands of the pioneers, his bold, resolute spirit, hardy nature and powers of endurance fitting him to cope with the many difficulties to be encountered in settling in a new country. With his wife and six children he embarked on a flat-boat and floated down the Holston River to the Ohio, where he boarded a steamer that bore him and his family down the waters of the Ohio and up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to Boonville, Mo. He located in Polk County, and entered large tracts of Government land in different counties, which he subsequently improved with slave labor. He resided for some years in that part of Polk County now included in Cedar County, and then sold his property there and removed to St. Clair County, where he had previously entered land. He erected suitable buildings and improved a large farm, which he made his home until 1854. In that year he went to Bolivar, the county-seat of Polk County to reside, and soon after he was appointed Judge of Probate, and held that office with distinction until the breaking out of the war. He then retired to private life, and passed his remaining days in the home of a duaghter at Sarcoxie, Jasper County, Mo., dying January 1, 1874. He had been bereaved of his wife many years before, she dying in St. Clair County, Mo., in 1852. She was the mother of six children, of whom these are the names,--Catherine, George, Nancy, Robert S., Mary and Salina. Our subject was but a child when his parents migrated to Missouri, and he was reared under pioneer influences. There were no free schools in Missouri in his younger days, and he gained the preliminaries of his education in the school house that his father erected on his land, under the instruction of a teacher that his father employed. Later he became a studen at Ebenezer College, ten miles north of Springfield, Mo., and there he laid a solid foundation for his medical studies, which he commenced at the age of twenty-three, under the tuition of Dr. Samuel B. Bowles, of Greenfield. He afterward further prepared himself for his profession by attending lectures at the Missouri Medical College, and he began upon his career as a physician in Dade County.

From that county the Doctor went in a short time to Newton County, where there seemed to be a wider field of usefulness, and he was engaged in active practice there when the war broke out. Having been reared in a slave state his sympathies naturally went out to the Southern cause and he offered his services to the Confederate States in 1861, many of his life-long friends enlisting at the same time, and he was appointed Assistant Surgeon of the Third Missouri Cavalry. He was soon promoted to be Surgeon of his regiment, and did valuable service in that capacity in Price's army for three years, gaining an experience in those trying times that added to his professional knowledge and increased his reputation for skill and ability. At the expiration of that time he resigned his position and went to Mexico, where he spent six months. After that he staid in New Orleans until the spring of 1865, when he came to this county and opened an office at Nilwood. In 1869 he came from there to Girard, and has been in continuous practice here since. The Doctor's success may be partly attributable to his frank, generous nature, and his courteous and thoughtful treatment of all with whom he comes in contact, his manner gaining him popularity and friendship on all sides. He is a member of the Macoupin County Society for Medical Improvement, and also of the State Medical Society.

Dr. Cowan was happily married in 1854 to Elizabeth Weir, a native of Cooper County, Mo., and a daughter of the Rev. Samuel and Mary B. (Stephens) Weir. Our subject and his wife have five children living, namely: George R., a graduate of the St. Louis Medical College, and now his father's assistant; Mary, wife of Ed E. McCoy, of Springfield, Ill.; Florence; Dollie and Elizabeth G.