‘Our own poor Dave’: A seldom-told tale about the life, and death, of a teenaged mountie during the North-West Resistance

Below is a link to the Regina Leader Post article about the life and death of Constable David Latimer Cowan, Reg # 635, Honour Roll # 9.  The article certainly adds more, and corrects some previous errors, of his short life.   For ease of reading I transposed the article in the link to a Word document removing all the ads.  If you have not seen the article already, I hope you will enjoy the read.
Ric

Photograph of retired RCMP Superintendent Ric Hall (Source of the photo – Ric Hall’s Photo Collection).

 

RCMP Honour Roll describes the death of Constable David Latimer Cowan, Reg # 635 – RCMP Honour Roll # 9, in this way:

Killed at Fort Pitt, Northwest Territories, while on scouting duty.

There is more to the story of Constable Cowan than described on the Honour Roll list.  Below is an article recently told in the Regina Leader Post about the life and death of Constable Cowan.   For ease of reading, I have cut and pasted the article removing all the adds posted with the link:

https://leaderpost.com/feature/our-own-poor-dave-seldom-told-tale-life-death-teenaged-nwmp-officer-northwest-rebellion/wcm/df38fa16-067e-48d9-b236-8516c87f9b97

RDH 24394-O.1330

“We must have a grand spree when (you) come home and you bet we will.” Author the article: Bill Waiser – Saskatoon Star Phoenix – March 28, 2024.

“I am as comfortable and as happy as the day is long, there is nothing that I want or need,” David Latimer Cowan proudly wrote to his mother Mary from Toronto.

It was April 1882. Cowan, a clerk in an Ottawa dry goods store, had just joined the North-West Mounted Police for a five-year term.

At his medical examination, the brown-haired, brown-eyed Cowan was declared “healthy” with a “good” disposition. He stood 5′ 8″ tall and weighed 144 pounds. His stated age was 18 years, nine months. That was a lie. Cowan was only 14. After taking his oath, the new recruit was assigned regimental No. 635.

Cowan spent his first weeks as a constable drilling or on guard duty at Toronto’s Fort York. He complained to his mother about the seemingly endless wait to get his uniform and boots. And when he finally received his scarlet tunic, it had to be altered before he could wear it.

Even then, the fresh-faced Cowan looked like a boy playing policeman in his tin-type photograph. He paid for copies to give his family by selling his clothes.

Cowan left for the North-West in early May. There was no direct route because the Canadian Pacific Railway was under construction in northern Ontario and across the prairies. He consequently traveled through the United States, heading up the Missouri River aboard the Red Cloud to Fort Benton, Montana.

In a letter to his mother written aboard the sternwheeler, Cowan made no mention of First Nations or the reservations along the way — only that the weather was “terribly stormy” and that “the river is very low and we sometimes get stuck.”

From Fort Benton, Cowan walked north with other recruits in a small oxen train taking supplies to Fort Walsh, the NWMP headquarters in the Cypress Hills. Ironically, he traveled the same trail used by American whiskey traders and wolfers whose debauching and murderous activities in the early 1870s had led to the dispatch of the mounted police to the western interior.

Cowan reached Fort Walsh on June 11, 1882. He described it as “quite a busy place.” That was quite an understatement.

Hundreds of Cree, Nakoda (Assiniboine), Saulteaux, and Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) from present-day southern Alberta and Saskatchewan had descended on the Cypress Hills in a desperate search for any remaining bison. Many were starving and turned to the mountiesat Fort Walsh for food and supplies. Cowan never mentioned their wretchedness.

Even though the world around him was all new, he rarely reflected on anything beyond his own well-being — never expressed any interest in the Indigenous peoples of the region, nor sympathy for their fate.

“The boys got a blanket the other night,” Cowan happily reported of the Dominion Day celebrations at Walsh, “and tossed everybody they could lay their hands on. I had to take my turn.”

In the same letter, he enclosed a few dollars from his first pay as a present to his mother. He got a kerchief as a return gift.

In his letters from the late summer into the fall, Cowan talked about his nights on guard duty, fighting prairie fires, taking baths in the cold creek, and the frequent desertions. His big news on Oct. 13 was getting “our buffalo coats this afternoon so I don’t care how cold it gets.”

This youthful bravado carried over into the new year when he flatly told his mother: “As for being a man I am big enough to be one … it is time to stop calling him a boy.”

In June 1883, Constable Cowan was posted at Maple Creek, near the new CPR main line, in preparation for escorting several Cree and Nakoda bands north to reserves around the former territorial capital at Battleford. The NWMP, in cooperation with the Indian Affairs department, had closed Fort Walsh in an effort to force First Nation treaty bands to leave the Cypress Hills and settle elsewhere.

In a letter from Battleford, Cowan recounted how one of the Cree leaders (unnamed) had repeatedly refused to go further, even threatening to turn back, during the month-long march. It was probably Lucky Man, who had asked for a reserve in the Cypress Hills and passively resisted all attempts to evict his band from the area. At one point, Cowan threatened “to put the handcuffs on him.”

