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How these young children managed to go up the Mississippi River from Cape Girardeau, and then get on the Missouri and Osage rivers into Miller County must have been a miracle! After found, Joshua age 12 and John age 10, were taken in and indentured to Rev. Abraham Castleman who lived in northern Richwoods township. Hester, about 8 years old, was bound to John and Nancy Brumley of Equality township. In August 1846, Hester Cauhorn/Cochran married Andrew I. Brumley. In Joshua's indenture papers, dated 7 November 1837 and on file at the Miller County courthouse, it stated he was indentured to the said Castleman to learn the trade of farming until age 21 years (on July 16, 1846). During this 9-year period of time, he could not marry, could not play cards or dice, could not 'haunt or frequent' taverns, tippling houses (where liquor was sold), or places of gaming (gambling houses). He would be taught to read, write, and taught arithmatic. At the end of the nine years, he would be given a new Bible, two new suits of clothing, and $10 in cash. In addition to all these things promised Joshua, he also received training as a circuit-riding preacher from Abraham Castleman. Joshua practiced as an early-day preacher of Miller County for many years.

Joshua D. Cochran married Sarah/Sally Keeth in Miller County 7 July 1846, a week before his endenture expired with Castleman. She was a daughter of John Keeth, Sr. and Ruhanna/Ruhama Allen, natives of Edmonson County, Kentucky. She was born in Kentucky in June 1831. The Keeth and Whittle families came to Miller County in the same wagon train in the early 1840's and settled in Richwoods township southeast of Iberia.

When first married, Joshua and Sarah lived near the Castleman family north of Iberia near Barren Fork Creek. Their neighbors in those years were the families of Aust, Bond, Gardner, Burks and Snelling. On June 3, 1866, they bought 180 acres of land from Thomas Owen and Nancy (Keeth) Workman, located southwest of Iberia near the Keeth and Whittle families. Nancy Workman was a sister to Sally Cochran. The land is owned today by the families of Fred Spearman and James McKinnon.
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NOTE: Nancy Keeth Whittle-Workman was my great great grandmother and first married my ancestor, John Levi Whittle, who was killed in the Elsey Farm Fight near Iberia in the Civil War. Later she married Rev. Thomas Owen Workman.

The children of Joshua D. and Sarah/Sally (Keeth) Cochran were:
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1- Mary Elizabeth b. June 1847 m. William Louis Dial 1866
2- Eliza b. 1849 [died young]
3- Nancy Jane b. July 1852 m. Allen J. Henderson 1870
4- Sarah Melissa b. May 1855 m. Sterling Maynard Colvin 1874
5- Louisana/Lucy Ann b. April 1860 - [never married]
6- Martha A. b. 1865--- [died young]
7- Solomon L. b. March 1862 m. Elizabeth/Betty Wall 1888
8- William C. b. November 1868 m. (1) Martha E. _____ (2) Martha E. Wiseman 1890
There were two other children born, names unknown, who died in infancy.

By 1900, Joshua and Sally, both aged, were living in the home of their son, William/Bill Cochran, in East Glaize township. At this time I have not found the date of their deaths through my research. Several years ago, Edward Keeth, a nephew to Sally Keeth Cochran, told me that Joshua and Sally were buried at Rankin Wright cemetery (also known as Spearman cemetery) but had no headstones to mark their burial site. This old cemetery, recently rennovated, is located on the land purchased by Joshua and Sally from the Thomas and Nancy (Keeth-Whittle)Workman in 1866, so it stands to reason they were buried on the same land where they lived for so many years.

During the decades of the 1930s and 1940s, as I was growing up in the Iberia area, the surname Cochran was pronounced "Caw-horn" and I believe this was the old Irish pronunciation of the name. In old records, names were often spelled the way they sounded to the person writing the information. In the marriage records for Hester Cochran, recorded at the courthouse in 1846, her name was spelled Cauhorn, not Cochran. To me, that certainly sounds more like 'Cawhorn' than Cochran!