John Rowan (Kentucky) - Early Life and Family

Early Life and Family

John Rowan was born July 12, 1773, near York, Pennsylvania. He was third of five children born to Captain William and Sarah Elizabeth "Eliza" (Cooper) Rowan. His siblings included two older brothers – Andrew and Stephen – and two younger sisters – Elizabeth and Alice. Captain Rowan served in the 4th York Battery during the Revolutionary War, and after the war, he was elected to three consecutive terms as sheriff of York County.

Having exhausted most of his resources in Pennsylvania helping establish the new United States government, Captain Rowan decided to move the family to the western frontier, where he hoped to start fresh and rebuild his fortune. On October 10, 1783, the Rowans and five other families embarked on a flat bottomed boat near Redstone Creek and began their journey down the Monongahela River toward the Falls of the Ohio. The travelers expected the journey to last a few days at most, but ice along the river slowed the journey, and a lack of provisions exacerbated the delays. Three of the families disembarked near what is now Maysville, Kentucky; the Rowans would later learn that most of these settlers were killed by Indians. The remaining settlers continued downriver, reaching Louisville, Kentucky on March 10, 1783.

In April 1784, the Rowans and five other families set out for a tract of land on the Long Falls of the Green River that Rowan had purchased before leaving Pennsylvania. The party arrived on May 11, 1784, and constructed a fort which they dubbed Fort Vienna. The fort, then located approximately 100 miles from the nearest white settlement, is the present-day town of Calhoun. The settlers at Fort Vienna frequently clashed with the Shawnee who used the area as a hunting ground. The Rowans would remain at Fort Vienna for six years.

Concerned for the education of his children, Captain Rowan moved the family to Bardstown, Kentucky in 1790. There, John Rowan began his education under Dr. James Priestly at Salem Academy. Salem Academy was, at the time, considered one of the best educational institutions in the west. Among Rowan's classmates at the Academy were future U.S. Attorney General Felix Grundy, future U.S. Senator John Pope, future U.S. District Attorney Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, and future Kentucky state senator John Allen. Rowan and Grundy were members of a debating society called the Bardstown Pleiades which may have been an outgrowth of Salem Academy. Other notable members of the society included future Florida Governor William Pope Duval, future U.S. Postmaster General and Kentucky Governor Charles A. Wickliffe, and future Kentucky Senator Benjamin Hardin.

Completing his studies in 1793, Rowan moved to Lexington, Kentucky and read law under former Kentucky Attorney General George Nicholas. He was admitted to the bar in May 1795 and commenced practice in Louisville. Rowan struggled financially during his early years as a lawyer. Nelson County judge Atkinson Hill took an interest in Rowan, furnishing him with money to expand his law library and taking him as a business partner. In order to earn some money, Rowan accepted an appointment as a public prosecutor, but after securing a felony conviction against a young man in his first case, he was so troubled that he resigned the office and resolved never again to play the role of prosecutor. For the remainder of his career, he always represented defendants. An advocate of education, Rowan allowed several prominent young law students to study in his office, including future U.S. Treasury Secretary James Guthrie, future Supreme Court Justice John McKinley, and future Kentucky Governor Lazarus W. Powell.

Rowan married Anne Lytle on October 29, 1794. She was the daughter of Captain William Lytle, one of the early settlers of Cincinnati, Ohio, and by this marriage Rowan became the uncle of Ohio congressman Robert Todd Lytle. Rowan and his wife – who he affectionately nicknamed "Nancy" – had nine children: Eliza Cooper (Rowan) Harney, Mary Jane (Rowan) Steele, William Lytle Rowan, Adkinson Hill Rowan, John Rowan, Jr., Josephine Daviess (Rowan) Clark, Ann (Rowan) Buchanan, Alice Douglass (Rowan) Shaw Wakefield, and Elizabeth (Rowan) Hughes. Adkinson Hill Rowan served as an emissary to Spain for President Andrew Jackson. John Rowan, Jr. was appointed U.S. Chargé d'Affaires to Naples by President James K. Polk, serving from 1848 to 1849. Ann Rowan married Joseph Rodes Buchanan, a noted physician of Covington, Kentucky.

In 1795, Rowan began construction of Federal Hill, his family estate, on land that his father-in-law gave him as a wedding present. Due to limited financial resources, the time required to import building materials from the east, and the craftsmanship required to construct the large home, the mansion was not completed until 1818. After a fire destroyed the log cabin in which the Rowans lived in 1812, they moved into the part of the mansion that was completed, and continued to live there while construction on the rest of the house was finished. Federal Hill was believed to be the first brick house constructed in the state of Kentucky.

Rowan identified with the Democratic-Republican Party and espoused the Jeffersonian principles of limited government and individual liberty. He was chosen to represent Nelson County at the constitutional convention held at Frankfort, Kentucky in 1799 to draft the second Kentucky Constitution. As a delegate, he advocated the supremacy of the legislative branch over the executive and judicial branches, which he believed provided ordinary citizens a greater role in state government. The constitution adopted by the convention abolished the use of electors to choose the governor and state senators, providing for the direct election of these officers instead.