Territorial Days and Life at Pigeon Point
Bill and Margaret settled on a parcel of land a few miles southwest of Sheldon in what would become Owego Township. The actual plot where they lived was the center half of the south side of section 32 of Owego Township (S1/2NW1/4, N1/2SW1/4-32). I am told that this was actually quite close to the edge of village toward Lisbon and that their neighbor was a Mr. and Mrs. George Van Horn whose two daughters, Kate and Louise, married son Lee and grandson Lloyd Cowan respectively. The land was pretty much open country back then and the people who lived there were few as noted by the 1895 population record shown above (Owego population 15 people).
George Van Horn Sr. and his wife Louisa and family came Fargo and then to Owego Township (SE1/4-19 Owego) as early pioneers and settled on section 19 next to Pigeon Point. Pidgeon Point is a high mound from which one can see far into the distance and a shelter was built there for travelers between Fort Abercrombie on the Red River and Fort Ransom. From the top of the mound, a sentry could keep watch and signal the approach of Indians. According to the Fort Ransom, Pembina Territory census of 1870, George Van Horn, age 23 was a soldier from Pennsylvania stationed at Fort Ransom. According to old school records, his son also named George was born in 1871 and in 1883 attended Sheldon School No 2.
The following story about the early days is recorded in the Sheldon 100th Anniversary Book and I quote: “A story handed down from Pidgeon Point days comes from George Van Horn who homesteaded at Sandoun [later renamed McLeod] and later lived at section 19. George’s father, a soldier stationed at Fort Abercrombe, had a dark eyed baby girl named Laura. Besides teaching the early settlers the use of “kinnikinic” (willow bark) as a substitute for tobacco, the Sioux Indians took a special liking to this little girl and called her Black Eyes. The Indians left one day on a hunt towards the west and shortly afterward the Van Horn family missed their daughter Laura. The soldiers were ordered to pursue the Indians and on reaching the band found the dark-eyed Laura among the papooses of the tribe. She was returned unharmed and years later became Mrs. George Duty of Sandoun Township, Ransom County, N.D.”
Laura is a sister to George Van Horn (the son) and aunt to his father George. The 1920 census of Owego Twp. shows George and Laura’s son William, age 24 living on the farm of George Van Horn, age 44.
A Sheldon Newspaper entry of 1885 states that there was a Cowan School. I haven’t found any further information on this statement.
In February of 1996, I talked to one of the senior residents of Sheldon who knew of the Cowan family. His name is Newman Arntson and he is secretary of the now closed Owego Lutheran Church. He says there are two old Lutheran churches in the area (Zoar and Owego) and he clearly remembers that there are no Cowans buried at either church cemetery. He remembers that Bill had a farm in the hills area of Owego and that he raised cows and hay crop. The land wasn’t suited for commercial crops. He doesn’t recollect that they were members of any church. He remembers Bill’s youngest son Lee and his son Jim and several of Jim’s older children - - Lloyd, Mel, Oliver, Jane and Hattie. Newman remembers that the Cowan kids went to school at the old Owego Consolidated and that he was in Lee’s class. He remembers that George Van Horn died many years ago and that his son George, Jr. and his wife were out to Sheldon to visit and he talked with them about ten years ago.
Owego Consolidated School (a one room school) was nearby and that’s where the children attended school. Owego, Kvam and Zoar Lutheran Churches were close by and it’s possible that baptisms or weddings may have been conducted there. These churches are now closed and according to Luther Seminary archives, a Rev. J. J. Akre served as circuit pastor at the Owego Lutheran Church during the period of 1892 -1898. He was born April, 14, 1863 and died April 20, 1950 and his parents were Johanes O. Akre and Martha Malene. I bring this up because Bill’s son Jim married an Akre woman and this may be a tie (however, unlikely) to how they became acquainted. The church records that list pastoral acts (Baptisms, Weddings, funerals) for Owego Lutheran Churchare not in the seminary archives. Newman Arntson remembers that Pastor John Engerholm took those records with him when he left there and so they are not still in the Owego community.
