Notes:

Roland and Flora were both under legal age to marry and, "Sarah Owens, mother of Rollen Owens and Hopkins Ashby, father of
Flora E. Ashby have given their assent to said marriage."
Roland farmed near Purdy, Missouri, for some 20 years before moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he died.
There are two portrait photographs on p. 575 History of Stone County Missouri of Rollen Hankton Owens and Flor Etta (Ashby) Owens.
p. 575
Leonard E. Carey
History of Stone County Missouri 1989
Stone County, Missouri, Historical Society

ROLAND married ASHBY FLORA ETTA (ASHLEY) on 17 Mar 1883 in James McNeely Residence, Stone County, Missouri; by F.M. Cron, Min.. FLORA (daughter of ASHBY HOPKINS) was born on 1 Jan 1867 in Evansville, Vandeburgh County, Indiana; dob may be 1868; died on 14 Mar 1960 in Oklahoma; was buried in Oaklawn Cemetery, Tulsa, Oklahoma. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Maury County, TN Court Minutes, Bk. 9, page 67, July 18, 1825. William Owen(s) - 9 years old the 20th December last, ordered to be bound to Francis Slauter until he is 21 to be a gunsmith.
1840 MO Census, Washington Co. p. 212, line 17. William Owens2 males under 5 yrs. old; 1 male between 5 - 10 yrs. old; 1 male 20 - 30 yrs. old; 1 female 5 - 10 yrs. old.
1850 MO Census, Washington Co., Liberty Twp. p. 142B, lines 20-27, October 11, 1850. William Owens, 36, b. TN, farmer. Sarah A., 25, TN; Elias, 16, MO; Reuben, 13, MO; Anna I, 6, MO; Wm. B., 4, MO; Daniel M., 3, MO; and Mary A., 4/12, MO.
1860 MO Census, Stone County. Flat Creek Twp p. 568-569, July 3, 1860. William Owen, 45, TN, Farmer; Sarah, 35, TN; Ann, 16, MO; William, 14, MO; Daniel, 12, MO; Mary A., 10, MO; James, 8, MO; Hugh, 6, MO; John A., 4, MO; Mahala, 1, MO. Wm. Sr. could not read or write: the family is mistakenly listed as "Owen" instead of "Owens".
1870 MO Census, Stone Co., Flat Creek Twp. p. 122A, lines 1-9. William Owens, 55, TN, Farmer; Sarah, 44, GA, Keeping House; Mary A., 21, MO, at home; James C., 18, MO, Farm Laborer; Hugh J., 16, MO, Farm Laborer; John A., 14, MO, at home; Mahala A., 11, MO, at home; Drucilla, 8, MO, at home; Robert H. , 5, MO, at home. Wm. owned personal property valued at $340. Hugh and John could not write. Mahala could not read or write. Rollen is mistakenly listed as Robert.
1880 MO Census, Stone Co., Williams Twp p. 38B, lines 28-32, June 4, 1880. William Owens, 65, TN, Farmer; Sarah Ann, 54, TN/NC, keeping house; Hugh Jay, 26, MO, at home; Rolin H., 15, MO, at home; Dilafatt(?), 9, MO, at home. Hugh had already been married and widowed; four other Owens families follow, probably sons of Wm. because they all list both parents born in TN.

William King Owens owned land in Sections 11 and 15. By 1860 their one room cabin buldged with 2 teenagers and 6 children. As the children married, they farmed adjacent to, or near their parents.
Owens Cemetery, Section 11; Owens School, Section 15; Fields School and Cemetery, Section 18; Jones School, Section 24; Hendrickson School, Section 28.
Info. in last 2 paragraphs from History of Stone County Missouri, p. 555 written by Leonard E. Carey

This is a rather large family, and I have the names and information on some 487 descendants as of this writing.
Leonard E. Carey 1989

