Born at the Red River Settlement on 9 July 1832, daughter of trader James Sinclair, she was educated at a small school at Point Douglas. She married physician William Cowan in 1852 and had four children: Anna Cowan, Harriet Cowan, John Cowan, and Alexander Cowan. Late in her life, Mrs. Cowan contributed her recollections of early life in the Red River Settlement for the book Women of Red River. She died at the Winnipeg home her son Alexander, 727 Wardlaw Avenue, on 7 September 1926 as a result of a broken hip sustained in a fall a week earlier. She was buried in St. John’s Cemetery.
Women of Red River by W. J. Healy, Winnipeg: The Women’s Canadian Club of Winnipeg, 1923.
Death registration, Manitoba Vital Statistics.
“Mrs. Harriette Cowan, aged pioneer, is dead”, Manitoba Free Press, 8 September 1926, page 5.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 7 March 2010
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