Territorial Days on the Dakota Plains
During the late 1800’s, the northeastern Dakota Territory was opening to settlements of small farms and planning for Statehood. Bill Cowan and his wife Margaret McMichael Cowan left Canada and began their life on the plains of the Dakota Territory. The roads between towns were only trails and one traveled by horse and wagon and so the opportunity to travel by train was a major development in the opportunity to move west.
Let me back up and relate a little Dakota history. From the World Book Encyclopedia (1978) we read: “In 1812, Scottish and Irish families came from Canada and made their first attempts at a permanent settlement at Pembina in Dakota. In 1818 the United States obtained the northeastern part of Dakota by treaty with Great Britain. Congress Created the Dakota Territory in 1861 and President Abraham Lincoln appointed William Jayne as Governor. The territory included the present states of North and South Dakota and much of Montana and Wyoming. The first legislature met in Yankton (now in South Dakota) in 1862. In 1863, the territory was opened to homestead and settlers were given free land if they lived on it and improved it. But the territory developed slowly. Transportation was poor, and the settlers feared the Indian attacks. In 1862 Sioux Indians killed hundreds of settlers in an uprising in Minnesota near Mankato and some of the Indians who had taken part fled to the Dakota Territory. For many years during the 1860’s and 1870’s, the U. S.government sent troops into the territory to punish the Indians and many battles were fought. Federal agents signed treaties with the Indians in the Dakota Territory giving them land on reservations; but the whites often broke the treaties causing more uprisings. Peace came in 1881 when the great Sioux chief, Sitting Bull voluntarily surrendered to the U. S. troops. This is the same year that the town of Sheldon came into existence.
Large-scale farming began in the territory in about 1875 when eastern corporations and some families established huge wheat farms. Most of the farms were in the Red RiverValley and ranged from 3,000 to 65,000 acres. The farms earned such large profits they became known as bonanza farms. The farms used orderly methods of planting, harvesting, and marketing. Later most of the farms were divided into smaller farms and sold to newcomers. During the 1870’s, the settlers began to ask Congress to divide the Dakota Territory into two parts as the population centers had developed in far corners of the territory - in the northeast and in the southeast. North-south travel was difficult because the trains had laid their tracks in an east - west direction. [Remember James Hill’s drive to connect with the Pacific Northwest?] The two groups of settlers felt they had little in common and wanted to develop their own governments.”
“In February of 1889, Congress established the present boundaries between North Dakota and South Dakota and it passed an enabling act allowing the two regions to set up machinery to become states. Then on November 2nd,1889, North Dakota and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th states in the Union.”
In that year that the Dakota Territory became two new states, Bill’s son William James Cowan was 15 years old and widow Inger Akre from Iowa, whom William James Cowan will marry the next summer, was 24 and had just lost both her husband and her toddler son. Bill’s son Thomas who had epilepsy was about twelve, Robert was ten, Lizzie was eight, and Stanley, his last child by Margaret, was four. Bill’s wife, Margaret, to whom he was married for the past 21 years and was mother of his children, will die sometime during the next year.
According to the dates in her tombstone in the Sheldon city cemetery, Margaret died in 1890. Margaret was 45 and her youngest child, Stanley, was five years old at the time of her death. This confirms what Dudley Cowan told me in 1972 when he said, “Stanley was just a child when Margaret died.” Stanley was born in February of 1884.
Dudley related to me that after Margaret died, Bill took in Delia Carr from the nearby village of Shenford to keep house and care for the children. Dell was an attractive young lady and over the years a relationship developed between Bill and Dell. Bill and Dell were then married on December 29, 1897, about seven years after Margaret died.
