Gunnison County CO Archives Biographies.....McDowell, E.H. 1868 - ?
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 24, 2006, 8:13 pm

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     What was once the far frontier, the unmolested haunt of wild beasts and

wilder men in this country, as soon as it became measurably settled and subdued

to the requirements and began yielding the beneficent productions of

civilization, became a fruitful source of the energies needed for the

exploration, settlement and development of other and more remote sections, and

sent its trained forces forward to the work.  And so it happened that many of

the vigorous and determined pioneers of the farther West were themselves natives

of portions of the country in which they or their parents camped on the heel of

the flying buffalo and reared their domestic altars where but a night before the

panther leaped or the deer disported, and where the red man long lingered with

intensifying grudge against their invasion and sullen treachery or open

hostility to its continuance and farther progress. Of this number is E.H.

McDowell, of Gunnison county, whose achievements on the soil of Colorado are but

repetitions of those of his immediate progenitors on that of Minnesota, where he

was born in 1868, the son of Henry and Mary (Spencer) McDowell.  His father was

a native of New York, where he drove for many years on the Erie canal, and then

moved to the wilds of Wisconsin when a young man and there settled on a farm

which was as yet virgin to the plow and had never felt the persuasive hand of

systematic husbandry.  He then moved on to Minnesota and soon found it necessary

to help defend the new home in which he had located from the venom of the

predatory Indian, and in 1861 he enlisted in the force recruited for Indian

warfare and served therein for three years.  The mother was also a native of the

East and, like other pioneer women of her day, braved the dangers of the

frontier and endured its hardships with a spirit that would have done credit to

the most resolute Roman matron.  When their son who is the immediate subject of

this sketch was two years old they moved to Kansas, and there he was trained for

the duties of citizenship in the public schools and amid the administration of

the civil affairs of the community around him, remaining in that state until he

was nearly twenty-one years old.  During this time he spent five years in going

south and buying horses and taking them north to sell. In 1889, having taken his

place and begun active work in the struggle of men for supremacy, he left home

and came to Colorado, making the long trip in a wagon, and locating at a place

which is now called Hale, on the eastern border of the state, where he remained

until 1899 busily engaged in farming.  He then came farther west into the state

and took up his residence on the place he now occupies, known as the old McCann

ranch of three hundred and twenty acres, on which he has since then resided and

conducted an extensive and prosperous stock and general farming industry.  Mr.

McDowell has conducted his business with vigor and system, and has made it an

important element in the commercial life of the county besides adding to his own

prosperity and consequence.  But he has also taken an active interest in the

social and fraternal welfare of his section, and given due and serviceable

attention to all undertakings for its advancement and improvement.  He is a

zealous member of the Modern Woodmen of America, with membership in the lodge of

the order at Gunnison, and a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at

Gunnison.  In 1886 he was married to Miss Louise Johnston, a daughter of Martin

Johnston, of Iowa, who died when she was but two years old, from disease

contracted in serving his country in the Civil war.  The McDowells have six

children, Cyril, Oey and Ocey (twins), Earl, May and John, all of whom were born

in Colorado. 

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/gunnison/bios/mcdowell410gbs.txt

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