By

TOM VILLEMAIRE      

Huronia Sunday Staff

As a boy Constant Cowan left his home in Scotland for the new world which was way common for many lads of his age...with the British Army.  It was common for the army to accept boys and young men as cook=s assistants and drummer boys.  Constant was the latter.

His career with his unit was a short-lived one, as he was captured by the French during the War of 1758-59 at the Battle of Fort Pitt.  A French Canadian family raised Cowan, giving him the name Constant, and he learned the ways of life in the bush country of North America.  By the time he was a young man, he could speak French and English and several native dialects.

By 1778, Cowan had established an outpost on Matchedash Bay (according to Mackinack Fur company records), just a mile north of Coldwater opposite were Fesserton now stands.  It was the first permanent residence and business established by Europeans in Simcoe county, although France and the Catholic Church had established an mission near Midland more the 100 years earlier, it ended in disaster with the slaughter of many of its inhabitants, at the hands of the invading Iroquois.

Cowan=s choice for his trading post placed him at a major crossroads of the time, where a relatively quick portage to the future site of Orillia gave quick access to the south and Lake Ontario and north through Matchedash Bay to Lake Huron and the northern Great Lakes.  John Johnston of Sault Ste Marie, who traveled through here in 1809, was very enthusiastic about the future of this site.

AA sure market for provisions could easily be accomplished by opening a communication to the Bay of Matchedash, from whence the Island of St. Joseph is the distance of only leagues.@  Because of this Johnston says the site would, Asoon become the most thriving place in Upper Canada and the centre of provisions and transport trade for the fur companies.@ So much for predictions.

Throughout the 19^th century, the site of Cowan=s >trading fort= was called The Chimneys, in reference to the only remains of the county=s seminal settlement.  At its height, the trading post occupied both sides of the bay, encompassing approximately 40 acres with an orchard, pasture and fields of various crops.

Cowan played host to Governor John Graves Simcoe during Simcoe=s expedition in search of a northern port and a new route to the upper Great Lakes in 1793.  The diary of Sheriff MacDonnell, a member of Simcoe=s expedition, contained in the Transactions of the Canadian Institute, October 1980, chronicles Cowan=s settlement: AMr. Cowan is much liked by the Indians.  He has adopted all the customs and manners of the (French) Canadians and speaks much better French than English.  Has been settled at Matchedash up wards of 15 years without once going to Lower Canada.@

Cowan traded with the area Indians in furs, and once a year would travel to Fort Michilimackinac, where he would pick up his supplies and forward his furs to Montreal.

Later settlers to the area of Coldwater could still see the 40 acre clearing, the old chimneys of Cowan=s large home, several foundations of smaller homes, which probably housed the half dozen French Canadian employees of the establishment, a larger foundation nearer the water was the outpost/fort and the stone well.  Almost 200 years after the settlement was established, Brian Baker, who writes a column on local history in the Barrie Examiner, mentioned seeing the well in the 1970's.

Several other sites were found around the county, including a trading post at the mouth of the Nottawasaga River, which is thought to be one of Cowan=s

Constant Cowan died when the sailboat, the Speedy, sunk during a storm on Lake Ontario in the fall of 1804 (remains of this ship were found late last fall).  The Speedy was carrying a Peterborough area native to trial in Kingston from Toronto on this voyage, the crown attorney, judge, crown witness and the defendant were all on board. The trial was originally to take place in York, but because of where the murder was alleged to have take place, it was just over the border in the jurisdiction of Kingston.  It is said that Cowan was on board in support of the Indians, being a friend of the man.

Cowan=s death did not come before he fathered a family.  His wife was a native Canadian, and they had Aseveral sons and one daughter, who died early and unmarried,@ said Rev. Thomas Williams in his reminiscences printed at the turn of the century in the Orillia Packet.

AMr. Cowan must have been a man of means and position, I judge this from the fact that his family were all educated and considered respectable people.  One of his sons joined with an Indian by marriage (possible moving to Christian or Beausolie Island).  One of the Cowan married to a daughter of Mrs. Mundy (widow of Asher Mundy, and before that a French Canadian by the name of Valliers, Mrs. Mundy lived past the age of 100),@ said Williams.

One of the Cowan/Mundy sons was named William and became a friend of the reverend when he was a boy. 

AThe Cowan sons died or went way; only my friend W. Cowan, and those among the Indians, remained.@

William Cowan spent about three years with Admiral Bayfield who was surveying the waters in the area before joining the North-West Fur Company at Fort William (oddly enough) and later joined the competing Hudson=s Bay Company at Nippissing.

William Cowan=s father was killed in Toronto by Apersons unknown,@ but A.C. Osborne in Pioneer Papers, says it may have been someone he crossed.

AHe was a ventriloquist and made the Indians believe he had supernatural powers and pretended to converse with the Devil and tell when they cheated or sold furs to other parties.  These harmless tricks may have had something to do with his death.@

This man=s brother married an Indian and was known as John Copecog, Joe Cowan, Joe Kane and Winnedis.

While Cowan=s homestead fell out of use in the early 1800s with new roads and lines of communication developing, the importance of his position was reflected in the success of his early venture. Cowan=s homestead fell out of use in the early 1800s with new roads and lines of communication developing, the importance of his position was reflected in the success of his early venture, without the assistance of maps or government grants.  He raised a family in the backwoods of Ontario, assuring their education and a place in the community, and in the history of Simcoe County.