Ewing Family Association

Book
Clan Ewing of Scotland
Elbert William R. Ewing, A.M., LL.B., LL.D.

Chapter XXI

William Ewing of Sligo, Scotland

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One of the most enthusiastic and patient genealogists of the Ewings was James L. Ewin, of Washington, D. C., patent attorney, long devoted to the cause of the Anti-Saloon League back in the days when such devotion meant bitter battle. Christian gentleman, his untimely death, which occurred 1915 was a real blow to the genealogical archives of all American Ewings. He reached far and wide. It was his ambition to write a book in which every American whose veins bore Ewing blood would find place and pedigree. As a result he left a vast amount of material. Much of it is undigested. In obedience to his generous wish, his widow, Mrs. Sarah Watkins Ewin, magnanimously placed the whole of it at my command. Much of it I knew to be a duplicate of my own information; and, with this exception, almost none of it was used by me. I simply did not have the time to digest, systematize and verify it; and much relates to other than the Ewings here particularly under consideration.

James L. Ewin traced descent from William and Mary Ewing, of Drumcliff, County Sligo, Ireland. As he gives the line, their son James was born about 1770. James dropped the g in writing his name, just as one of the sons of William Ewing, of Rockingham County, Virginia, did, we have seen, even when witnessing his father’s signature in which the g was used. So the descendants of this James to this day omit the final g. James L. Ewin says he was told by his uncle William that the latter induced his father, James, Sr., to change the name from Ewing to Ewin because of a Roman Catholic family by the Ewing name in the same village.

James Ewin married Deborah Dixon (or Dickson) and they came to New York about 1822, and there, both on the same day, they died August 23, 1831. Children: (a) Robert, 1799-1832; (b) James; (c) Ann; (d) Margaret, married John Tolon in New York City and died in Baltimore, Maryland, 1832; (e) William, Sr., October 18, 1827, died in West Virginia, 1886; (f) Mary, married Edwin W. Wainwright, 1811-1873; (g) John, 1813-1866, married Margaret Moorhead, and died at Laurel, Maryland, near Washington; (h) Jane, 1815-1861, married Chasmer.

All of these children were born in Ireland.

(e) William, Senior, married, first Margaret Ann Dennis, and died in Tucker County, West Virginia, 1886, aged 78. By the first wife he had William D., and by the second, Samuel Houston, occasionally erroneously confused with the Samuel Houston Ewing of Lee County, Virginia, born in Baltimore in 1836; Thomas Jefferson, 1838; Mary Jane, 1840; Angelica and Martha Ann, who married Anthony Bonn of Baltimore.         

Mary Jane, last above, married Capt. Job W. Parsons. Their children:

Stella Maud, born in West Virginia, April 26, 1873; William Ewin Parsons, June 4, 1875; Job W., died young; Francis Ann, March 20, 1879, and Dickson W., August 21, 1881.

William Ewin Parsons, A. M., is at this date principal of the Jefferson high school, Roanoke, Virginia, and ranks high as an educator.

(g) John Ewin and wife Margaret had six children of whom one was James Lithgow Ewin, the genealogist just mentioned. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, October 10, 1849, and died in Washington. His first wife was Jennie Young King, and the second Sarah Watkins, an educated and splendid woman, by whom he left two bright children. Mrs. Sarah Watkins Ewin descended from an old Welsh family of much distinction.

William Ers Lamb, attorney of Washington, D. C., is also a descendant of this William Ewing, of County Sligo, Ireland, as are many others.

Much valuable information regarding the descendants of this William and Mary Ewing of Ireland is among the manuscripts left by James L. Ewin.

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Page last updated 13 October 2008.
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