In the books' own words, not ours, with obvious scanning errors fixed. The later printing (1909) is folded below the first. Families often supplied these stories to the publisher, so check key dates.
Born 1833
From History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio (1909), Centennial portrait and biographical record of the city of Dayton and of Montgomery County, Ohio, containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, together with the biographi (1897)
ROBERT COWDEN, of Dayton, Ohio, is descended from an old Scotch family, who came to America, many years ago, from Cowden Knolls, twenty-five miles north of Edinburg. His parents, David and Elizabeth (Kitch) Cowden, were natives of Pennsylvania, and early settlers in Ohio, where the father died when Robert was but five years of age.
Robert Cowden was born May 24, 1833, near Leesville Cross Roads, Ohio, and although his opportunities for securing an education were meager, he succeeded, by dint of close application to study, in acquiring a fair amount of knowledge and became a school teacher at the age of eighteen years, following that calling in the winter and working during the summer at any paying employment he could find, for several consecutive years. At the age of nineteen he was converted to Christ and at once entered upon a career of religious work in the interest of the United Brethren church and humanity, and to-day, as an organizer and teacher of Sunday schools, he probably has no superior. Persistent in his studies, he early developed himself as a scholar of much learning, especially in the field of theology, and was thus fully qualified for Sabbath-school work, and for nearly thirty years he has been closely identified with that branch of religious activity in this country, and has filled many positions of honor in connection with it. Coupled with his well-earned reputation for usefulness in civil life, Col. Cowden has a military record for patriotism and valor, and the cars upon his person bear substantial wkness to the fact that he not only loved his country but helped to fight her battles. Robert Cowden enlisted September 9, 1861, in company B, Fifty-sixth Illinois volunteer infantry, but was transferred to company H, and between the date of his enlistment and January 28, 1862, was promoted to be corporal, was next advanced to the position of sergeant, and still later was commissioned first lieutenant of company H. Because of defective enlistment or organization of the Fifty-sixth, that regiment was mustered out of service January 28, 1862, and on the same day Lieut. Cowden entered battery I, First Illinois light artillery, as a private. During his service of eighteen months in this body he was promoted through the intermediate grades from private to second lieutenant, receiving his commission for meritorious conduct on the battle field of Shiloh. July 29, 1863, Lieut. Cowden was discharged to receive promotion, and was mustered in as major of the Fifty-ninth United States colored infantry, and May 1, 1864, was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, with which rank he served until his final muster out, January 31, 1866. At this time, to save the men, who in most cases had been recruited from the illiterate plantation hands, from the self-constituted county and claim agents, a meeting of the officers of the regiment was held at Memphis, Tenn., where it was decided that Col. Cowden should receive authority to act for the discharged men. As a consequence 5 30 soldiers entrusted their discharge papers to him, the result being that he subsequently collected all back pay, county, etc., due to the men and placed the proceeds into the hands of those to whom they rightfully belonged. The colonel was also instrumental in establishing a school for the instruction of unlettered men of his regiment, and in this school 250 colored men were taught to read and write.
Among the many engagements in which Col. Cowden participated may be enumerated that of Shiloh, both days; the siege of Corinth and the engagement at the Russell house, lying between Pittsburg Landing and Corinth; the siege and capture of Vicksburg; the second capture of Jackson, Miss.; the engagement at Guntown, Miss., where, June 10, 1864, he received a severe wound in the right hip; and finally the battles of Tupelo and Pontotoc, Miss., in July, 1 864.
To revert to the life of Col. Cowden as a civilian, it may be stated that, prior to the Civil war, he resided in Kansas for three years and was there during the “border”, troubles, and was the first county clerk elected in Franklin county. He again resided in that state from 1885 until 1891, in Cheyenne county; in the interim, however, he lived in Gabon, Crawford county, Ohio, where he was postmaster during the administration of President Hayes. He is at present a member of the military order known as the Loyal Legion, commandery of Ohio; for twenty-six years has been a member of the general board of the Ohio Sundayschool association, in which he served one year as president, six years as general secretary, and the remainder of the period as a member of the executive committee; for years he has been general secretary of the Sabbathschool board of the United Brethren in Christ and general Sabbath-school missionary and organizer for that denomination; he is also secretary of the normal department of the Ohio State Sabbath-school association and is its statistician; from 1875 until 1890 he was a member of the executive committee of the International Sabbath-school association, and has been a delegate to all its triennial conventions, held in London, and to the first and second world’s conventions; also the convention held at Saint Louis, Mo., in 1893. He travels about 20,000 miles annually in the prosecution of his work. He has contributed many valuable articles to the religious press, and, wielding a facile pen, has written a history of his regiment.
The first marriage of Col. Cowden was solemnized, in 1854, with Miss Lydia T. Miller, which union was blessed with four children, viz: Daniel Webster, now a wholesale merchant of Salina, Kans.; John C. Milton, a farmer of Cheyenne county, in the same state; Jacob K. R., a farmer of Eagle county, Colo., and Mrs. Zoe E. M. Chipperfield, whose husband is also a farmer of Cheyenne county, Kans., and descended from these children there are now twelve living grandchildren of Col. Cowden. After a happy union of over thirty-six years, Mrs. Cowden died in December, 1890, and in November, 1891, Col. Cowden was united in matrimony with Mrs. Joanna McGinnis, of Wichita, Kans.