In reviewing the dates surrounding Bill and Dell’s early relationship, however, I have found some interesting facts about the birth of their daughter Lynne. Dell became pregnant in about March of 1889 when she was eighteen years of age and gave birth that December to a aughter who was named Lynne. Dell had just turned nineteen, an age at which most young girls of the time got married so it was apparently a most unfortunate event. Regarding William’s marriage to Margaret, the relationship with Delia was an affair that began more than two years before her death and about the time when Dell came into their household to care for the children.
George Van Horn Sr. and his wife Louisa and family came Fargo and then to Owego Township (SE1/4-19 Owego) as early pioneers and settled on section 19 next to Pigeon Point. Pidgeon Point is a high mound from which one can see far into the distance and a shelter was built there for travelers between Fort Abercrombie on the Red River and Fort Ransom. From the top of the mound, a sentry could keep watch and signal the approach of Indians. According to the Fort Ransom, Pembina Territory census of 1870, George Van Horn, age 23 was a soldier from Pennsylvania stationed at Fort Ransom. According to old school records, his son also named George was born in 1871 and in 1883 attended Sheldon School No 2.
The following story about the early days is recorded in the Sheldon 100th Anniversary Book and I quote: “A story handed down from Pidgeon Point days comes from George Van Horn who homesteaded at Sandoun [later renamed McLeod] and later lived at section 19. George’s father, a soldier stationed at Fort Abercrombe, had a dark eyed baby girl named Laura. Besides teaching the early settlers the use of “kinnikinic” (willow bark) as a substitute for tobacco, the Sioux Indians took a special liking to this little girl and called her Black Eyes. The Indians left one day on a hunt towards the west and shortly afterward the Van Horn family missed their daughter Laura. The soldiers were ordered to pursue the Indians and on reaching the band found the dark-eyed Laura among the papooses of the tribe. She was returned unharmed and years later became Mrs. George Duty of Sandoun Township, Ransom County, N.D.”
Laura is a sister to George Van Horn (the son) and aunt to his father George. The 1920 census of Owego Twp. shows George and Laura’s son William, age 24 living on the farm of George Van Horn, age 44.
A Sheldon Newspaper entry of 1885 states that there was a Cowan School. I haven’t found any further information on this statement.
In February of 1996, I talked to one of the senior residents of Sheldon who knew of the Cowan family. His name is Newman Arntson and he is secretary of the now closed Owego Lutheran Church. He says there are two old Lutheran churches in the area (Zoar and Owego) and he clearly remembers that there are no Cowans buried at either church cemetery. He remembers that Bill had a farm in the hills area of Owego and that he raised cows and hay crop. The land wasn’t suited for commercial crops. He doesn’t recollect that they were members of any church. He remembers Bill’s youngest son Lee and his son Jim and several of Jim’s older children - - Lloyd, Mel, Oliver, Jane and Hattie. Newman remembers that the Cowan kids went to school at the old Owego Consolidated and that he was in Lee’s class. He remembers that George Van Horn died many years ago and that his son George, Jr. and his wife were out to Sheldon to visit and he talked with them about ten years ago.
Owego Consolidated School (a one room school) was nearby and that’s where the children attended school. Owego, Kvam and Zoar Lutheran Churches were close by and it’s possible that baptisms or weddings may have been conducted there. These churches are now closed and according to Luther Seminary archives, a Rev. J. J. Akre served as circuit pastor at the Owego Lutheran Church during the period of 1892 -1898. He was born April, 14, 1863 and died April 20, 1950 and his parents were Johanes O. Akre and Martha Malene. I bring this up because Bill’s son Jim married an Akre woman and this may be a tie (however, unlikely) to how they became acquainted. The church records that list pastoral acts (Baptisms, Weddings, funerals) for Owego Lutheran Churchare not in the seminary archives. Newman Arntson remembers that Pastor John Engerholm took those records with him when he left there and so they are not still in the Owego community.
