Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Ezekiel Cowgill (b. 1793-d. 1881)
MSA SC 5496-51878
Quaker Landowner, Talbot County, Maryland


Biography: 

Ezekiel Cowgill helped facilitate the founding of Unionville by leasing his land to African American veterans of the Civil War and selling his land for that community’s church and a school. Ezekiel Cowgill was a Quaker from Delaware who moved to Maryland and became a farmer in 1856. His son, John Cowgill, fought for the Union Army and became a captain of Colored Troops. Ezekiel Cowgill’s opposition to slavery and interest in the establishment of a free African American community in Miles River Neck was instrumental to the founding of Unionville. 

Ezekiel Cowgill was born on September 12, 1792 to a Quaker family in Kent County, Delaware.1  The Cowgills and their extended family were known to be abolitionists.2 Ezekiel married Sarah Gordon in 1823.3 They had several children, including Daniel, Lavinia, Jacob Stout, John, James Millechamp, Virginia, Eveline Victoria, and Horace.4 By the time of the family's move to Maryland, their surviving children were Daniel, John, James, and Virginia. Ezekiel and Sarah were members of the Camden Monthly Meeting, and it is probable that the family was acquainted with John Hunn, the Chief Engineer of the Underground Railroad in Delaware, who was buried in the Camden Monthly Meeting cemetery in 1894.5 Additionally, Ezekiel Cowgill corresponded with Thomas Garrett, an abolitionist who had risen to prominence after his trial before Justice Roger B. Taney in 1848, when he was prosecuted for aiding the Hawkins family in their escape from slavery. In 1852, Cowgill drafted a lengthy letter to Garrett, who had been looking for an African American woman named Ellen R. Jones.6 Cowgill replied that he did not know of a woman named Ellen Jones, and his search for her had been unsuccessful. This correspondence suggests that Ezekiel Cowgill was at least complicit in the operation of the Underground Railroad, if not an active accomplice. The letter went on to discuss abolition, politics, and the possibility of American accession of Cuba.

Ezekiel Cowgill was a politically active abolitionist who used his ties as State Treasurer of Delaware and the Trustee of the fund for establishing schools in Delaware to organize a school for free blacks under the care of the Preparative Quaker Meeting of Little Creek. The school existed from 1835 until at least 1854.7 The exact dates of Cowgill's service as State Treasurer are unclear. So far, the earliest record of Cowgill as Treasurer is in the Governor's Register of March, 1823.8 The last time that he was mentioned in the Register as State Treasurer was in February of 1829.9  In 1849, Cowgill drafted a petition for the abolition of slavery that was to be sent to the General Assembly of Delaware.10  

Ezekiel Cowgill and his family lived in Dover in 1830.11 In 1840, the Cowgills had moved to Dover Hundred, and five "free colored persons" were living in Ezekiel's household.12 In 1850, two free African Americans, Hannah Black and Joshua Hodge, were living with the Cowgills. That year, Ezekiel was recorded as a miller with $12,000 in property.13

It is not well known why Ezekiel Cowgill decided to move to Maryland and take up farming at the age of sixty-four. In 1856, Ezekiel Cowgill purchased Lombardy, a dilapidated farm located in Talbot County.14 According to Cowgill’s own account of his arrival in Maryland, the farmhouse on the property had burnt down, and upon moving to Lombardy the family lived in a section of the house that had been partially rebuilt, “so that we could stow ourselves away in it with rather more commodious accommodations than those enjoyed by passengers in a crowded omnibus.” Cowgill also wrote that the soil was poor, “through neglect and mismanagement my farm has become impoverished and there is some curious legend about the pride and poverty, a strange mixture of splendor and squalid wretchedness of the families of some of my predecessors—the land has been literally used up for ignoble purposes.”15 It is probable that Cowgills' objection to his neighbors' lifestyles, as exemplified in this excerpt from his memoir, was rooted in his opposition to slavery.