Later that fall, Cowan was transferred to the Fort Pitt detachment on the North Saskatchewan River near the Saskatchewan-Alberta interprovincial border. His commander was Inspector Francis Dickens, son of the famous British novelist Charles Dickens — a fact Cowan delighted in telling his mother.

Over the past year and a half in the force, Cowan had grown three inches in height and gained 30 pounds. He was not one to be intimidated, especially when he now had to deal with “the very worst sort.” He bragged to his mother how he could “put a pair of bracelets (handcuffs) on any half breed or Indian that I ever seen yet and that alone.”

Through 1884 and into 1885, Cowan patrolled the Pitt district, often covering hundreds of miles on horseback, dealing with “troublesome” First Nations. He was also temporarily stationed at nearby Frog Lake. He was apparently there to keep watch over Big Bear, a leading Plains Cree chief who was spearheading a treaty rights movement and had attracted a number of hard-line followers.

In his letters home, written less frequently now, Cowan downplayed any unrest, claiming that “this is a terrible dull place nothing to see.” In fact, in his last letter in February 1885, he confided to his mother that “I have only a little over two years to put in and then, I can bid them (the NWMP) good bye.”

David Cowan found himself embroiled in the North-West Resistance — often referred to as the North-West Rebellion — in the spring of 1885. In mid-March, Métis leader Louis Riel declared a provisional government at his Batoche headquarters in an effort to force the Canadian government to deal with Métis grievances. But a bloody clash between Métis and mounted police forces at nearby Duck Lake made a negotiated settlement impossible. It would be Canada’s first and only civil war.

News of the Duck Lake clash unsettled the Frog Lake Cree. Chafing at the hands of a mean-spirited Indian agent, several of the more aggressive members of Big Bear’s band, led by war chief Wandering Spirit, erected a soldiers’ lodge. They planned to take hostages and help themselves to much-needed rations.

But after finding alcohol during their looting spree on the morning of April 2, the warriors went on a murder spree. Nine men were killed, including the Indian agent, the farm instructor, and two Catholic priests. Cowan would have known the massacre victims.

The police and civilian residents of Fort Pitt expected to be attacked next. After more than a week of anxious waiting, Cowan, now a corporal, volunteered for a reconnaissance mission. He was joined by Constable Lawrence Loasby and Métis interpreter Henry Quinn.

The scouts had been gone for only a few hours when a large Cree party rode over the hill overlooking the fort. Although Big Bear’s influence was in abeyance, he had accompanied the warriors to prevent further bloodshed and called on the mounted police to surrender the post on the understanding that they would be allowed to slip away. While Inspector Dickens weighed the police options, the local HBC factor, W.J. McLean, went to meet with the First Nations leaders.

The parley was interrupted when the scouts madly galloped for the safety of the fort. Their sudden appearance caught the warriors completely by surprise, and fearing an attack, they instinctively fired on the men, killing Cowan and wounding Loasby.

The death of Cowan served notice that the Cree were not to be provoked. That evening, April 15, while Dickens and his men retreated in a scow down the ice-filled North Saskatchewan River to Battleford, the rest of the occupants of the fort, mostly families with children, walked through the gate and into captivity. The Cree took whatever they could from Pitt and headed back to Frog Lake to wait and see how the resistance would unfold. Cowan’s body was left where he had fallen.

It would be another six weeks — near the end of May — before the Alberta Field Force arrived in the Fort Pitt district. The arrival of the troops threw the First Nations camp into turmoil, and under Wandering Spirit’s guidance, the Cree and their prisoners retreated north. Skirmishing over the next week, first at Frenchman Butte and then Loon Lake, ended any remaining resistance. The camp broke into smaller groups and the last of the prisoners were released.

The mounted police, meanwhile, had to deal with the death of one of their own. Cowan’s corpse had been buried, about 500 yards from the fort, where it had been found by members of the Alberta Field Force. The body had been “dreadfully mutilated.”

Inspector Dickens now arranged a proper funeral with a casket and attending reverend. The grave was encircled with a wooden railing with a cross at the head. Someone took the yellow fabric band from around Cowan’s pillbox hat and mailed it to his father.

The force also formally discharged Cowan from service, as well as determined the pay that was due at the time of his death. He had no other assets. He never banked any money and was indebted to the Hudson’s Bay Company.

There was little communication between police officials and Cowan’s family. What they learned about his death largely came from newspaper coverage of the resistance. His younger brother Will said that it was a blessing that they had the tin-type photograph: “Without that little thing we (will) never look on his face again.”

There was also some thought about bringing “our own poor Dave” home to Ottawa.

On Sept. 23, 1885, Louison Mongrain, a member of the Seekaskootch (Cut Arm) Wood Cree band, appeared in a Battleford court charged with the murder of Cowan. He was quickly found guilty based on the testimony of several crown witnesses, including Constable Loasby, and sentenced to death.

