author
John Pryor Cowan
1875–1960
A quietly intriguing early-20th-century writer, he is best known for a lively travel narrative about a motorboat trip along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and for compiling a book of historical tributes to Pittsburgh.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Little biographical information about this author is easy to confirm online, but library and public-domain records do firmly place him as John Pryor Cowan (1875–1960).
His best-known surviving work is Sometub's Cruise on the C. & O. Canal, a narrative of a motorboat vacation through the heart of Maryland that was later preserved by Project Gutenberg. He is also credited with Great Men, Their Esteem for a Great City, a 1919 compilation gathering notable praise for Pittsburgh.
Taken together, those works suggest a writer with an eye for place, local history, and the pleasure of recording a journey. Because dependable biographical sources are scarce, many personal details about his life remain unclear in the records readily available online.