Oh, To Be Lucky!
John Cowan had providence on his side.
Did you ever think that life was too difficult, too overwhelming, and that you should just give up? Here’s the story of one person who had many reasons to abandon hope but who, through luck and perseverance, ended up at the top of his game.
Call it fate or, better, call it good fortune, the tide of events that took a young Scotsman from fighting a losing battle in defense of a deposed English king to being the owner of a modest estate in New England, a new bride at his side.
John Cowan was 20 years old in 1651, one of thousands of Scottish soldiers who marched in support of King Charles II’s desperate attempt to seize the crown back from Oliver Cromwell. As he marched from Scotland to northern England, he must have known that difficulties awaited the Scottish forces. A year earlier, thousands of Scottish soldiers had been killed or imprisoned when they battled Cromwell’s forces in the Battle of Dunbar. Cowan’s crew had been hastily trained and sent out with little prospect of returning home.
Thanks to researchers in Britain, it is possible to imagine the face of young John Cowan. Using skeletal remains, the Face Lab of Liverpool John Moore University recreated the face of a Scottish soldier from the Battle of Dunbar. The young man is brown-eyed and wears the blue cap and brown jacket of rural…
