One Man's Family

By Edward Henry Coughran

This book is the result of my inquiry into how this family and the places they lived influenced each other over 400 years in seven countries on four continents. I have been collecting bits and pieces about the family history for as long as I can remember. There is a family storytrue according to my Aunt Lucille who was therethat Big Daddy (my grandfather) received a letter stating that he could, by moving to Ireland, assume the inheritance of a castle. He decided not to, stating that his family was American, and the subject was closed. Nobody now has any idea where the castle was or any of the real circumstances. There is also a story, probably apocryphal, that Andrew and his brother had taken an adventurous trip across the United States (when they couldnt steal horses, they walked), went back to Ireland, and then emigrated. This is my attempt to record what I have found out and what I remember about the Coughran family history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Mar 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490737164

Edward Henry Coughran

This book is the result of my inquiry into how this family and the places they lived influenced each other over 400 years in six countries on three continents.

Book preview

© Copyright 2015 Edward Henry Coughran.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3715-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3717-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3716-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014909347

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Contents

PREFACE

HOW THEY CHOSE THE NAME

MY SEARCH FOR ROOTS

THE PATH BACK TO IRELAND

THE IMMIGRANT

THE MOVE TO KANSAS

THE SECOND GENERATION

OTHER IMMIGRANT ANCESTORS

THE TEXAS BRANCH

THE PATH TO CALIFORNIA

MY FAMILY

THE LOWLANDS OF SCOTLAND

THE ENGLISH IN IRELAND

THE IRISH HOMELAND

THE SCOTCH IRISH

THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH

THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER

THE IRELAND ANDREW LEFT

HA’INA ‘IA MAI ANA KA PUANA

MY JOTTINGS

ERATOSTHENES

Eucalyptus

Unsung Heroes

DESERT MORNING

The Ways to Number Christmas

XI XIV MMV

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

End Notes

PREFACE

I have been collecting bits and pieces about the family history for as long as I can remember. There is a family story—true according to my Aunt Lucille who was there—that Big Daddy (my grandfather, Edward Neppert Coughran) received a letter stating that he could, by moving to Ireland, assume the inheritance of a castle. He decided not to, stating that his family was American, and the subject was closed. Nobody now has any idea where the castle was or any of the real circumstances. There is also a story, probably apocryphal, that Andrew, our Coughran immigrant ancestor, and his brother had taken an adventurous trip across the United States (when they couldn’t steal horses, they walked), went back to Ireland, and then emigrated. This is my attempt to record what I have found out and what I remember about the Coughran family history.

As early as age nine or ten, I was interested in the history of my family. It wasn’t a sophisticated or clearly defined interest, but I had a sense that there was a story to be found and that I ought to know it. I can also remember fantasizing, as I am sure many children do, that some of my ancestors came over on the Mayflower. And this was forty years before I learned that some of them actually did!

As I started to put this on paper, I wrestled with two issues. The first continues and is the decision on what to put in and what to leave out. Human history is complex and messy. Since I had no clear-cut intellectual objective, not trying to prove one thing or another, those editorial decisions pivoted on whether something was fact or speculation and whether it was relevant. These are at best subjective criteria. I can only say that my decisions were many and were made. To those cousins, nieces, nephews, or grandchildren who might want to go on exploring further in some particular direction, I say, Have at it and Godspeed. I pray this is a framework upon which you can stand to see further. For example, here is a research project: go to Bordeaux and look up the origins of the name of Château Coufran. The starting point is that at least some Irish entered the wine trade—Haut-Brion is the French attempt at spelling O’Brien, and the ough will not transliterate into French. Did some of our ancestors immigrate to France? Good hunting!

The second issue is how to organize the material. I have no particular desire to flesh it out and fictionalize it as Haley did in Roots. And I see the story branching out finely when looking forward as well as backward in time. To get it down, I finally concluded that it had to be my story, and I must write it from my point of view. I am the singularity, the single point through which this particular past and this particular future connect.

An alternate title for this story as it has come together would be Roots with Warts. In the beginning, I knew that the family was Irish but, as I gathered more information, I found that they weren’t real Irish but Protestant Northern Irish from Ulster. Then I discovered that they weren’t native Irish at all but Scots who had been brought into Ireland in the Ulster Plantation. But were they Highland Scots with kilts and bagpipes? No, they were Lowland Scots from Paisley in Renfrewshire. From my great-grandfather’s alcoholism to our Mayflower ancestor who ignored the rules and fell overboard, I have chosen accuracy over vainglory.

So this is unashamedly my story. The title I have taken from a radio soap opera I used to listen to as a kid. And it isn’t over. The story continues to unfold.

We are constantly encouraged to study history lest we repeat it and make the same mistakes again. But one of the complicating factors is the selectivity of the historians who bring it to us. Historians simplify some and ignore the rest. De Tocqueville put it more mildly, saying history is a gallery of pictures with one original and many copies.

One example I have thought about is that from before recorded history there has been commercial trade between the Mediterranean and India and South Asia. But the only things historians have preserved for us are the cargo lists. It is certainly true that from these cargo lists we can learn a good deal about the nature of commerce. And we can infer from the items traded something about the cultures of the peoples on each end of the exchange. But what is missing from the historical record is, how did they get there? Did they sail close to the land, always keeping the shore in sight? Did they sail from headland to headland, which implies the accumulation of a body of geographical knowledge? Or did they sail for distances in the open sea by some lost navigational capability? Did they sail at night? Did they only sail seasonally in the monsoonal cycle, going north in one season and south in the other with the prevailing wind? We might learn far more about these people from their interactions with the forces of nature. We can infer from other sources that marine transportation was rather widely known and practiced. There are many references in the Old Testament to ships, storms at sea, sea creatures, and wave actions. While it is assumed that God would know about these things, how would these examples be familiar and meaningful to use as teaching examples for a desert nomadic people?

