Samuel Owen was born in Newton County, AR in 1833 to Richard Owen and Emily Moody. He died before March 10, 1881 in Virginia City, Nevada. He was married to an Elizabeth _____ in Nevada and they had one son, Samuel Carroll Owen, who died childless in Nevada at the age of 30. Family history has it that Samuel Owen went to California during the Gold Rush days and it is not known how he came to live and die in Nevada. We also do not know when Samuel went West: Was it in the 1850's as part of the California Gold Rush or did he go straight from Newton County, AR to Nevada after the Civil war as part of the Silver Rush. He was supposed to had become a specilist in mining, was a Mining Engineer, a Superintendent and a City Assemblyman in Virginia City. (The fact that Richard was not involved in the Civil War does indicate to me that he was already living out West when the war started).

Samuel was the older brother to Richard Carroll Owen who married Arletha Stephens in Newton County, AR in 1874. These were the great-grandparents of this writer, William D. Gorman, through their daughter Texas Penina Owen who was born in 1889 and who married Arthur William Gorman of Ellis County, Texas in 1910. Arletha's mother was Sarah Ann Little Stephens, whose husband, Caloway Stephens, died in the CSA service in Alabama in 1863. Sarah Stephens was born in GA in 1822 and died in Ellis County, Texas in 1913 when Texas was 24 years old. Sarah spent most of the last 39 years of her life living with her daughter Arletha and her husband Richard C. Owen. Thus, as a young girl growing up, Texas got plenty an earfull of stories of the Civil War and family experiences from Newton County, AR from her grandmother, Sarah. Texas herself was quite a storyteller and could recite these stories from before her time as though she had been there.

View picture of Richard Carroll Owen, Arletha Stephens, and 'Old Granny' Scrapbook® Item #614

Thus is was in 1978, when Texas was 89 years old herself, still living by herself on the family homestead in Ellis County and driving her own car to church on Sundays, that she sat down one afternoon with her granddaughter, Jane Ellen Gorman Hicks and a cassette tape recorder and recited these old family stories for nearly two hours. About half-way through the session, the subject came to Samuel Owen. Here is an exact transcript of that conversation:

Jane: "Now, getting back to Old Granny's family --- which one was it that went to California in the Gold Rush?" (Old Granny was Sarah Ann Little Stephens).

Texas: "That was Dad's brother."

Jane: "Your Dad's brother?"

Texas: "Uh huh...there was two of the boys went. He went...he was younger than Dad (Samuel was actually the oldest brother of her Dad). Dad stayed at home and, you know,....so they...after they got way on up there, said that the Indians...you know...thats what they had to fear...the Indians. He said that there was an old squaw sitting on a little ravi...was fishing. One of these men....he shot her...you know. And said they went up to the (wagon) train and just before night, the Captain of the wagon train came around...and asked who was the one who shot that....? He told them that now every one will be massacreed tonight unless we turn over the one that done it...if the Indians come. It began to get dark and they heard a War Whoop...they said the woods was just full of them. And along about dark, one old chief came up and asked them 'who killed the squaw?'...and they (the Wagon Train Captain) turned him over to the Indian Chief...and said that the Indians just whooped around him and skin't him alive. They started at the top of his head and pulled his skin off...and said he got up and ran 4-5 feet and fell dead. Said they just had to do that (turn him over)....you know."

Jane: "What was his name?"

Texas: "His name was Sam Owen. His name was Sam...and that 'Little Sammie', you know, Dad and Mother's oldest son, was named after him. (Note: Little Sammie died as a baby in Newton or Boone County, AR). And he went out there in the Gold Rush and sent his mother back money for some time. And he married and died there and had one child."

This picture was taken on my 7th birthday in 1941. Stephen Seaboalt is the tall white-haired man standing at the right back. To the right of him is his daughter, Mary Jane (my maternal grandmother) and then my mother Falsom (sitting in front of her). I am the kid with the BB Gun. At the far left end (seated at the front) is Texas Owen Gorman (my paternal grandmother and the one who told the story about Samuel Owen). Standing on the back row at the left end (behind Texas) is Stephen Alonzo 'Lonnie' Seaboalt, Stephen Roland's oldest son.

You can reach me by email, William D. Gorman

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