As of the 1860 census, Ezekiel Cowgill lived on Miles River Neck with his wife and son, John, along with two free African American men, Henry and Asbury Veney.16 The Cowgills' neighbors were also free African Americans, Solomon and Fannie Oliver are frequently recorded in the receipts of the Cowgill papers for payment for washing and labor. From 1870 to 1880, Fannie Oliver was living as a servant at Lombardy with the Cowgills, probably after she had been widowed.

The majority of the land on Miles River Neck belonged to the Lloyd family, and Colonel Edward Lloyd VI's plantation depended on the labor of hundreds of slaves.17 Ezekiel Cowgill was affected by his slaveholding neighbors and expressed surprise to find himself living as a neighbor to slaveholders, “It seems strange to me that I have turned a double summerset in the way of moving and change of business, that I should have fallen haphazard into Miles River Neck, the great hotbed and stronghold of American Slavery." Cowgill referred to his neighbors as "the Goliaths, Nebuchadnezzars and Pharaohs of the peculiar institution—can I desire to fraternize with such and to partake of their abominations?” Ezekiel wrote in his memoir that he was drawn to Miles River Neck by the landscape, and whether he had a hidden motive for moving to a slaveholding area has been left unrecorded. There is no written evidence that he moved to Miles River Neck with the intention of undermining slavery as an accomplice to escaping slaves, although he wrote against slavery and even sent his subscription of the antislavery New-York Tribune to J. B. McNeal, the son of a slaveholding neighbor.18 

Ezekiel Cowgill paid wages to the people who worked on his farm. According to Cowgill’s writings, his farming methods rendered his farm unprofitable. “I have sustained considerable loss this past year in my endeavors to conduct my farming operations on free labor principles and have often said to myself and children that we were now getting a more honest living than we have ever before done as most of the labour has been done by ourselves and we can say truly that ‘these hands have ministered to our necessities.’” He is known to have kept an orchard of pear, peach, apple, and plum trees, as well as growing clover, oats, corn, and wheat.19 Additionally, Ezekiel’s sons helped him run the farm. By the time of the 1860 census, Ezekiel and Sarah’s twenty-eight year old son, John, was living with them in Maryland and was listed in the census as a farmer.20 In 1863, another son, James, had moved to Easton and at that time was recorded in the draft records of the Union Army.21 James would eventually inherit the property in 1886.22

During the presidential election of 1860, Ezekiel Cowgill cast one of the two votes in Talbot County for Abraham Lincoln. In a letter to the New-York Tribune, Cowgill wrote that he “was the only black Republican in this populous and wealthy County of Talbot that ventured to make his sentiments; there was one other vote given for the Republican by what the irresponsible desposts [sic] call a crazy fool the name not remembered."23 A Dr. Harrison claimed that at least one member of the Cowgill family had voted for Lincoln and that they had been "driven out of the county by threats."24 This seems unlikely, or at least the Cowgills' absence from Miles River Neck had been brief, since the family is found at Lombardy throughout the Civil War.

The Civil War began shortly after the Cowgills moved to Maryland, and John Cowgill was drafted into the Union Army.25 He fought in Kentucky and Kansas as a captain with the United States Colored Troops and also as a captain with the 2nd US Volunteers.26 By 1870 he had returned to Miles River Neck, where he lived with his wife, Emma, and children, Daniel and Emma.27 Although John’s participation in the war violated his parents’ Quaker dedication to pacifism, John continued to share a warm relationship with his parents, as is evident in the letters that he wrote from his posts during the Civil War.

