FIFTH GENERATION

285. Clark Lewis Owen was born on 6 Jun 1807 in Shelby County, Kentucky. He appeared on the census in 1850 in Jackson County, Texas. He appeared on the census on 31 Jul 1860 in Jackson County, Texas.⁽⁴⁶⁰⁾ He died on 6 Apr 1862 in Battle of Shiloh.

From the Handbook of Texas Online:

OWEN, CLARK L. (1808-1862). Clark L. Owen, soldier and politician, son of Abraham Owen, was born in Shelby County, Kentucky, in 1808. He left a mercantile business at New Castle, Kentucky, to fight in the Texas Revolution.qv He left Kentucky in March 1836 and arrived in Texas before July 18, when he enlisted as a private in Capt. Joseph H. D. Rogers's company of Kentucky Volunteers. Owen served as captain of Company A, First Regiment, from October 31 until December 31, 1836. In May 1837 he joined the Army of the Republic of Texasqv and was commissioned a captain. He served as first lieutenant in Capt. Thomas J. Rabb'sqv company on John H. Moore'sqv campaign against the Comanches in the fall of 1840 and participated in the battle of Plum Creek.qv

Owen declined the position of secretary of the treasury in President Sam Houston'sqv cabinet but was appointed colonel and placed in command of a troop that patrolled around Corpus Christi, an area harried by repeated border raids. Houston gave Owen the discretionary power to proclaim martial law at Corpus Christi, but he restored order without resorting to that measure. Owen served as a captain of a company on the Somervell expedition,qv and in 1842 he was a member of the Mier expeditionqv but apparently was not among those taken prisoner.

After military service he settled in Texana, Jackson County, where he farmed, raised stock, and married Laura Martha McNutt Wells, the daughter of Dr. Francis F. Wells.qv Owen represented Jackson, Matagorda, and Victoria counties in the Senate of the Sixth Congress (1841-42) and served until his resignation during the called session of the Seventh Congress. He opposed secession,qv but once Texas left the Union he offered his services to the Confederacy and raised a company for the Second Texas Infantry,qv which became part of the Army of Tennessee. On April 6, 1862, Captain Owen fell leading Company I against federal positions at Shiloh.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Muster Rolls of the Texas Revolution (Austin, 1986). Ira T. Taylor, The Cavalcade of Jackson County (San Antonio: Naylor, 1938). Texas House of Representatives, Biographical Directory of the Texan Conventions and Congresses, 1832-1845 (Austin: Book Exchange, 1941).

Stephen L. Hardin

He was married to Laura Martha McNutt Wells (daughter of Francis Flournoy Wells and Martha McNutt) on 11 Jan 1844 in Jackson County, Texas. Laura Martha McNutt Wells was born on 13 Jul 1827 in Brazoria County, Texas. She died before 1885. Clark Lewis Owen and Laura Martha McNutt Wells had the following children:

+671 i. Martha Owen.
+672 ii. Abraham Owen.
+673 iii. James Dupuy Owen.
+674 iv. Laura Minta Owen.
675 v. Clark L. Owen was born in 1854 in Jackson County, Texas.
+676 vi. Francis R. Owen.