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Edward P. Cowan, D.D.
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biography
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Cowan, Edward P., D.D., the corresponding secretary of the Board of Missions
for the Freed-men of the United States of America, was born at Potosi, Mo., March 31, 1840, son of the Rev. John F. and Mary (English) Cowan. Dr. Cowan's family is of
Scotch-Irish ancestry, and all its members have been Presbyterians. The great-grandfather was Hugh Cowan, of Chester County, Pennsylvania, who lived to be eighty years
of age. His son, Adam Cowan, who died at the age of forty years, was a soldier in the Revolution.
The Rev. John F. Cowan, who was born in Chester County in 1801, graduated from Jefferson College Washington County, and subsequently, in 1828, from Princeton (N.J.)
Theological Seminary. In 1829 he was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry, and went as home missionary to Missouri, where he spent the rest of his life engaged in his
sacred calling, a period of thirty-three years. In connection with his last pastorate, which was at Carondelet, St. Louis, he was commissioned by President Lincoln as
Post Chaplain to the House of Refuge Hospital; and he was Army Chaplain at the time of his death in 1862. He was own cousin of Senator Edgar Cowan. His wife, Mary,
was a daughter of James R. and Alice (Conover) English, and a descendant of the family that settled in Englishtown, N.J. Mr. English was a stanch Presbyterian and an
Elder in the old Tenant Church. When a boy he was captured by the British, and was threatened with hanging if he would not tell where the Americans were keeping their powder.
Though but sixteen years old at the time, he allowed his captors to string him up without flinching. He was afterward set free, and the British were no wiser for having
met him. Of his family of nine children Mary was next to the youngest. Having survived her husband twenty-five years, she died in 1887 at Pittsburg, being then eighty-one years old.
She had five children, namely: James, who is in business in St. Louis; John F. Cowan, D.D., who is the Professor of Modern Languages in Westminster College, Missouri; Alice, the eldest,
who died in St. Louis in 1849; William, who died at the age of fourteen; and Edward P., the subject of this sketch.
Edward P. Cowan, the youngest of his parents' children, attended Westminster College in Missouri, and graduated there with honors in 1860, taking the degree of
Bachelor of Arts. After teaching school for a year he entered Princeton Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1864. He was shortly afterward ordained by the
Presbytery of St. Louis, and began his first pastorate at Washington, Pa. in one of the churches which his father had formerly served. He remained at Washington for three
years, and subsequently preached for a year at St. Joseph, Mo., and for a year and a half in St. Louis. He was then called to the pastorate of Market Square Presbyterian
Church at Germantown, Pa. and remained there for more than twelve years. In 1882 he was invited to preach in the Third Church in Pittsburg, with the prospect of a call to a
probable vacancy in its pulpit; and on September 13, 1882, the night on which the previous pastoral relations were dissolved, he was unanimously called to that church. He
remained pastor of the Third Church for ten years. He is a trustee of the Western University of Pennsylvania, of Pennsylvania College for Women, a trustee and the secretary
of the directors of the Western Theological Seminary, and a trustee of the Pittsburg Presbytery, an incorporated body. He is also a member of the Board of Colportage and of
the Executive Committee. While Dr. Cowan was pastor of the Third Church, an average of ten members were added to the church at each communion, giving a total of over four hundred,
and the annual amount of contributions increased from twenty-three thousand, six hundred and twenty-five dollars in 1882-83 to fifty-four thousand, three hundred and
eighty-three dollars in 1891-92. During this time Dr. Cowan had become a member of the Freed-men's Board, and had been for four years its president.
On the death of Dr. Allen, the former corresponding secretary, Dr. Cowan was elected to that position. Thereupon he resigned his pastorate, in order to devote himself
to his new duties. At the next annual meeting of the Third Church congregation the following resolutions were adopted: "Whereas the Rev. E. P. Cowan, D.D., our beloved pastor,
has tendered his resignation, and has asked the congregation to join with him in consenting that the Presbytery shall dissolve the pastoral relations now existing, and, having
heard and considered his reasons for this request, and believing that our Lord is leading the way, therefore resolved, That, expressing our affection for and confidence in our
pastor, and in gratitude for his faithful labors in the congregation and his tender pastoral care for us individually, we consent to his request that the pastoral relations may
be dissolved by the Presbytery, to take effect January 1, 1893." Commendatory resolutions were also passed by the Presbytery. Since ceasing his official relations with the Third Church,
Dr. Cowan has given his whole time to his work for the Freedmen. He has the oversight of three hundred churches, one hundred and eighty ministers, and from fifty to sixty schools,
twenty of which are boarding-schools, including Biddle University at Charlotte, N.C.
On August 7, 1872, Dr. Cowan was united in marriage with Miss Anna M., daughter of George D. and Emmeline (Fisher) Baldwin, of New York City. Mrs. Cowan's family settled originally
in Milford, Conn. in 1639, and all its descendants have been stanch Presbyterians. Her great-grandfather was a prominent member of the church at Connecticut Farms, N.J. Her grandfather
was a member of the First Church at Newark, and her father, George D., was a Presbyterian Elder for forty years in New York City. George D. Baldwin had one other child, Joseph T.,
who is now cashier of Manhattan Bank in Wall Street, New York. Mrs. Cowan's maternal great-grandfather was Colonel David Chambers, who served throughout I the whole of the Revolutionary War,
and who fought with Washington at Trenton and Monmouth. Mrs. Cowan was educated by the best instructors and in the best schools that New York afforded. She was a lady of unusual refinement
and of noble character. She died July 24, 1896. Her three children were: Emelie, Elaine, and Irene, the last two being twins.
Biographical review: containing life sketches of leading citizens of Pittsburg and the vicinity, Pennsylvania. Boston: Biographical Review Pub. Co., 1897, Author: Anonymous.
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