Patrick Lafayette COWAN

                   Family info from Frank D. Jenkins, 508 Fourth Street, Ballinger, TX  76821.
26 July 1976.  His brother's wife is a daughter of Henry Thomas MONTGOMERY.

Family Group sheets received from Terry Cowan, 603 Circle Drive, Bullard, Texas 75757 around 1990.

More family info from ancestry.com tree:  Lee's Ancestors and Descendants
Joan Case.  LFCASE@awoc.com

email from:  burnsntx@juno.com   Mireta Woodward Feb 2007  Rita


Concho County, TX 1910 Census
Terry Cowan Document #171
Patrick L. Cowan, 43
Lenora P. 35
Ruffin E. 14
Ruth 12
Rulie 10
Seldon 8
Pauline 5
Royce 8
Johnnie 11/12

Death certificate:  Patrick L. COWAN, b. 18 Dec 1867, married, b. Bell Co, TX,
father John COWAN, b. TN, mother Jane GALLAGHAR, b. AR, d. 28 Feb 1944, heart
lasion.

Terry Cowan Document #182
unknown cemetery listing
Lena Cowan, 1875 - 1952
Pat L. Cowan, 1866 - 1944

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project,
1936-1940

Range-lore
Annie McAulay
Maverick, Texas

Page one {Begin handwritten}Duplicate{End handwritten}

RANGE-LORE
P. L. Cowan, now a resident of Runnels County, was born near Belton,
Bell County, Texas, December 18, 1886 [sic:1866].

He tells the following story: "I learned to ride a horse when I was very
young. My older brother taught me how to ride and also how to work with
cattle. My father [John] being a freighter, owned several wagons and
teams. In the early days he used ox teams but later he used mules to
freight with. Freight was hauled from points east to Fort Concho. On
some of these trips they encountered bands of Indians, some of whom were
not friendly toward the whites. One group killed one of father's oxen.
They freighters went in groups and were well armed, as they were in
danger of encounters with robbers, as well as Indians, at all times.
"In 1879 my father moved his herd from Bell County to Llano County and
sent my brother and I to look after the cattle. {Begin handwritten}C12 -
2/11/41 - Texas{End handwritten}
Page 2 { page image }
We worked there several years and I got some real experience which I
needed.
"In 1882, while there, we had a pretty bad stampede. My brother and I
and two hired punchers were holding about seven or eight hundred steers
on the banks of the Colorado river, where there had been an old field,
the fence still being good on two sides. There had been a lot of rain
and the river was on a big rise. The cattle seemed restless and along
came an old mule, stopping near where the cattle were bedded down. He
was hee-hawing for all he was worth. We had been holding the cattle
there for three or four days, waiting for the river to go down and they
were getting nervous and so were we. When that mule made his appearance
the cattle began running, and we began riding. We stayed with them and
when daylight came we were four miles from home, but still had our herd,
and the next day we crossed the river and delivered every one of them.
"In 1887 I helped to drive a herd of 3,300 head for Joe Mitchell of Bell
County to Abilene, Kansas, starting from his Bell County ranch. There
were about twenty men in the outfit. We traveled almost due north and
crossed the Red River at Doans Store near Vernon. We didn't have any
trouble on this drive but we got somewhat excited when we were passing
through the northern part of Oklahoma and had to witness an Indian
funeral. They had sewed the dead Indian up in a buffalo hide and swung
him to a limb, high up in a tree. That was the way the Cheyenne tribe
buried, or disposed of their dead.
Page 3 { page image }
"The best bronc buster I ever knew was Iky Stevens. He could ride
anything. I saw Booger Red thrown off of a heathenish horse - Booger was
a good rider, too - but Iky was watching and saw him when he got thrown
and he said he would ride that filly for a dollar. And he did. He rode
the best I ever saw.
The Indians killed my grandfather [John] on the Colorado river, near
Wolf Crossing [1875]. It happened just before the Pack Saddle fight. He
was on horseback, alone, and they shot arrows into his back. He kept
riding, but died soon after reaching home. My mother [Jane] said they
would sneak up to the spring and steal her milk and butter from the milk
house. Mother had a bulldog and a gun for protection against the
Redskins, when father was away from home. When I was about four years
old they stole some horses from a thicket where my father had tied them.
Of course father and a group of men followed them, but they didn't
recover any of the horses.
"I am now too old to ride the range or work with cattle in any way, but
I still think the old days on the range were the best I ever had."
*******
REFERENCES
Personal interview with P. L. Cowan, who told the story.

Patrick L. Cowan, born 1866.  Died 1944.  Buried Pear Valley Cemetery,
McCulloch County, TX


Cowan Archives http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=cowan