Owen Co. Items from Collins' History of Kentucky
| April 9, 1858 | From the following 21 companies, Gov. Morehead selects by lot 10 to compose the regiment to be tendered to the U.S. War department for service in Utah. [An Owen County company under Capt. Holeman is 18th, and was thus not selected.] |
| Feb. 20, 1862 | Owen is one of ten counties cited by the State Auditor for having completely paid into the treasurer their revenue for 1861. |
| June 11, 1862 | “Skirmish near Monterey, Owen co.” |
| July 16, 1862 | “Arrests of citizens charged with “disloyalty” increasing; 27 of “the wealthiest and most influential citizens (rebels) of Grant and Pendleton counties captured and taken to Camp Chase;” . . . “a fine haul of 35 secesh prisoners picked up in Grant, Pendleton, Owen and Harrison, quartered temporarily in Newport barracks;” 13 “placed in the military prison at Louisville, to-day, 7 of them from Hopkins co.;” 11 “admitted on yesterday; 18th, 8 “lodged” in the same prison, and 33 removed from it to the Indiana penitentiary at Jeffersonville. (Such are the daily reports in the Louisville papers.)” |
| August 14, 1862 | [Kentucky Governor Magoffin receives a letter from 15 Grant Co. in] Camp Chase, Ohio, August 6, 1962, Prison #2”, from 93 citizens who had been arrested between May 23 and August 4, setting forth “that while in peaceful pursuit of their legitimate business at home, without warrant or law, they had been arrested by force that overpowered them, placed in confinement; that they were denied a trial by any tribunal known to the laws of our common country, but were compelled to remain there in prison, away from their homes, wives, children, relations, and friends, who were not permitted to see them.“ They prayed the legislature “to take speedy action in their behalf, and that they might have a trial before their peers in their own state.” [The signers from Owen County were:] Thos. P. Herndon, R. H. Smith, Jas. Fitzgerald, and M. W. Yates. |
| March 3, 1863 | “Legislature authorizes the auditor to give certain clerks or sheriffs, credit for, or to refund to certain other parties, the following sums of money which they were, by duress of forcibly, compelled to pay to 'commissioners of the so-called Provisional Government of Ky,' or to Confederate officers: in the county of . . .Owen, $600.” |
| January 28, 1864 | “Guerillas very active in Owen and other counties.” |
| March 28, 1864 | “Most valuable portion of New Liberty, Owen co., destroyed by fire; loss $120,000.” |
| July 28, 1864 | Under General Sherman's instructions to General Burbridge, and partly upon Gen. Carrington's information to Gov. O. P. Morton, of Indiana,“ Gen. Burbridge orders the arrest of citizens, many of them leading and prominent, in many counties, among them the following: . . . Owen Co. - Pascal Ayres, Jas. W. Baker. |
| Sept. 1, 1865 | Col. Geo. M. Jessee and his Confederates have almost complete control of Owen, Henry, Carroll and Gallatin counties, and are recruiting rapidly. |
| November 3, 1864 | Four men, one of more of them captured while on their way to the Confederate army and accused of being guerillas - Wm. Long of Maysville, Wm. Tithe of Williamstown, Grant co., Wm. D. Darbro, near Dallasburg, Owen co., and R. W. Yates, of Bacon creek, Hart co., - were sent from Lexington under guard to Pleasureville, Henry co., and there shot to death - in retaliation for the killing of two negroes in the neighborhood, some days ago. Sixteen hours later, their bodies were lying on the floor in the depot, near where they were shot. |
| November 8, 1864 | “The official vote for U. S. President in 101 counties: Gen. Geo. B. McClellan and Gen. Geo. H. Pendleton 61,233; Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, 27,786; . . . Nine counties - Breathitt, Calloway, Floyd, Johnson, Letcher, Owen, Perry, Pike, and Wolfe - failed to make returns.” |
| March 26, 1865 | “A portion of the 54th Ky. under Maj. John D. Russell and Capt. Geo. T. Buckley come upon a party of guerillas near New Liberty, Owen co., kill 3, wound 3, and disperse the rest. |
| December 1, 1865 | “Lead ore discovered in Owen, Henry, and several other counties. Many oil wells being bored; and oil indications in many counties.” |
| April 1, 1866 | “Discoveries in lead ore in Owen, Scott, Fayette, Grayson, and other counties;” |
| July 23, 1866 | “Terrible freshet in Brush creek, Owen co., raising the Kentucky river, into which it empties, 14 feet higher than ever known; dwellings, cabins, stables fencing, swept away; the residence of Mr. Noel carried off, and his whole family of 9 persons drowned.” |
| December 1, 1869 | Death, in Owen co., aged 104, of John Roland; he was born in 1764, on the Yadkin river, in Roane co., North Carolina; his wife, aged 80, died 2 1/2 years ago; their 11 children are all living, the youngest 49, the oldest 70 years old; the sum of the ages of parents and children is 844 years, and average of 65 years; 85 grandchildren are living.“ |
| May 17, 1869 | “A woman presented to the grand jury of Owen co., on the charge of being a witch.” |
| February 10, 1871 | “Ripe oranges gathered in New Liberty, Owen co., from a tree raised in the residence of Mr. Hartstuff.” |
| August 7, 1871 | “Owen co., by 686 for and 1,815 against, votes down the proposed tax for turnpikes.” |
| April 9, 1872 | Greatest flood in the upper Kentucky river since 1817; river rose 15 feet in 6 hours; over 20,000 saw logs, the property of poor people, floated off and lost. . . Eagle Creek, in Grant, Owen, Carroll and Gallatin counties was 4 feet higher than ever known; great damage done. |
from The History of Kentucky, by the Late Lewis Collins, Judge of the Mason County Court, Revised, Enlarged Four-Fold, and Brought Down to the Year 1874 by His Son, Richard H. Collins, A.M., LL.B.