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Thaddeus C. Cowen was born in Schoharie Co., N.Y.., Dec 17,
1814. His father, Isaac Cowen, was a native of Putnam Co., N.Y., and whose
grandfather (the family name was then called McCowen) was of Scottish birth,
and emigrated to America prior to the Revolutionary war. Mr. Thaddeus C.
Cowen’s grandfather, John Cowen, was a soldier in the war of 1812-14, was
in the engagement at Lewiston Heights, and was among those who were crowded
off the rocks and perished in the Niagara River. His father died at the
age of sixty-seven, at the residence of his son in Elmira, in the year
1855.
His mother, Anna (Secor) Cowen was a daughter of Major John D. Secor,
a Frenchman by birth, who came to this country with General Lafayette,
and upon General Lafayette’s return joined the staff of General Washington,
was in service during a large part of the Revolutionary war, was twice
wounded, and after the war was a pensioner, and died at the age of ninety-six,
in the city of Rochester.
Mr. Cowen had three brothers and nine sisters, of whom only one brother,
David, and two sisters, Mrs. Percis Chambers and Mrs. Betsey Ann Galpin,
are living.
Mr. Cowen began life without pecuniary assistance, and under extreme
privations. With only five dollars of borrowed money, he started out as
a peddler of notions when only eleven years of age. This experience while
so young became a school of value to him, and learned him from necessity
that self-denial, economy, and the value of time which have in all his
subsequent career been his characteristics, as well as to impress upon
his mind the valuable lesson of kindness to the needy and sympathy for
the suffering.
In the year 1838 he established a store in Candor, Tioga Co., N. Y.,
and after two years removed to Elmira, and clerked one year for Joseph
Van Vleck; when he bought out his goods and opened a general store for
himself, through the assistance of Solomon L. Gillett, which he continued
until about the year 1855, when he sold out his goods; and after one year’s
travel through the Western States, during which time he took the stump
for John C. Fremont, he returned to Elmira, and opened an auction, commission
(wholesale and retail) store, which he has continued until the time of
writing this sketch as a successful business man. |
