McKOWEN AT CAPRI

The story of John C. McKowen as told recently in the ALUMNI MAGAZINE by Dr. Spalding has aroused the interest of those who recall him in college. Further light on his career is given in the following letter from Mr. Tuck: Editor, THE DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE, Dear Sir: I have read with much interest the two articles which you have recently published concerning my classmate Dr. John Clay McKowen. We'were of the Class of 1862. His name does not figure in the Catalogue of our Freshman year, he having entered in 1859, but it is in those of our Sophomore and Junior years. He left College in 1861 to join the Confederate Army. After the close of the War he returned to Dartmouth, and graduated with the Class of 1866.

My classmate, Horace Stuart Cummings, who was our Class Secretary until his death in 1911, published in 1909, after much correspondence with all survivors, a book of "Sketches of the Class of 1862." A copy of this book was sent to the College, and doubtless is to be found in the Library. It contains an interesting account of McKowen's service in the Southern Army, of his subsequent life, and of the circumstances of his death.

Forty odd years ago with a New York friend I visited McKowen at his home on the Island of Capri. We went over from Naples to lunch withliim and were to come back the same night, but the sea became so rough that we had to stay over, dining with him and spending the night at the hotel in the town. We had left our wives at Naples. McKowen had a very pleasant house up the hill, with a garden, part of which was laid out as a pistol gallery. I remember asking him why he had this, to which he replied that one could never tell when he might have to use his pistol, and that he kept in constant practise. It served him badly, however (as related in your columns by Dr. Spaulding), on his return in 1897 to New Orleans for the summer, which he told me he did every year or two for a few months to look after his business interests.

Although this was long before the days of Judge Lindsey, McKowen was united happily in "Companionate Marriage" with an attractive woman of the Island, who fulfilled all the duties of housekeeper, a mode of life quite common among the many foreign artists and literary men who made their residence at Capri. McKowen had a handsome young daughter whom I remember well, and for her he afterwards made a good old-fashioned marriage with a native of the Island, giving her a comfortable dowry.

I remember him in College as a typical hot-blooded Southerner. He was a member of the Kappa Kappa Kappa Fraternity.