Degree Recipient

Life Experience

John Maxwell Cowan was called an “Indiana pioneer.” He was born in Indianapolis in December 1821, the year of its founding, and just two months after Indianapolis’ newly surveyed lots went up for sale to settlers. An only child, he moved with his family to Crawfordsville when that city was formed in 1823. His family was among its first residents.

Cowan graduated from Wabash College in 1842. He spent two years reading law during his spare time and entered IU Law School in 1844. He was so advanced in his preliminary studies that he received his law degree from IU a year later in 1845. In the late 1840s, he heard Henry Clay speak in Indianapolis and rode with him from Indianapolis to Madison on Indiana’s first railroad. He became an attorney in Frankfort, Indiana before being elected judge of Indiana’s 8th Judicial District, a position he held from 1858 to 1870. In 1858, he traveled to Illinois to hear the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

In 1864, Cowan moved back to Crawfordsville and eventually welcomed his second son as a junior partner in his law firm. He retired from general practice and became attorney and counsel for the First National Bank branch. In 1881, he moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he edited a Republican newspaper and purchased a farm. He sold the farm to move into the city for his wife’s declining health. He lived to the age of ninety-eight, dying in 1920 after a brief heart illness. In his last published article, he wrote in support of IU’s returning World War I soldiers. He died in Missouri, but was buried in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Marriage and Family

Cowan married Harriet Janney in 1845.

Interesting Anecdote

For some years, Cowan was both the oldest living alumnus of IU and the oldest alumnus of Wabash College. When the IU Alumni Association asked him for an update upon becoming the oldest alumnus, he wrote from Springfield, in his own hand, “I have nothing special to write that would be of interest.” But upon being asked again the following year, he wrote, “Life has passed quietly as a stream flowing over smooth sands. And now in my ninety-sixth year, with the ocean of eternity near at hand, I send my affectionate greetings and farewell to the alumni, alumnae, faculties, and students of our precious Alma Mater [Indiana University], whose children’s voices are heard in all parts of the old earth, extolling and demonstrating civic virtue, sanctity of the laws, ideals of patriotism, and the high and saving truths of Christian religion.”

References

1. Crawfordsville Daily Journal 6/4/1920
2. Findagrave.com
3. The Indiana Historian June 1996 Special Issue: “Indianapolis, The Capital”
4. Indiana State Sentinel 10/01/1845
5. Indiana University Alumni Quarterly 1916, 1917, 1918, 1920 (#3, #4, #5, #7)
6. Wikipedia
7. www.nps.gov/nr/travel/madison/Madison_Railroad_Incline_Cut.html
8. Wylie