The Owenses were basically farmers and they became a part of the American Dream. Wherever new land was opened for homesteading, you will find them packing up their belongings and moving on to what they hoped would be a better life. Some found their "Utopia," but others could only see the hardships.
From family statements, it is learned that William and his son Elias travelled from Tennessee into eastern Missouri looking for land that they could settled on. They found what they were looking for in Washington Co., MO, and sent word back to Tennessee that the rest of the family should follow them by wagon team.
A house was built; crops set in and there was time for increasing the family. It was here that Ann, William B., Daniel, and Mary Dosha were born. This was to be their home for the nexxt 10 years or so. The children attended school in a one-room school house that stands today. It is located at Sunnan Lake, Washington Co., MO. I was fortunate in taking a picture of this building, though it is no longer used as a school
Samuel J. Lamkey, a relative of the family, now lives on the old home place. The original house burned, as have three others that were built, so there is little remaining to indicate how it was when William lived there. We can, however, pinpoint the location as being near Ebo, MO.
Sometime between the 1850 census and 1852 William moved his family to Newton Co., MO. His son, James Clement Owens, was born at Granby, MO 18 June 1852. Elizabeth and Elias were already married by thistime, and they remained in Washington Co., as did Reuben. I am not sure what happened to Elizabeth, but I have met many of her brother's descendants in Washington Co., MO.
Hugh Jefferson Owens was born 15 June 1854, probably at Granby, MO. John Anderson Owens was born 14 April 1856 at Granby, MO, Sometime between 1856 and 1859, William moved his family to Stone Co., MO, His daughter Mahala America Josephine
Owens was born in Stone Co., 31 March 1859. It was in Stone Co. that William built their home, a large one-room log cabin. The stove was in one corner and they slept in the other.
Mildred Chism Bushnell remembers asking her grandfather, James Clement Owens, why his dad had moved down into southern Stone co. He said, "The fishing and hunting were better. They traded with Indians and the berries and grapes were plentiful. It was a very peaceful life." Daniel, John, and Dilly homesteaded close to their father. James also owned land nearby. James sold his son-in-law land adjoining the school house. As Mildred Bushnell says, "William Owens must have been a pretty nice guy, or he would not have kept his children so close."
In keeping with the thought of togetherness, William had the idea of a family cemetery, and such a plot was established in 1881 on about one acre of land that William and Sarah purchased on 5 June 1875, in the southwest corner, Section 11, Range 24W, Township 22N, Stone Co., MO. One of the stipulations in establishing this cemetery was that WJilliam would be the first buried there. He has now been dead and buried over 101 years (he died 15 Jan. 1882). I have been to the cemetery and have pictures of the stones and have the names of most of the people buried there. It is located 9-10 miles east of Hill City (on Highway #39, Barry Co., MO) on the banks of Table Rock Lake, turn right on the first road past the Owens Public Use Area and continue approximately one mile. The only road to thsi cemetery is unmarked and unpaved. The Owens cemetery was established in 1881.
Mildred writes, "I remember before Dilly tore down his father's house, Grandmother and I picked baskets of roses and went to the cemetery. She draped flowers on everyone's grave and she would call them by name. We would then visit William King and Sarah Owens' log house just across the road. It had the biggest fireplace I ever saw."
Nearby to the cemetery is what remains of the Owens School house. It has not been used for many years, but some of the relatives can tell stories about their teachers and teh lessons they learned there. James Clement Owens donated the seven acres of land, and James F. Banks, husband of Mary Dosha Owens Banks, built the Owens School house.

Leonard E. Carey

WILLIAM married MCCRAY SARAH ANN (MCRAY) in Mar 1842 in Washington County, Missouri; dom may be 1843.. SARAH (daughter of MCCRAY Daniel and ADAMS Anna) was born on 4 Jan 1826 in Scott County, Georgia; died on 11 Nov 1893 in Stone County, Missouri; dod ?11/16/1892; was buried in Owens Cemetery, Williams Township, Stone County, Missouri. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Wanda L. Gines has a picture of Sarah Ann McCray Owens in Lorene Gines' file.

http://www.gencircles.com/users/seidler/1/data/611
has her name as Sarah Ann McRae and dob as 14 Jan. 1826.

Notes:

MEANING OF SURNAME "OWENS"

The Surname Owens means "Son of Owen", the personal name Owen being derived from the old Welch Ewen and ultimately from the Old Greek Euyenee (well born).
Early records mention Robertus Filtus Yewn in Warwickshire Pipe Rolls of 1200 A. D.. Nicholas Filtus Owen of Oxfordshire and Richard Filtus Owen of Cambridgeshire in the Hundred Rolls of 1273 A.D.
Owen Owens who died in 1593 was a noted eccleastice who held office of Arch Deacon of Anglesy.
Among early emigrants from Britain to America were Thomas and Jonathan Owens who are reported in Virginia in 1655. Michael Joseph Owens (1850-1923) was a talented American inventor.
Like most of the counties in Middle Tennessee, Maury was settled largely by revolutionary soldiers or their decendents.
The population of the county in its early history was largely from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. North Carolina gave grants to her soldiers for military service in the Revolutionary War. These grants were located mainly in Middle Tennessee from which cause a large number of North Carolina soldiers settled in that part of the state and not a few in Maury County.
Santa Fe is near the center of District No. 22. It is one of the oldest settlements in the county. The Indian title having been extinguished north of the river before they were south of it, settlements began there earlier. The following families are said to have settled in the county in 1806: the Cougheons and Brooks on Snow Creek; McLeans, Neelys, Cinders, Griffins, Mitchells, Fitzgeralds, Dotys, Aydelottes, Piggs, Ayers, Bakers, Hills, Todds, Seagraves, Lockharts, OWENS and Emistons. In 1807 came the Reaves, Binghams, Wrens, Hunters, and McCrackens.
It is said that Santa Fe was called Pin Hook at first but was changed later to Benton. But on application for post office another change became necessary and it was given its present name of Santa Fe.

