Timothy Cowles (1752 - 1832)

Born 19 Feb 1752 in Farmington, Hartford, Connecticut Colony

Ancestors

Husband of Abigail (Woodworth) Cowles — married 25 May 1775 (to 22 Oct 1796) in Coventry, Tolland, Connecticut

Descendants

Died 29 Nov 1832 at age 80 in Claremont, Sullivan, New Hampshire, United States

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Biography

Children: Daniel b. 26 Jul. 1776 Abner b. 29 Nov. 1777 Amasa b. 19 May 1780 Luther b. 25 Feb 1782 Timothy b. 9 Sep 1784 Chester b. 6 June 1786 Abigail b. 23 Apr 1788 Josiah b. 7 Aug 1789 Austin b. 3 May 1792 Asa b. 23 July 1794 Polly b. 22 Oct 1796 imothy Cowles's profile on WikiTree

THE COWLES FAMILY - TIMOTHY II’S ARRIVAL IN BOLIVAR, 1819

Timothy Cowles II was born in Vermont (1784) and moved to Unadilla, Otsego County, NY, (between 1797 and 1799) with his parents and several siblings. He decided to strike out for new territory roughly 10 years after his father’s death (1808), passing the care of his mother to his brother, Daniel.

(Side note: There’s a very interesting statistic that historians call “persistence rates,” which reflect the number of people who remain in place from one census to the next. In early 19th-century America, over one-half of people in one location had moved 10 years later. Many of these people went to the West and they had varied reasons for doing so. Timothy II would ultimately move on to Ohio, so he may just have been the restless type.) He packed his family—a wife and the five children born in Otsego—and household goods into an ox-cart and started west. He had to cut trees and clear underbrush for the passage. They stopped in Friendship (the first pioneer had arrived there in 1806 or 1807), reaching there in June, 1819, just in time to get in a crop of corn. While the rest of his family stayed there for the summer, Timothy pushed on to Bolivar with two of his sons (probably Merril b. 1806 and Alvin born 1808) where he bought land and built a log home about 1½ miles outside of today’s village (identified as Lot 61, possibly as a designation for the pre-Bolivar territory known as Town One, Range One of the Holland Purchase). According to a Bolivar Breeze article the area was at the mouth of Mead Hollow and was known as the Millard Farm in 1930. One trip was made back on the thirteen miles of rough trail to Friendship to hoe the corn. It was on December 8, 1819, that Timothy brought the family from Friendship to the first house in Bolivar. The primitive dwelling was one room and a garret reached by a ladder. The floor was made with rough-hewn split logs. A temporary fireplace occupied a corner and the smoke escaped through a hole in the roof. The next spring a chimney and permanent fireplace were built. The family lived there during that first winter with only blankets hung across the opening. Various accounts said they had no neighbors nearer than Friendship, thirteen miles away on the north, and Ceres, seven miles to the south. I’m not sure that’s true as there may have already been settlers in the Little Genesee area. They would hitch up the oxen and bring in a load of meal for a staple provision, and it was said that the oxen and family both lived on the same provender and in about equal amounts. There was deep snow that winter and had it not been for the abundance of game, they might have perished.

Other members of the Cowles family came later. The histories I’ve found state that Christopher Tyler, who was married to Timothy’s sister, Polly, came either in 1819 (holding the title of second permanent white settler) or 1820, along with Timothy’s brothers, Asa and Austin. Timothy ultimately decided to go farther west to Ohio in 1850, where he died in 1853 in Fulton County.

(My sources included an article in The Bolivar Breeze about a radio talk by Principal J.F. Whitford, February 26, 1941; “History of Allegany County, N.Y., published New York, F. W. Beers & Co., 1879; “Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase, Western, New York” published by Jewett, Thomas & Co., Geo. H. Derby & Co., 1850; “History of Bolivar, New York, A Centennial Memorial,” published by W. A. Fergusson & Co., Alfred, N. Y. 1896; January 17, 1929, Bolivar Breeze article written by Mrs. Harriet Cowles Cutler.)

Sources

• https://www.gedmatch.com/individual_detail.php?id_family=1321228&id_ged=P382
• The Barbour Collection of Connecticut Town Vital Records (NEHGS, Boston, 2011) Vol. Farmington, Page 42. b. 19 Feb 1752