John Rowan (Kentucky) - Later Life and Legacy

Later Life and Legacy

After his service in the Senate, Rowan returned to Kentucky, dividing his time between Louisville and Bardstown. During an epidemic of cholera that spread through Bardstown in 1833, three of Rowan's children (William, Atkinson, and Mary Jane) died. The spouses of William and Mary Jane also died of cholera, as did Mary Jane's daughter, and Rowan's sister Elizabeth and her husband. Aid from Bishop Joseph Flaget and a group of nuns who traveled to Federal Hill during the epidemic probably spared the life of Rowan's orphaned granddaughter, Eliza Rowan Harney.

In 1836, Rowan and two other men founded the Louisville Medical Institute, the forerunner of the University of Louisville medical school. The next year, Rowan was chosen as the school's first president, serving in that capacity until 1842. He also served as the first president of the Kentucky Historical Society from 1838 until his death.

In his last act of public service, in 1839 Rowan was appointed as a commissioner to adjust land claims of U.S. citizens against the Republic of Mexico. During an adjournment of the commission in 1842, Rowan returned to Kentucky to visit relatives. While there, he fell ill and was unable to return to Washington, D.C.; consequently, he resigned his commission. Rowan died July 13, 1843. He was interred in the family burial ground at Federal Hill. In his will, Rowan specified that no marker should be placed over his grave, noting that his parents' graves had no markers, and he did not want to be honored above his parents. Several years later, members of his family placed a marker over his grave, despite his wishes. According to legend, the marker frequently tumbles from its base, purportedly a manifestation of Rowan haunting his grave.

According to tradition, Stephen Collins Foster, a relative of the Rowan family, was inspired to write his ballad My Old Kentucky Home after a visit to Rowan's Federal Hill mansion in 1852, but later historians have found no definitive proof that Foster ever visited the mansion at all. The mansion remained in the possession of Rowan's family until 1922, when his granddaughter, Madge (Rowan) Frost, sold it to the state of Kentucky to be preserved as a state shrine. Today, it is a part of My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown. In 1856, the Kentucky General Assembly created a new county from parts of Fleming and Morgan counties and named it Rowan County in Rowan's honor.