Ned McGowan (lawyer)

Edward "Ned" McGowan (March 12, 1813 – December 8, 1893) was an American lawyer, Pennsylvania assemblyman, Judge of the California Court of Quarter Sessions, poet, Fraser Canyon gold seeker, adventurer, assistant sergeant-at-arms in the United States Congress, newspaper publisher and bon vivant instigator of the eponymous McGowan's War in colonial British Columbia.

Ned McGowan was born into an Irish-Catholic family in Philadelphia. In 1838 he was elected as a Democrat to the post of County Clerk of Moyamensing, Philadelphia County, and in 1842 was elected to the House of Assembly of Pennsylvania. McGowan was placed on the state committee on printing. John Bratton, a powerful Whig who owned a printing business that was in danger of losing government contracts, alleged in his newspaper that McGowan had accepted bribes to support a rival bid.

When Bratton was permitted onto the floor of the Assembly, McGowan became enraged and attacked him. After Bratton stabbed him, McGowan hit Bratton with a chair on the head, all in front of the Pennsylvania legislators. The investigation which followed the fight was dominated by Whigs, and McGowan resigned rather than face an ignominious expulsion. Appointed as superintendent of police in Moyamensing, McGowan became embroiled in yet another controversy when he was implicated in a robbery and convicted in October 1848 on dubious evidence by a judge who, according to Donald Hauka, was either a Whig or a personal enemy. The verdict was overturned on appeal by the Quarter Sessions Court.

In 1849 McGowan resolved to head west to California where the discovery of gold had led to the California Gold Rush. In San Francisco he began a career running a roulette wheel on the second floor of a brothel, and made friends with David Broderick, a powerful Tammany Hall Democrat of the northern Irish-Catholic "The Boys" faction. The Democrats managed to get McGowan appointed judge of the Court of Quarter Sessions for San Francisco County. An outbreak of arson, attributed to San Francisco's merchants hoping to convert a surplus of low-priced goods into insurance claims, created a groundswell of public clamour for the imposition of "law and order" to rid the town of the criminals thought to be behind the devastating fires. The merchant class joined the outcry and was instrumental in the creation of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance. The vigilantes began to take the law into their own hands, even appearing at a courthouse on one occasion demanding the death sentence for a man who had slapped another at a party. The mob was quelled only when McGowan, the other judges and the state governor showed their own weapons.

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