Dressy Man (Wawasehewein) also appeared on the same docket for Cowan’s murder, but had already been sentenced to death earlier that day for another murder. His part in Cowan’s death was consequently never considered, let alone examined, in court.

Mongrain and Dressy Man were to be executed at Battleford on Nov. 27, but were granted a reprieve before their date with the hangman.

Dressy Man had been convicted of killing an old, deranged Cree woman, whose behaviour was considered a threat to the Frog Lake camp. In a rare nod to First Nations sensibilities, the Minister of Justice, after reviewing the capital case file, recommended that Dressy Man’s death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment.

Mongrain’s fate was decided by new evidence.

HBC factor McLean had been posted to Fort Alexander (Manitoba) after the troubles and never called on to testify at Mongrain’s trial — even though he had been an eye-witness to Cowan’s shooting. Once McLean learned that Mongrain had been sentenced to death, he offered to provide a sworn statement. So too did his daughter Amelia, who had watched the bloody drama that day through a port hole in the Pitt palisade.

In a document signed and dated Oct. 28, McLean said Mongrain had been extremely protective of the Pitt prisoners. He also maintained that someone else shot Cowan — that the mountie was not dead after being hit, and that Dressy Man had “finished him with a club … bespattered with brains and blood.”

Amelia McLean, who was fluent in Cree, praised Mongrain in her statement. She also named Cowan’s assassin — Maymenook from Saddle Lake — and said he had been subsequently killed during a firefight with Canadian troops.

Mongrain was sent to Manitoba’s Stony Mountain penitentiary to serve a life sentence. Dressy Man, on the other hand, may have escaped death on the Battleford scaffold, but now faced a possible second trial for Cowan’s murder based on McLean’s statement. The Cree man was detained in Regina in December 1885, but then quietly transferred to Stony Mountain after it was determined that there was too much conflicting evidence.

Cowan’s parents cried foul. David’s father contacted the governor general, who claimed that he had commuted the death sentences on the advice of the government. David’s mother, meanwhile, in a letter to the Ottawa Free Press, called on the government to “not let justice wait it execution one minute longer.”

She also blamed Amelia McLean’s “feeble talk” for undoing the verdict of the territorial court.

It fell to Henry Quinn, the third member of the scouting party, to explain what had happened the day Cowan was killed. Quinn had survived running the gauntlet through the Cree camp, without being shot, but was subsequently taken prisoner along with the Pitt residents.

Quinn told the other captives that they had spied the Cree war party as they returned to Pitt and that he warned Cowan and Loasby that it would be suicidal to try to make a run for the fort. Had nine people not been murdered at Frog Lake? Cowan, in response, accused Quinn of cowardice and galloped forward to his death.

HBC clerk W.B. Cameron put Quinn’s account in writing after the prisoners had been released. He added his own assessment of the situation in March 1886: That Cowan had “acted imprudently … it was an act of bravado … if they had taken Quinn’s advice there would have been no bloodshed.”

In January 1940, the RCMP Quarterly published an “Old Timers” column devoted to David Cowan. It noted that the “NorthWest 1885 Canada” medal that had been posthumously awarded to Cowan was still being held for the family. (David was the eldest boy of nine children.)

Twenty years later, one of Cowan’s nieces asked the force to confirm where David had been buried. It was her understanding that his body had been returned to Ottawa for burial there at the request of his mother Mary.

The mounted police reported that Cowan’s remains had been exhumed at Fort Pitt in July 1909 and brought to Frog Lake to be placed in one large plot with seven of the victims of the 1885 massacre. Cowan’s new grave became part of a national historic site in 1923. What the niece wasn’t told, though, was the condition of Cowan’s body when it was moved.

“I found the skull had been hacked to pieces,” reported the attending mountie in 1909. “Four of the ribs were pierced by bullets, and one arm broken.”

Nothing more was heard from the Cowan family until 1972, when a nephew, curious about his uncle’s story, visited RCMP headquarters in Ottawa. That’s when he learned that the police had been holding David’s “NorthWest 1885 Canada” medal for almost a century.

The medal presentation thrilled Cowan’s descendants, but then, they voluntarily gave it back so that it could be displayed in the old RCMP Depot museum in Regina. They wanted something associated with David’s memory to be part of the RCMP centennial celebrations.

Mary Cowan’s last letter to her son was written March 8, 1885. David never received it before his death, and it was returned to the family.

“Don’t think of staying there,” his mother implored. “We must have a grand spree when (you) come home and you bet we will.”

(This article is based in part on Cowan’s surviving correspondence with his mother, generously provided by a family member.)

Inspector Francis Dickens — the son of famed novelist Charles Dickens — stands, with sword drawn, before the NWMP Fort Pitt detachment. David Cowan is to the immediate right of Dickens. (Library and Archives Canada)

David Cowan’s grave at Fort Pitt was overgrown and forgotten by the start of the 20th century. (Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan)