COWAN, Rev. John F., son of Adam Cowan, was born in Sadsbury township, May 8, 1801.  He learned the printing business in Lancaster, but at the termination of his apprenticeship entered upon studies with a view to the ministry.  He graduated at Jefferson College in 1824; studied theology in the seminary at Princeton, and was licensed to preach April 8, 1829.  He had charge of Presbyterian churches in Missouri until the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion, when he became chaplain of the military hospital in St. Louis.  He there incurred the disease which terminated his life, Sept. 29, 1862.  He was in the fullest sense an evangelist, and was instrumental in founding and strengthening a number of churches in Missouri.   He has two sons in the ministry, the Rev. John F. Cowan and the Rev. Edward Payson Cowan, the latter now of Germantown, Pa.