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The Dumfries connection is valid, but the details are rather different.
My father was minister of Troqueer Parish Church (Church of Scotland) in Maxwelltown, Dumfries. Maxwelltown is now that part of Dumfries that stands on the western bank of the River Nith, but until (I think about) 1930 or so was a separate burgh in Kirkcudbrightshire, not Dumfriesshire.
I am a Ewart on my mother's side. Her family came from Langholm, Dumfriesshire.
In 1971, my father wrote a history of the parish (which he traced back to 1160) and there is a whole chapter on "John Ewart , 1743 - 1799" (The dates refer to the time he was minister of the parish.)
There he found traces of the Ewart name in Kirkcudbright as far back as 1586, but the section that refers to the matter under discussion here reads as follows:
QUOTE:
In 1749 he married Mary, only daughter of Joseph Corrie of Kelton and Carlingwark, and they had seven sons and four daughters. Three of the boys did not survive infancy, but of these children who did reach manhood or womanhood we know a great deal.
Joseph, the eldest surviving son, who had qualified as a doctor, became minister plenipotentiary at the Court of Berlin from 1787 to 1792, and although he died at the early age of thirty-two had proved himself to be a most enlightened statesman, a zealous diplomat and one of the most influential men of his day.
William became a prosperous merchant in Liverpool; a friend of Canning and Gladstone, he was godfather to William Ewart Gladstone, who became Prime Minister.
William had a son, William, who became Member of Parliament, successively for Bletchingly, Liverpool, Wigan and latterly Dumfries Burghs, which constituency he represented for twenty-seven years.
In 1850 he introduced and finally carried the "Free Libraries and Museums Act". Has name and the work he did for libraries is commemorated in the name of the local library in Dumfries.
The third son, John, a doctor of medicine, became Inspector general of Hospitals in India; and Peter, the fourth son, became Chief Engineer of HM Dockyards.
END QUOTE
I hope this is helpful.
It was a source of pleasure in our family throughout my youth that once more, Ewarts (at least in part) had once more returned to the parish, and we all were well informed about the connection to William Ewart Gladstone.
It was of particular pride to me as a pupil at Dumfries Academy in the 1950s that whenever I visited the Ewart Library (which I did frequently after school) I was visiting somewhere impressive that was named after someone who was probably (we could not prove it) an ancestor of mine.
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