| Electronic images, made from portraits of Ezekiel and Sarah Cowgill. The Cowgills were Quaker residents of Talbot County.
Description by Emily Huebner, Research Archivist:
The original portraits are in the personal collection of Michael Richards, a descendant of the Cowgill family. Ezekiel Cowgill (1792-1881) and Sarah Gordon Cowgill (1800-1886) were Quakers from Delaware who moved to Talbot County, Maryland in 1856. They and their children initially farmed on their property, Lombardy, and became members of Third Haven Friends Meeting.
During the Civil War, one of their sons, John Cowgill, joined the Union Army, and during his service he became the captain of Company A of the 108th Regiment of United States Colored Infantry. Upon his return to Talbot County after the Civil War, John commanded the 1st Regiment of the Eastern Shore Colored Militia. Ezekiel Cowgill leased land to African Americans following the Civil War, and granted land for a church and a school for a symbolic dollar. Veterans of the United States Colored Troops and their families would found Unionville on this land leased by Ezekiel Cowgill.
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