Reuben Owens
Reuben Owens was born in 1785 in Georgia. The family moved into Maury Co., TN, and settled in Dist. #19. Reuben married "Polly" Randall February 9, 1814. The marriage was officiated by Robert Sellers, Justice of the Peace in Columbia, TN. Born to this union were William King Owens, David, Noah B., Rachel Ann, Gilford I., Jemina, Thomas, John, and Martha Ann.
William Owens married Margaret Nance February 11, 1832, in Columbia, TN, and four children were born in Maury Co., TN, to this union.
Elizabeth: b. Nov. 1832, m. William Cole Aug. 15, 1849, Jefferson Co., MO.
Elias "Ike", born May 31, 1834; d. Aug. 1, 1915, Potosi, MO; bd. Shirley Cemetery, Shirley MO; m. Dec. 11, 1851, Washington Co., MO, to Sophia Elizabeth Harmon: b. May 1836, IN; d. and bd. Miami, OK; 14 children.
Reuben: b. Oct. 25, 1836; m. Sept.12, 1857, Washington Co., MO, Isabell A. Scott: b. 1839, Kentucky; 6 children.
Andrew: b. Oct. 24, 1938, and it is believed that his mother, Margaret, died in TN. Andrew appears in the 1840 Washington Co., MO, census, Harmony Twp, and we lose track of him after that.
William King Owens' sister, Rachel Ann, m. Clement Nance May 1, 1938, in Maury County. Clement was a brother to Margaret (Nance) Owens.
Huge lead fields were discovered in the rich Mississippi Valley country as early as 1700. This brought abut the migration of emigrants and the settlement of communities such as Potosi, MO.
In the years between 1820 and the Civil War, Potosi continued as a dynamic community, prominent in State affairs and center of the mining industry.
Court records will verify that Clement and Rachel Ann moved from TN into Washington CJo. in 1839. It is natural that William and his children should make the trip at the same time.
The 1840 Washington Co., MO, Census lists William and the four children in Harmony Twp. He had found what he was looking for, and there was promise for the future. Now, all that he needed was a wife to help raise the children and to share in his new found life.
William met a young red-headed girl in southern Illinois by the name of Sarah Ann McCray (McRay). They fell in love and planned to marry, but her father did not think it right that a 17 year old girl should marry an old man of 27 with 4 children. Love has a way of winning out, even though it meant running away from home and never seeing her parents again. This was a new beginning--in a new land.
A house was built, crops set in, and there was time for increasing the family. The children born here were Anna Isabelle, b. Oct. 29, 1844; William Brantley, b. April 17, 1846; Daniel McCray, b. Aug. 28, 1848; and Mary Dosha Ann, b. Feb. 16, 1850.
Sometime between the 1850 census and 1852, William moved his family to Newton Co., MO, leaving Elizabeth, Elias and Reuben in Washington Co., as they had married and were settled in their own homes. Three more children were born to William and Sarah Ann at Granby, MO. They were James Clement, b. June 18, 1852; Hugh Jefferson, b. June 15, 1854; and John Anderson, b. April 14, 1856.
A photograph shows Dilly Fate Owens, 15th child of William King Owens, and his mother, Sarah Ann (McCray) Owens. The picture was taken a short time after William's death on January 15, 1882.
In 1858, William moved his family to Stone Co., MO, where he built his one room log cabin near the confluence of the James and the White rivers. Here they had four more children: Mahaila, b. March 31, 1859; Drucilla, b. April 25, 1861; Roland, b. April 20,1865; and Dilly Fate, b. May 24, 1872.
The information contained herein does not include the families of the first group of children, as they did not live in Stone Co., MO, as far as we have determined. All of the other children grew up in Stone Co. Their families are limited to the children and grandchildren for this account.
by Leonard E. Carey
History of Stone County, Missouri pp. 553-554
Stone County, Missouri, Historical Society 1989

RHEUBEN married RANDALL MARY "POLLY" on 9 Feb 1814 in Columbia, Maury Co., Tennessee; by Robert Sellers, J.P.. MARY (daughter of RANDALL JAMES, SR. and UNKNOWN NANCY) was born in 1785 in North Carolina. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

James Randall, Sr., and his wife, Nancy were living in North Carolina when their daughter Mary (called "Polly") was born in 1785. The family later moved westward into Tennessee and settled in Dist. #19 of Maury County.

Daniel married ADAMS Anna. Anna was born on 16 Jul 1808 in Blount, TN; died in 1845 in McDonald, MO. [Group Sheet]