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Tri-Counties Genealogy &
History by Joyce M. Tice
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People of the Tri-Counties
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Jim Cowan of Gillett Recalls
the Frontier
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Bradford County PA
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Chemung County NY
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Tioga County PA
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PENNSYLVANIA RESIDENT, 80, RECALLS
SEEING SITTING BULL, INDIAN CONQUEROR OF CUSTER
Once he saw Sitting Bull, Sioux Indian conqueror of General Custer
and his men. Once he toiled in the Bad Lands of the Dakotas as the Northern
Pacific Railroad crept westward.
Today James R. Cowan sits on his sunny porch at his home on the Fassett-Gillett
highway and dreams of the old northwest as he awaits his 80th birthday
in September.
Cowan was born at Cherry Flats, Tioga Co., but in his infancy his
parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Cowan moved to a farm near Sylvania, Bradford
Co. There he lived until he was 21.
The year was 1878 when Cowan reached his majority. It was a romantic
age in the nation's life. The great west and northwest was being developed.
Two years before, at the Little Big Horn, a Sioux Indian chief, Sitting
Bull, has massacred General George A. Custer and his force of Americans.
WORKED IN LUMBER CAMP
"Jim" Cowan had an uncle in Illinois and Cowan visited there. He
worked in a Wisconsin lumber camp one winter. He then moved to St. Paul
for a few months.
The Northern Pacific was pushing its way through North Dakota and
Cowan next appeared there, working on grading through the Bad Lands. Cowan
was a husky young man then, weighing over 200 pounds. Later, he went to
Miles City, Montana, and was in Wyoming, being a pioneer visitor to what
is now Yellowstone National Park.
Cowan had married a Wisconsin girl at Jamestown, North Dakota and
to them a daughter, Esther, was born. He recalls being on a train with
her when some captive Sioux Indians were being taken to a reservation.
The Indians admired the silky hair of the little girl and in their examination
pulled at the curls, badly frightening the child.
James Cowan was visited by his father from Sylvania and they visited
a reservation where Sitting Bull was prisoner. Cowan believes he is one
of the few men alive in the east today who has seen the fierce Sioux who
led his yelling horde in the slaughter of Custer's men.
Cowan has in his possession a strange knife fastened to a curved
handle which he believes may have been carried by one of Custer's doomed
men. He found it on the Little Big Horn battlefield in the Black Hills
region.
Cowan once shot a buffalo and had a coat made of the skin. Recalling
how the animals were so nearly exterminated, Cowan today says "I'm a little
ashamed now of shooting that buffalo."
The Fassett-Gillett road resident was once assigned to try to exterminate
a pack of wolves which had killed two humans.
"A settler had sent his son out on a chore. The wolves pounced on
the boy. The father ran out with his gun, but was so excited he missed
when he shot at the wolves and was himself dragged down.
POISONED WOLVES
"I took some arsenic and placed the poison in the body of a dead
ox. I didn't kill them all, but I got a lot of those wolves," says Cowan.
After nearly 10 years in the northwest, Cowan returned to South Creek
township, near Gillett, where he operated a farm about 40 years. His first
wife dying years ago, he is remarried, his bride being the former Lizzie
Fuller of Wells. In addition to the daughter, Esther, now living in Wisconsin,
he has three sons: Russell in Indiana, Jud of Wisconsin and Elizer of California.
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Bradford County PA
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Chemung County NY
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Tioga County PA
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Published On Tri-Counties Site On 30 JAN 2005
By Joyce M. Tice
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