Another example is the spread of the Capsicum pepper. This chili pepper is indigenous to the New World between Mexico and Peru. It is a separate genus from the pepper from Indonesia, which the Europeans used in medieval times to disguise the taste of tainted meat. Columbus brought it to Europe in the early sixteenth century. It traveled to Ethiopia, to India where it is used in curry, and on to the Szechuan region of China. But none of the historians have recorded its progress and distribution. In Ethiopia, capsicum is the major source of vitamin C in the diet.¹ We can see how the selectivity of historians has limited our clear understanding of the past. One might ask the question of whether, in this age of sound bites and tweets, we are actually moving further from our history and so are more likely to repeat it.

It would be different if history were a science. The basis of the scientific method is that in stating conclusions, one cites the data and things are capable of independent verification by other observers.

I have had a lot of help. Many people have shared stories, given me pieces of the puzzle, and that help is gratefully acknowledged.

As nearly as I have been able to discover, as romantic as the thought might be, there are no Coughrans left in Ireland although there are the related Cochranes. As I began my research into the family origins, I was delighted to find a telephone directory for all Ulster in the University of California-San Diego library. Ulster is the historical name for the nine northern counties of Ireland. It is currently used to refer to the six northern counties that are a part of the United Kingdom and also known as Northern Ireland. But I was disappointed to find no Coughrans listed. Later, my brother Herb visited Ireland, and he found no Coughrans either in the North or in the Republic.

I can remember from family stories told around the dinner table at my grandmother’s that my great-great-grandfather, Andrew Coughran, had emigrated in 1839 or 1840. The last record of a Coughran in Ireland I have been able to find was a little girl, listed only as Coughran, J. who is reported in the 1901 census. She is listed as being two months old and as being born in the Omagh Workhouse. Being born in the Workhouse suggests that she was an illegitimate child.

The story I have collected attempts to show how the family and Ireland mutually influenced each other for nearly three hundred years. The descendants have emigrated to the United States and to Australia. To understand how we came to be who we are, I found it necessary to include a little of the history of the lowlands of Scotland from whence we came. It seemed important to look at the political and economic conditions in Scotland, England, and Ireland leading up to the Ulster Plantation. Finally I wanted to try to appreciate the life and times in Ireland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the period leading up to Andrew’s emigration.

Ed Coughran

HOW THEY CHOSE THE NAME

Tradition traces the Coughran ancestry to a Viking warrior who settled in Renfrewshire in Scotland where his descendents took their name from the lands of Cochrane near Paisley in the region of Glascow. They were well established there in the 12th century, held the lordship from the 14th, and rose to prominence during the reign of James II (1437-60). Robert Cochrane, master mason and a favorite of James III, was the reputed architect of the great hall of Stirling Castle. But his patronage availed him not, for he was hanged with others at Lauder Bridge in 1482 by a group of indignant nobles jealous of others who were favored by the king. Some of our ancestors were lynched by a mob! The principle family remained adherents to the Royal House of Stewart and gained further holdings in Renfrewshire, obtaining a charter of confirmation from Queen Mary in 1556. The Tower or Castle of Cochrane was built in about 1592 by William Cochrane. Lacking male heirs, his line was continued through a daughter who married Alexander Blair of Blair in Ayrshire who, on the death of his father-in-law, by Great Seal charter assumed the name and arms of Cochrane. Alexander acquired the Ayrshire lands of Auchencreuch in 1618 and Cowdoun in 1622. The seven sons of this marriage began in earnest an enviable catalogue of military service which has distinguished the Cochranes. These sons took part in the Civil Wars and William, the second son, was created Lord Cochrane of Dundonald by Charles I and in 1669 was made Earl of Dundonald by Charles II. The rule of the later Stuarts became abhorrent to the Cochranes and many became supporters of the Covenanters, later lending support to William of Orange. The 10th Earl pursued a naval career during the Napoleonic Wars. His expertise in capturing larger ships and his ingenuity in discomforting the enemy gained him high regard. Later, as Member of Parliament for Westminster he became a victim of party politics. With his services in parliament largely unrecognized, in 1817 he accepted command of the Chilean Navy and assisted Bernado O’Higgins in that country’s efforts to gain its independence from Spain. The history of warfare on land, sea an in the air tells of the deeds of many others. Some of the MacEacherns, septs of the Macdonalds, changed their name to Cochrane originating the myth that the Cochranes also are septs. A sept is usually an extended family descended from a common ancestor. The Cochranes have a distinctive green and blue tartan and the motto of the family is Virtue et Labore (by virtue and labor).

MY SEARCH FOR ROOTS

It was on a day in March 1980, some eighty years after his death, that I found the grave of Andrew Coughran, my great-great-grandfather. He and Katie, his wife, are buried in the little cemetery on the hill overlooking Louisville, Kansas.

Previously I had only known—I think from the family tree that Aunt Veda Martin² had drawn—that Andrew was buried in Pottawatomie County, Kansas. Elizabeth Pastore³ had just sent me some information with the name of the town: Louisville, Kansas. Louisville was the second of three county seats for Potawatomie County.