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Relatives: Husband of Janet Jellie. Stone Condition: Sound, Tilted Material: Sandstone Height: 0.97 Breadth: 0.53 Depth: 0.9 Inscription Condition: Clear but worn Inscription Technique: Incised Mason: Not known Pre 1855 no. N/A ( What's this? )

Monument Inscription

ERECTED
BY
J. AND S. COWAN
IN MEMORY OF THEIR FATHER
DAVID COWAN
DIED MARCH 16TH 1872.
AGED 72 YEARS.
ALSO HIS WIFE
JANET JELLIE.
DIED JUNE 24TH 1871.
AGED 66 YEARS.

Family History

A simple and unassuming headstone stands over the remains of two persons about whom there are enigmas.

The stone appears to have been erected by two of the deceased person’s children but does not include their son Robert who reported their deaths. No trace can be found as to the origins of this couple although it is thought unlikely that they were native to the parish.

David Cowan appears to have been born in 1800 to parents Robert Cowan, a farmer, and his spouse Letitia or Margaret Brydon. This couple were married in Kirkbean, Kirkudbright.

David, at the time of his wife’s death, is recorded as being an outside labourer by occupation, but by the time of his own death he is described as a block printer. Block printing was the application of patterns on cloth by means of pressing wooden blocks onto the fabric.
It may be that he obtained a change of occupation in this period which was within a year of his wife’s demise. At the time of his death he is given the age of seventy-two years.

The mystery continues when it is discovered that, while David Cowan’s wife Janet Jellie is shown on her headstone as being sixty-six years of age, her death certificate gives her age as forty-seven years. Should the latter figure be correct then Janet was twenty-four years her husbands junior. Her father is shown as George Jelly, a baker to trade, but her mother is unknown to the reporter her son Robert.

Whilst David Cowan died of a heart condition from which he had suffered for one year prior to his death, his wife Janet had apparently been the victim of a paralysis for eight years before her death.

Enough discrepancies appear to merit further investigation as to the true facts surrounding this couple resting beneath the turf of Mearns Kirkyard.