Notes for: William Beamer Lowther

Don Norman's "Descendants of Robert Lowther" and Linder's "Gibson and Related Families," p. 426, report a second marriage for William B. Lowther, to Elizabeth Dotson in Feb 1825 in Harrison County. But "Harrison County Marriages 1785-1894," p. 59, identifies the groom in that marriage as William D. Lowther (this was William B. Lowther's first cousin, William Dark Lowther, son of Elias Lowther & Rebecca Coburn); records of the family's children born after 1825 identify their mother as Margaret Coburn (who died in 1882); and the 1850 Census of Ritchie County identifies the parents in their household as William B. Lowther and Margaret (both age 63). Linder, on p. 436, provides the following caveat: "There is some indication that William B. was married two times. We have not, however, found a record of any other marriage." Minnie Kendall Lowther's "History of Ritchie County," p. 105, makes it clear: "In 1840, William B. Lowther, father of Dr. William R., with his wife, Mrs. Margaret Coburn Lowther, and their family, came from his native Harrison County, and succeeded his son on the Edward J. Lowther farm, at the mouth of Turtle Run. Here the remainder of his life was spent, and in the Pullman churchyard by the side of his wife, he lies at rest." Information regarding the immediate family of this couple was reported by Minnie Kendall Lowther in "Ritchie County in History and Romance," p. 270, citing the family Bible and the will of William B. Lowther.