Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1893 — Page 1 Advertisements Column 1 [ADVERTISEMENT]

The following biographical sketch of our youngest brother we copy from the Daily Oregon Statesman, published at Salem, in that State: J. S. MoEWEN. John Stewart MoEwen, representative from Coos county,was torn in Lewistown, Mifflin chunty, Pennsy vania, on thel4th day of Marcb. 1836. His education was restricted to the public schools and academy of his native town, and in the printing office as an apprentice as early as 1 JIM. He descends from covenanter and revolutionary stock, his great grandfather and grandfather, on the paternal side, being among the early settlers of the oolonies, at d among the first to settle in the Cum berland valley, Pennsylvania, where Carlisle is located. Both participated in the early Indian and French wars of those days, and later, with a grand uncle, in the struggle for independence, the great grandfather. on the staff of General Wolf at the storming of Quebec, and the grandfather as a member of Capt. William Hendrix’s company, in Col. Wm. Thompson’s regiment, where he reoelved a baynet wound bn the Plains of Abraham January 1,187 G, and in which assault the captain was killed and the company made prisoners. • Reliesentative MoEwen married, in 1858, Miss Emily McKenzie, of Perry county. The couple shipped at onoe for Missouri to battle in life. This was the date of the great anti-slavery agitation, the John Brown raids into Missouri and the bolder wars between Missourians and the Kansans. It wa» the time when the Kansas colonist from the East, armed with a Bible and Sharp’s rifle, was pushed forward to contest the ground with his Southern brother, but could rarely pronounce the shibbleth that was to let him pass through, for his diulect enabled him to say “keow” instead of cow, when he he was peremptorily faced about and marched the other way. Mr. MoEwen was first to publish the general orders of Gen. E. B. Frost,"of the Missouri state militia (now a member of congresß from that state), in resistance of John Brown’s raids within that state. Closely following th l se events was the rush to the Pike’s Peak gold fields and the establishment of “pony express” and mail connection with and through that region. Mr. MoEwen was first to inter iew and publish the circumstances attending the rush to Pike’s Paak, notably tho jubilant, well-fed, wellequipped crowd 4 whose forward prairie schooner bore the boastful legend ‘Tike’s Peak or Bust,” but witbin a few weeks thereafter the survivors—for the bones of tome of them, as well as portions of their teams, were left to bleach on the broad plains of the Smoky Hill route in Kansas, returned to civilization, fagged out and penniless, with the sadly impressive inscription of “Busted, by G—." The fall of ’6O brought on the quadrangular political campaign between Lincoln, Douglas,. Bracken; idge and Bell, with its partisan bitterness augmented by that of sectionalism and threatened disunion. The subject of this sketch advocated Douglas, and later, when the question of secession was made an issue, hesitated not, but gave his best, efforts against it Of course, even an overwhelming majority against secession did not defeat the effort of the conspirator* to “dragoon” the state out of the, union, but it gained in momentum and strength and bitterness. In view of the dangers that beset union men from the b o th they were compelled to leave unceremoniously. Mr. McEwen returned wtth h s wife to his father’s home in Pennsylvania where he left her and entered the army among the first threeyears’men, joining tne Forty-ninth Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry: Hep seed through St. Louis the day Capt. Lyon and b i Bnk P. Blair captured the above menturned Gen. E. B. Frost at Camp Jackson, where he was concentrating his militia for service’forthe confederacy and to take possession of St. Lonis. Mr. McEwen served in Gen. Hancock’s original brigade. and under that “superb” officer participated in the Pfninsular campaign, over the historic fields of Williamsburg and i orktown, and t rough the seven days* fighting, etc. After honorable discharge and an interim at home he re-entered the service for one year as first lieutenant of Company C, Seventy-eighth Pennsylvania Veteran Infantry. This regiment, after the battle of Nashville, Tenn., was detatched from Negley’s division, for guard and Patrol duty, Lieutenant McEwen being detailed for the special duty of chief of patrol on the staff of Gen. John F. Miller, post commander of Nashville.— This position he held from March, 1865, till date of muster out, after the dose of the war, the fall of that year. It was an onerous and responsible position, but was faithfully filled, and he j eceived the oommend&tion of his superior offioers and the «*od oitizens regardless of po itics or l war prejudices. Aseitizensof thjt oity, Southern people but true to their ai.oesteal integrity, he *eckor,« a grand-unole, Robert Huston MoEwen, and the wife, the famous “Hetty McEwen." the grav. headed heroine who stood in the doorway of her home with a rifle and protected her floating flag till Buell entered the oity, while Hood s threatening veterans departed, leaving her “the bravest heart in Tennessee. ”

Our subject |remain Jd awhile at his old no *? e ln Pennsylvania after muster out, and then, restless for adventure, gathered up his wife and three children and started for Texas to grow up with the country.— ihere being no railroads connecting with that state t that date (1869), nor one mile of road in the state, the trip was mads by steamboat down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and by Morgan steamship from New Orleans to Indianola, being just six weeks on the way. A short residence was made at Indianola, then 100 miles abov ■ the coast, a residence of about eight months, from when.-e he went to Austin, the state capital, to get at his printing business again. At Austin he worked a while at the case in the state printing office, but soon joined some of his craft in a co-ope-rative newspaper and job office and' establibhed what is still a leading paper in that state, the ‘Austin Daily Statesman,”— After disposing of his interest in that office in 75 he moved to Fort Worth, then a ▼ 11 age of about 1,200 population and no riilroad. Nowit has 42,000 and is the grand center of twelve railroads. He then, in 1880, moved to GaineßMile, on the Bed river, and was managing editor of the daily and weekly" Hesperian" of that beautiful and thriving city for m re than six years. Owing to failing health of his wife he then moved to San <iose, California, 1887, coming up on the coast to Coos county, in this s ate, in the ®f 1890, when ne took charge of the “Coquille City Herald.” Mr. McEwen bag been in the journalistic harness for ,J, a»y years, through many heated political campaigns and under peculiarly trying I circumstances, but he has never failed tp I decide as to the right, as he saw it, end : essly and earnestly pursue it. The I Herald is well supported and making frjends daily. Be so gained tbeconfii deueu of bis constituency in his brief sojourn in Coos countv as to be the nominee on first ballot of two-thirasof the largest convention ever held in the county, without solicitation on his pert and from