Ezekiel Cowgill was a well-respected and influential member of the Quaker community in Talbot County, who contributed to the religious life of the meeting and also to the maintenance of the social safety net that the meeting represented for its members. The same day that Ezekiel transferred his membership to the Third Haven Meeting from the Camden Meeting, he was appointed to a committee to look into the case of James Fairbank, a Friend who had stopped attending meeting and had begun indulging in alcohol.28 He went on to represent the meeting at regional and statewide events, and in 1859 he was the clerk of the meeting, a temporary position meaning that he was responsible for the administrative maintenance of the meeting's affairs.29 In 1864, Cowgill was named an elder, a permanent honor that recognized him as a faithful Quaker and entrusted him, along with the other elders, with the spiritual upkeep of the meeting.30 In 1869, he was appointed an overseer of the meeting.31 Overseers of Quaker meetings are responsible for the care of vulnerable individuals in the meeting; the duties of an overseer included visiting the sick and ensuring that the meeting provided for widows and orphaned children.

After the Civil War there were many veterans of the United States Colored Troops who were returning to Miles River Neck, and there were lots of newly free, landless people in the area. Ezekiel Cowgill began leasing his land to the people who had been enslaved on neighboring plantations. On February 28, 1867, Ezekiel Cowgill leased a portion of his land to African American veterans Robert Gooby32, John Henry Gibson33, Horace Gibson34, Matthew Roberts35, William Samson36, Joseph Johnson37, and James Johnson.38 Gooby, the Gibsons, and the Johnsons all served with the 7th Regiment of United States Colored Troops39, and Matthew Roberts served in the 4th Regiment.40 It is possible that William Samson served with the 19th Colored Infantry.41 The men each leased their own plot of land for a dollar a month, and the agreement was to span a period of thirty years.

Many of the residents of Unionville, including those who had fought for their own freedom in the Union army, had previously been slaves on the plantation of Cowgill's neighbor, Edward Lloyd. Peter Johnson, Joseph Gale, Horace Gibson, Joseph Johnson, James Johnson, Isaac Copper, John Johnson, Perry Johnson, John Blackwell, and Henry Roberts had all enlisted in the 7th Regiment of the United States Colored Troops as a way to gain their freedom from the Lloyd plantation on Miles River Neck.42 

It appears that Ezekiel Cowgill was not a disinterested landlord, and the Cowgills had connections with the people living in Unionville. The Cowgills were associated with the Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People, and are known to have facilitated a few Unionville residents' correspondence with the Freedmen's Bureau. In October of 1872, the War Department wrote to Mrs. Marion Roberts, care of Ezekiel Cowgill. According to the letter, Roberts had submitted a claim for a pension, along with Nannie Copper and Harriet Jackson, and Ezekiel Cowgill had been involved in the submission.43

Although the land was initially leased to the residents of Unionville, it was clearly the intention of all parties that Unionville would be a permanent community. In May of 1868, the founders of Unionville bought land for a school. In the land records, Ezekiel Cowgill sold the land for one dollar.44 In December of 1870, Ezekiel and Sarah Cowgill deeded land for the establishment of a Methodist Episcopal Church. The land for the church was also sold to the trustees for a token one dollar.45 The trustees were William Samson, Damon Gibson, Isaac Madden, William H. Smith, Edward Jenkins, Robert Stanton, George Turner, Charles Brown, and Solomon Shields. 

Ezekiel Cowgill died on February 21, 1881 at the age of 89 and he was buried at Miles River Neck.46

1. Thomas Hale Streets, The Stout Family of Delaware: with the story of Penelope Stout (Philadelphia, PA: T. H. Streets, 1915), 75. Ancestry.com

2. "Camden Friends Meeting" Delaware Public Archives.

3. Streets, The Stout Family of Delaware, 75. Ancestry.com

4. Cowgill Papers, Talbot County Historical Society.

5. "Camden Friends Meeting" Delaware Public Archives.

