Australian and New Zealand Civil War Veterans

[A Confederate Captain]

Joseph Henry Cowen was born in 1836 in Lynn Regis, Norfolk, England the son of Joseph Henry and Mary Elizabeth Cowen; and later migrated to the United States with his wife Isabella from Scotland who he married before migrating to America. Joseph is believed to have first married a woman from Scotland named Isabella had some of his children before leaving the United States. There was a Jean born around 1860; John in 1861; Andrew 1864; Mary 1866; Minnie 1863; then Joseph around 1876 and Maggie 1880.

During the American Civil War Cowen, who had already become a ships Captain, was said to have been given command of a Confederate frigate and as Captain had participated in a number of battles with Union vessels.

After the war Cowen left the United States and migrated to Fiji where he lived for a number of years before moving on to settle in New Zealand, where he became Captain of the ‘Ngaire Rifle Volunteers’ of New Zealand and later was made a Lieutenant in charge of a detachment of New Zealand volunteers; during the Maori New Zealand War. Cowen also became an adept painter, specializing in marine subjects. During a number of trips he made to Tasmania, Australia Cowen made many friends in Carnarvon, Tasmania; tranquillising and amusing them with stories of his wartime experiences and showing them the many bullet scars and sword wounds acquired in battle; his worst being a head wound. During one engagement he had received a bullet wound to the side of his head which splintered a portion of his skull, requiring pieces of the skull to be removed on several different occasions. It was during such an operation in 1891 that his health turned for the worse and after returning home he lived only nine days before he died. Joseph eventually migrated to Tasmania where he married a Mary Elizabeth Minifie, the eldest daughter of John Minifie at St. Joseph’s Church on January 17, 1869 and took up residence in Pembroke County, running the Carnarvon Hotel outside Hobart.

Joseph Henry Cowen, a hotel keeper, died at 55 years of age at the Carnarvon Hotel in Carnarvon near Hobart, Tasmania on Thursday, October 29, 1891 and was buried in the Carnarvon Cemetery; being survived by his wife and four children. His grave is marked by an elaborate headstone and surrounded by twelve iron posts connected by a single, twisted, wrought iron railing. After his death Mary Elizabeth married again, in 1893, to James Henry Bentley; in Clarence, Tasmania.


Headstone Inscription	Post Office Directory

Death Will No.	Marriage Notice

Death Registry

Ngaire Rifles


Probate - last will & testament	Death of a Veteran news article	The Mercury, November 1899

Obituary	Gravesite	Lynn Regis, England

Norfolk location	Hobart - Carnarvon location	Headstone and Inscription