My Genealogy Hound

W. R. Cowan, another prominent farmer and stock-raiser of Campbell Township, Polk County, Mo., and son of Robert and Mary J. (McConnel) Cowan, was born in Dade County, Mo., April 13, 1850, was reared there on a farm and received a fair education in the common schools. At the age of twenty years he married Miss Arminta J. Carlock, who was also a native of Dade County, Mo., born in 1854, and shortly afterward they moved to Polk County, settling on a farm half in Cedar and half in Polk County. He resided in the former county for about five years, and then, in December, 1888, moved to his present farm. To his marriage were born eight children: Mary F., Arthur L., Kate, Laura B., Ora, Amanda D., Lemuel and Doro thy Alice. Mr. Cowan is a Democrat in politics. Robert Cowan, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in East Tennessee in 1824, and remained in that State until seventeen years of age, when he moved to Cedar County, Mo., and after a short time there went to St. Clair County, and later moved to Dadeville, Dade County. He was a Union soldier, and was first lieutenant in the regular service. Mary J. (McConnel) Cowan was born in Virginia, and became the mother of only one child, W. R. Cowan, and died when he was but four months old. The paternal grandfather, William Cowan, who was of Dutch descent, was a citizen of Tennessee. The maternal grandfather, Thomas McConnel, was a native of Virginia, and died in that State.