I am working with Carol Gaines, because her father who tested at Ancestry is a Y DNA match to two descendants (who tested at Family Tree DNA) of a grandson of John Gower who married Rosamon Fielding, who went to Tennessee and Arkansas.
Carol Gaines has tried hard to trace her family, and others have worked on the same family. Right now, I'm working on the fact that a Houston Gower born in Tennessee in 1841 should stick out like a sore thumb. Tennessee kept decent records.
John Gower lived in Coffee County, Tennessee in the 1850 census; I found the family there, sans Houston, who would have been eight or nine years old. Coffee County formed in 1836, from several counties including Franklin. In 1840 a John Gower with family of similar but not identical demographics is found in Franklin County, adjacent to Coffee County.
By 1860 John Gower and family by his second marriage were in Wright and Webster Counties, Missouri. Two of his sons, Charles and John, had the middle initial H, and I have seen reason to think the H may have been for Houston; certainly later members of this family were named, for instance, "George Houston Gower".
In 1865, Houston C. Gower married in Webster County, Missouri, and beginning 1870 he shows up there with a wife and family.
This family in this time were often known by their middle names. I am wondering if perhaps Houston was not the man's first name. I am also wondering if perhaps Charles H. Gower was really Charles Houston Gower, and if John H. Gower was really John Houston Gower. Note that both those two have well documented families and for instance, Houston C Gower was not a different one of John Gower's sons.
In the north a middle name like Houston/ Huston would typically send one looking for a mother whose name was Houston or whose mother's name was Houston, but this was a family group that often sent feelers into Missouri and Texas, and there was a prominent critter named Houston running around at the time. Southerners were even more likely than people in Pennsylvania and the midwest to name children after prominent politicians and soldiers.
This post from Genweb, 2006, contains bits of information I've found floating around the Internet about him, but without any sources.
GOWER, GOWERS
GOWER, GOWERS, Looking for family with Houston/Huston C. Gower born 5/24/1841, he states he was born in Coffee Co TN, only information we have, looking for Gower or Gowers family that lists him as their son. Have some info that they came from Wake Co., NC., and may have returned there after the controversial signing of merging Coffee Co with another county, info states after it did indeed merge, a John Gower returned back to Wake Co., N.C.,.
Gower
gmrosetta@yahoo.comSubmitted on Wed Jun 21 2006
I need to know:
- How do we know Houston was born May 24, 1841?
- How do we know he was born in Coffee County, Tennessee?
- How do we know Houston died 21 Feb 1890? I believe that he died in Webster County, Missouri, since he lived there.
- Where is he buried? The information exists but where I saw it it was unreadable.
- I really need more details about any John Gower returning from Coffee County to Wake County, NC. What John Gower? Who was his family in Wake County NC? When did this happen? Where did he go from there? How do we know any of it happened - the story wears no documentation at all.
Thanks!
Yours,
Dora Smith