High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Edward (Ned) McGowan (March 12, 1813 - December 8, 1892) 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.