Territorial Days on the Dakota Plains
During the late 1800’s, the northeastern Dakota Territory was opening to settlements of small farms and planning for Statehood. Bill Cowan and his wife Margaret McMichael Cowan left Canada and began their life on the plains of the Dakota Territory. The roads between towns were only trails and one traveled by horse and wagon and so the opportunity to travel by train was a major development in the opportunity to move west.
Let me back up and relate a little Dakota history. From the World Book Encyclopedia (1978) we read: “In 1812, Scottish and Irish families came from Canada and made their first attempts at a permanent settlement at Pembina in Dakota. In 1818 the United States obtained the northeastern part of Dakota by treaty with Great Britain. Congress Created the Dakota Territory in 1861 and President Abraham Lincoln appointed William Jayne as Governor. The territory included the present states of North and South Dakota and much of Montana and Wyoming. The first legislature met in Yankton (now in South Dakota) in 1862. In 1863, the territory was opened to homestead and settlers were given free land if they lived on it and improved it. But the territory developed slowly. Transportation was poor, and the settlers feared the Indian attacks. In 1862 Sioux Indians killed hundreds of settlers in an uprising in Minnesota near Mankato and some of the Indians who had taken part fled to the Dakota Territory. For many years during the 1860’s and 1870’s, the U. S.government sent troops into the territory to punish the Indians and many battles were fought. Federal agents signed treaties with the Indians in the Dakota Territory giving them land on reservations; but the whites often broke the treaties causing more uprisings. Peace came in 1881 when the great Sioux chief, Sitting Bull voluntarily surrendered to the U. S. troops. This is the same year that the town of Sheldon came into existence.
Large-scale farming began in the territory in about 1875 when eastern corporations and some families established huge wheat farms. Most of the farms were in the Red RiverValley and ranged from 3,000 to 65,000 acres. The farms earned such large profits they became known as bonanza farms. The farms used orderly methods of planting, harvesting, and marketing. Later most of the farms were divided into smaller farms and sold to newcomers. During the 1870’s, the settlers began to ask Congress to divide the Dakota Territory into two parts as the population centers had developed in far corners of the territory - in the northeast and in the southeast. North-south travel was difficult because the trains had laid their tracks in an east - west direction. [Remember James Hill’s drive to connect with the Pacific Northwest?] The two groups of settlers felt they had little in common and wanted to develop their own governments.”
“In February of 1889, Congress established the present boundaries between North Dakota and South Dakota and it passed an enabling act allowing the two regions to set up machinery to become states. Then on November 2nd,1889, North Dakota and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th states in the Union.”
In that year that the Dakota Territory became two new states, Bill’s son William James Cowan was 15 years old and widow Inger Akre from Iowa, whom William James Cowan will marry the next summer, was 24 and had just lost both her husband and her toddler son. Bill’s son Thomas who had epilepsy was about twelve, Robert was ten, Lizzie was eight, and Stanley, his last child by Margaret, was four. Bill’s wife, Margaret, to whom he was married for the past 21 years and was mother of his children, will die sometime during the next year.
According to the dates in her tombstone in the Sheldon city cemetery, Margaret died in 1890. Margaret was 45 and her youngest child, Stanley, was five years old at the time of her death. This confirms what Dudley Cowan told me in 1972 when he said, “Stanley was just a child when Margaret died.” Stanley was born in February of 1884.
Dudley related to me that after Margaret died, Bill took in Delia Carr from the nearby village of Shenford to keep house and care for the children. Dell was an attractive young lady and over the years a relationship developed between Bill and Dell. Bill and Dell were then married on December 29, 1897, about seven years after Margaret died.
In reviewing the dates surrounding Bill and Dell’s early relationship, however, I have found some interesting facts about the birth of their daughter Lynne. Dell became pregnant in about March of 1889 when she was eighteen years of age and gave birth that December to a aughter who was named Lynne. Dell had just turned nineteen, an age at which most young girls of the time got married so it was apparently a most unfortunate event. Regarding William’s marriage to Margaret, the relationship with Delia was an affair that began more than two years before her death and about the time when Dell came into their household to care for the children.