As a result, I’m turning the page on Arch Bristow to dig into the lives of some of those people. The Warren County Historical Society has lists of “notable” men and women in the county’s history. That serves as the basis for my list.

However, I struck the big names – the Struthers, Cornplanter, DeFrees, Irvine – and will aim to focus on the lesser known yet notable men and women.

That list is still plenty interesting – it includes the son of Union veteran given the title of “Fastest man in the world,” a man who built part of Drake’s infamous well, a fearless female aviator and the county’s first prominent female doctor and lawyer.

But, since you’re reading a newspaper, I’m obligated to almost start with the county’s first real force in the newspaper industry – Ephraim Cowan.

There were papers before the late 1840s but none with the staying power of Cowan’s Warren Mail.

Per the WCHS, Cowan was born in Wales, N.Y., in 1821.

“When 21 years of age he attended the Fredonia Academy for a term, then entered the Jamestown Academy, where he graduated after four years with the highest honors,” according to a text entitled “Genealogical and personal history of the Allegheny Valley, Pennsylvania.”

He then read law for a year before entering the newspaper industry with the Jamestown Journal.

“In July, 1848,” that text adds, “he came to Warren, Pennsylvania, in company with Mr. Warren Fletcher, and started the publication of the Mail, as an organ of the Whig party; in 1849 bought the office and good will of the business and continued in the ownership of the paper, with his sons, Willis and Dwight, as partners, until his death in 1894.”

In short, the Whig Party leaned what we would consider now to the left. When it collapsed, the Republican Party – then the more socially liberal and progressive of the two parties in the years prior to the Civil War – rose in its place.

Per the Historical Society, the paper was named the Allegheny Mail initially before Cowan bought out Fletcher and renamed it to the Mail.

“The influence of his paper helped to turn Warren County from Democrat to Republican,” the Historical Society biography concluded. “His paper published many educational articles and histories. He was a champion of better schools and teachers and a very knowledgeable writer.”

We can get a sense of his writing from, of all places, a 2015 Times Observer article that quoted a Cowan editorial.

“This week, in all the homes in Warren, great activities are going on in preparation for Christmas – cooking – gift making – secret conferences – the little ones are burdened with the first secret of their lives that they may keep silent about what they have made so as to surprise father and mother when the Christmas Tree drops its glittering blossoms. Outdoor preparations are not neglected – handsleds and skates are newly scraped and painted – cutters and sleighs are out. The bells jingle merrier than at any other day in the year because of the music in our souls. Soon it is all over – but if it could bring back to the adults the true childhood of the soul, and make us less selfish and more truly Christian all the year through – what a fine thing it would be.”

He shared the industry with his sons – Willis and Dwight – who both became partners in the Mail.

In the 19th century, newspapers weren’t meant so much to inform but to politic.

And Cowan certainly took advantage of that.

He was a delegate to the Republcan National Convention in 1856 before election to two years as county treasurer.

From there he jumped to the state House of Representatives representing Warren and Crawford counties in 1861 and 1862. He declined to seek an additional term.

“During the Civil War he worked in Washington as a clerk in the Department of the Interior and also the House of Representatives,” per the Historical Society.

“He served several winters as clerk of the Pennsylvania state senate, and in 1874 was appointed deputy collector of internal revenue for Warren, McKean, Elk and Cameron counties, Pennsylvania, serving in this capacity for eleven years,” per the genealogical text.

That appointment would have come during the Grant administration.

It seems likely that work as a law clerk for Warren-native Congressman Glenni Scofield certainly couldn’t have harmed his candidacy for that appointment.

According to the 1879 Official Register of the United States, he was one of three deputy collectors in the 19th Congressional District along with James P. Covert of Warren County (but buried in Erie) and B.F. Butterfield of Erie.

That record lists Cowan’s compensation as $1,300. That would equate to $28,000 or $29,000 today.

He went to work in Washington at the age of 70 as secretary in the Office of the Public Printer of the United States.

He died in Washington while working in that capacity in 1894 and is buried at Oakland Cemetery.

His obituary in the Forest Republican reports that he died suddenly on Jan. 23.

“He had been somewhat indisposed with an attack of grip (modern term – influenza), but was not considered dangerously ill even up to the hour of his death,” the report states. “For nearly forty years Mr. Cowan has been the editor and proprietor of the Mail, and by a straight-forward honorable course has not only made it one of the most reliable journals of the State, but by consistent and conscientious effort been largely instruments in making Warren county what it is today, one of the reliably Republican of the State.”