As printed in Centennial portrait and biographical record of the city of Dayton and of Montgomery County, Ohio, containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, together with the biographi (1897). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.
COLONEL ROBERT COWDEN.
Colonel Robert Cowden, known throughout the length and breadth of the land as a prominent Sunday school worker, representing the United Brethren in Christ, his position being that of general secretary of the Sunday school board, makes his home in Dayton. He was born May 24, 1833, in what is now Crawford but was then Richland county. He was twenty-eight years of age when, in response to the country’s call for troops to subdue the rebellion in the south, he offered his services to the government, enlisting on the 9th of September, 1861. at Bucyrus, Ohio, as a member of Company B of the First United States Mechanic Fusileers under command of Captain James E. Marsh. This organization was rendezvoused in Camps Webb and Douglas at Chicago and Mr. Cowden was appointed corporal. Before his second detail for guard duty, however, he was made sergeant and went to Girard, Pennsylvania, to recruit men for his regiment. Successful in this undertaking, within two weeks he took fifty-six men to camp in Chicago and they were placed in Company IT, commanded by Captain James Armstrong, Mr. Cowden being appointed first lieutenant of the company in October, 1861. For a period of four months the regiment remained in camp at Chicago, engaged in daily drills but without being furnished arms. Then as the secretary of war refused to recognize the authority for raising a regiment of this character, and in order that the regiment might be regularly mustered out of service, its designation was changed to the Fifty-sixth Illinois Infantry and it was duly mustered out as such January 28,
Lieutenant Cowden's return to civil life covered but a brief period for on the following day he enlisted as a private in Battery I, First Regiment Light Artillery, under Captain Edward Bouton. For eighteen months he was with that command, during which time he was promoted through the ranks of corporal, sergeant and first sergeant to that of second lieutenant. He was then mustered out July 28, 1863, that he might accept promotion in another command. His former captain, Edward Bouton, who was afterward breveted brigadier general of volunteers, had been given power to raise a regiment of colored troops and in this regiment Lieutenant Cowden was commissioned major. The organization was first known as the First West Tennessee Infantry of African Descent, but later was known as the Fifty-ninth United States Colored Infantry. Major Cowden remained with that organization until May 18, 1864, when he was commissioned lieutenant colonel of the regiment to succeed R. E. Phillips, resigned, thus serving until January 31, 1866, his military service being then terminated by his being mustered out at Memphis, Tennessee. He had been in actual command of the regiment much of the time, the colonel had been assigned to the command of the brigade. While at the front Colonel Cowden participated in a number of hotly contested battles, taking part in the engagements at Shiloh and Russell House, Tennessee; Corinth and Guntown, Mississippi. At the last named he was wounded in the right hip by a sharp-shooter and his injuries for some time precluded his active participation in the movement of his regiment. Because of his wounds he was sent home in July, 1864, and in the following September rejoined his command, although he was still using crutches when he again went south. He was also an active participant in the siege of Vicksburg and in the campaign resulting in the capture of Jackson, Mississippi. He was a valiant officer, inspiring his men with much of his own zealand courage, and at the same time was an excellent disciplinarian.
General Edward Bouton said of him: “Colonel Robert Cowden, of Dayton, Ohio, enlisted as a private soldier in my battery at Chicago at the beginning of the war of the Rebellion, and served over four years continuously under my command, the last two years and over commanding a regiment of infantry. Soon after his enlistment, observing his superior ability and worth, I appointed him orderly sergeant of the battery, which position he held at the battle of Shiloh, where he especially distinguished himself and gained further promotion. On Sunday, the 6th of April, 1862, our battery had done hard fighting and particularly distinguished itself, especially in what was described in the Chicago papers as the great artillery duel in front of Pittsburg Landing at the close of the day, in which we suffered severe losses, including Sergeant Tibbetts, who was so severely wounded as to cripple him for life, so that the next day I had to put Orderlv Sergeant Cowden in charge of Tibbetts’ gun. Towards noon of that day, by direction of Major Taylor, General Sherman’s chief of artillery, we took a very advanced position where we were subjected to a very severe cross-lire from the infantry constituting the enemy’s reserve under General Breckenridge. When Major Taylor observed the error he had made in placing us in that position he ordered us to withdraw, but our losses in men and horses had been so severe that we were compelled to leave one gun behind, but not the one that Cowden had charge of. Having reached a more secure position I called for volunteers to go and bring off the abandoned gun. Sergeant Cowden was the first to respond to the call, and by a heroic effort succeeded in recovering the gun and bringing it off by hand over newly cultivated stump ground, made almost impassable by recent heavy rain. One of his men, Stephen Rexer, lifted so hard at the wheel of the gun that he ruptured himself severely and had to be discharged. In commending Sergeant Cowden to Governor Yates of Illinois for promotion to a lieutenancy in the battery I mentioned the Shiloh incident, and when his commission came there was boldly written across its face, ‘For Merit at Pittsburg Landing.’ At the desperate and bloody battle of Guntown, Mississippi, on June 10, 1864, where for a time we contended against nearly ten times our own numbers and lost half our men, Colonel Cowden handled his regiment with great skill, bravery and good judgment. Although engaged in hard, rough service, and separated from all restraining social and home influences, Colonel Cowden was a man of so gentle and refined a nature that in all the years that we were associated together I never heard him utter a single vulgar or profane word."