6. Cowgill Papers, Talbot County Historical Society.

7. Ibid.

8. Delaware Governor's Register 1674-1851, 198. Ancestry.com.

9. Ibid, 268.

10. Cowgill Papers, Talbot County Historical Society.

11. Ancestry.com 1830 United States Federal Census, Delaware, Kent, Dover, p. 264.

12. Ancestry.com 1840 United States Federal Census, Delaware, Kent, Dover Hundred, p. 13.

13. Ancestry.com 1850 United States Federal Census, Delaware, Kent, Dover Hundred.

14. TALBOT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) Liber STH 67, Folio 269-270, MSA CE 91-4. William W. Davis & Sarah B. his wife to Ezekiel Cowgill, September 13, 1856.

15. Cowgill Papers, Talbot County Historical Society.

16. U.S. Census Bureau (Census Records, MD) Household of Ezekiel Cowgill, 1860, Easton, Talbot County, Page 70 [MSA SM 61-218].

17.Shephard Krech III, "The Participation of Maryland Blacks in the Civil War: Perpectives from Oral History," Ethnohistory 27, No. 1 (Winter, 1980): 67.21.

18. Cowgill Papers, Talbot County Historical Society.

19. Ibid.

20. U.S. Census Bureau (Cenus Records, MD) Household of Ezekiel Cowgill, 1860, Easton, Talbot County, Page 70 [MSA SM61-218].

21.Ancestry.com. U.S. Civil War Draft Registration Records, 1863-1865, Maryland, 1st Congressional District, Vol. 1, p. 133. 

22. TALBOT COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS (Wills), Record for Sally G. Cowgill, MSA CM1041-14 EHR 13 p. 159

23. Cowgill Papers, Talbot County Historical Society.

24. Dickson J. Preston,. Talbot County: A History, (Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1983), 207.

25.Ancestry.com. U.S. Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865, Maryland, 1st Congressional District, Vol. 1, p. 135.  

26.U. S. Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934. Record for John Cowgill.

27. Ancestry.com. United States Federal Census, 1870, District 1, Talbot County, p. 62.

28. Third Haven Monthly Meeting Minutes, 1856 [MSA SC 2394-1-7].

29. Third Haven Monthly Meeting Minutes, 1859 [MSA SC 2394-1-7].

30. Third Haven Monthly Meeting Minutes, 1864 [MSA SC 2394-1-7].

31. Third Haven Monthly Meeting Minutes, 1869 [MSA SC 2394-1-7].

32. TALBOT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) MSA CE 91-10 STH 73, p. 288. Ezekiel Cowgill to Robert Gooby

33. TALBOT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) MSA CE 91-10 STH 73, p. 290. Ezekiel Cowgill to John Henry Gibson. 

34. TALBOT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) MSA CE 91-10 STH 73, p. 291. Ezekiel Cowgill to Horace Gibson.

35. TALBOT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) MSA CE 91-10 STH 73, p. 293. Ezekiel Cowgill to Matthew Roberts.

36. TALBOT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) MSA CE 91-10 STH 73, p. 294. Ezekiel Cowgill to William Samson.

37. TALBOT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) MSA CE 910-10 STH 73, p. 296. Ezekiel Cowgill to Joseph Johnson.

38. TALBOT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) MSA CE 91-10 STH 73, p. 298. Ezekiel Cowgill to James Johnson.

39. Agnes Kane Callum, Colored Volunteers of Maryland Civil War 7th Regiment United States Colored Troops 1863-1866, (Baltimore, MD: Mullac Publishers) 1990. 

40. Ancestry.com. U. S. Colored Troops Military Service Records, 4th United States Colored Infantry.

41. Ancestry.com U.S. Colored Troops Military Service Records, 19th United States Colored Infantry, William T. Samson.

42. Callum, Colored Volunteers.

43. Cowgill Papers, Talbot County Historical Society.

44. TALBOT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) MSA CE 91-11 STH 74 p. 402 Ezekiel Cowgill to Horace Gibson  & others Trustees, 2 May 1868.

45. TALBOT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) MSA CE 91-14 JB 77 p. 16. 28 December 1870.

46. Third Haven Burial Records [MSA SC 2394-1-1].

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  Written by Emily Huebner, 2013.
 
 


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