Almost continuously since his return from the war Colonel Cowden has been actively associated with Sunday school work, with which he has been continuously connected in an official capacity for a longer period than any other man now living. On the 16th of December, 1866, he was chosen president of the Sunday School Association of Jefferson township, Crawford county, Ohio, and six months later was elected secretary of the county association, in which capacity he served continuously for fifteen years. From June, 1871, until June, 1877, he was general secretary of the Ohio Sunday School Association, and in the latter year was made a member of the executive committee of the state association, with which he has ever since been associated in the same capacity. In 1894 he was chosen secretary of the teachers’ training department of the Ohio association, remaining in that position for eleven years, or until 1905. No practical movement or plan for the benefit of the Sunday school or the extension and promotion of its work has failed to receive his attention and endorsement. From 1875 until 1890 he was the representative from the Ohio association on the international executive committee and for thirty-two years has been the general secretary of the Sunday school board of the United Brethren in Christ. He was a member of the international Sunday school convention of 1872, which adopted the plan of international lessons, and he has since attended all of the international conventions and all of the world’s conventions with two exceptions.
One well acquainted with him says: “Among the many great men whom the state of Ohio has produced, none stand higher as a Sunday school worker than Colonel Robert Cowden, of the church of the United Brethren in Christ. In fact it is a question if any stand so high in this regard. As a conductor of institutes, a lecturer on his favorite themes before great conventions, as an apt expounder of the Scriptures and as an instructor of Sunday-school officers, teachers and classes, he has few equals and perhaps no superior. Colonel Cowden has devoted his entire time to this work for many years, being all that time the general Sunday-school secretary of his church, and for forty-two years a prominent member of the Ohio state Sunday School Association; and to his tireless efforts and enthusiasm, traveling, lecturing, conducting institutes and addressing conferences of his church, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the gulf away up into Canada, is chiefly due the vigorous life of the Sunday school work of today in the United Brethren denomination, its thorough organization and the effective work that it is doing. By his rare ability, intelligent generalship and tireless effort, he has made a record that is imperishable and set at work forces that will bless coming generations for untold years.”
While the Sunday school work has largely occupied the time and efforts of Colonel Cowden, in his earlier years he largely depended upon his labors in other directions for his support. At the age of sixteen years he was apprenticed to a carpenter and from that time until he reached the age of forty years he was connected with building operations through the summer months and in the winter seasons engaged in teaching school. His life has always been characterized by unfaltering industry, unwearied energy and unswerving purpose, but as these have been directed in the line of attainment of great good for the young people of the land, his life work has been of inestimable value, not only to the church but also in a broader sense to the country, in promoting such characteristics of manhood as constitute good citizenship.
Colonel Cowden has been married twice. He first wedded Miss Lydia Tabitha Miller and unto them were born five children: Daniel Webster, John C. Milton, Aretas P. Eugene, Jacob K. and Zoe Estelle May. The third son died in infancy. The eldest married Miss Rosa E. Ruhl and is now vice president and general manager of the IT. D. Lee Mercantile Company in Salina, Kansas, with which business enterprise his sons, George Robert and Jay Rule, are also connected. J. C. Milton Cowden married Miss Alice B. Wood, of Cleveland, Ohio, and is a resident of Dayton. Jacob is connected with ranch interests near Newcastle, Colorado, and the only daughter of the family became the wife of Frank L. Chipperfield, of Nebraska, and died February 27, 1905. Having lost by death his first wife Colonel Cowden afterward married Mrs. Joanna McGinnis.
In his political views Colonel Cowden has always been a republican and from 1878 until 1882 was postmaster at Gabon, Ohio. He has, however, never participated to any great extent in political affairs, yet regards it his duty as well as the privilege of citizenship to support the men and measures whereby the best good to the community, state and nation will be advanced. On the ist of June, 1892, he was elected a member of Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion and is also a member of Old Guard Post, No. 23, G. A. R., of Dayton. Centuries ago a Psalmist said: “Train a child up in the way he should go and even when he is old he will not depart from it.” The wisdom thus uttered has been recognized to some extent through all the intervening ages but there has been no period in the world’s history when the people are so thoroughly aroused to the need and value of religious instruction through the medium of the Sunday school as at the present time; no era in which the work has been so completely organized and the teachers so thoroughly trained. Colonel Cowden has been most active in this movement toward the development of a Christian citizenship, wherein lies the hope of the stability of the nation. He entered simultaneously on the seventy-seventh year of his life and the thirty-third year of ministry as general secretary of the Sunday school board of his denomination on the 24th of May, 1909.
As printed in History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio (1909). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.
The printed record stops around 1909. We trace your line from there down to you, with every source cited.