Genealogy Trails
Pottawattamie County, Iowa

Thoughtfulness for his horses saved the life of Thomas Owen of this city, now 80 years old, the only survivor of the Smith and St. Clair Wagon Train that tried to pass over the plains in 1859 and was attacked at Julesburg, Colorado by Indians in league with three white men.

Owen is still rugged and hearty and lives on a farm near here, where he keeps many an old relic of the wagon train days.

I was only a boy at the time of that massacre, relates Owen. I was driving one of the wagons and to my best friend by the name of Frank, long since dead, I suggested that we stop for the night at a place where we saw plenty of good grass for the horses. We knew we could overtake the wagon train the next morning, for they had a camping place marked out a little farther on.

That separation from the rest of the train for the sake of the horses saved our lives. Owen and his companion had unhitched their horses and were getting their supper when the Indians and three white men came along, stopped and conversed very pleasantly with the boys, and passed on.

The next morning Owen and his companion set out and when they reached the place where the train had left the trail for the chosen camping spot they saw smoke in the distance. They thought the smoke was rising from dying campfires, but instead it was from the smouldering wagons of their lost comrades. However, they were not aware of this at the time, and pushed forward in the hopes of soon overtaking the rest of the wagoners. Before night they discovered the awful tragedy.

The three white men were to blame for the massacre declares Owen. They were desperadoes and used the Indians as tools. They were never captured.

Owen began his career on the plains when a mere boy and developed into a crack shot. His job was killing the young buffalo for the wagon trains. He would ride far ahead on horseback, single out his animal from the herd, drop it with his gun, and then hang out a signal to the rest of the boys that the meat lay near. Farther on, he chose the camping place, got the meal started, made biscuits and when the teamsters came along with their buffalo meat that they had jerked from the carcass that Owen had left for them everything was ready for camp.

His old buffalo gun is still in Tommy Owen's possession. He has taken it to every city in the midwest where gunmen congregated to compete in marksmanship, and he was never beaten. He always represented the Council Bluffs Gun Club. Once he said his supporters went to Avoca, carried away all of the turkeys and the only deer, after the Avoca gunners had been laughing at Owen's clumsy looking gun, whose weight is sixteen pounds.

On the same place where his pioneer father lived, Tommy Owen still resides. He has a modern brick house, but also two log cabins. When he was a mere boy he went hunting with his father at Big Lake and pulled up little poplar switches, which he brought home and set out. Now those switches are giants and Owen is proud of them.

[Nonpareil, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Published March 8, 1922--submitted by Ann]

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SURVIVOR OF MASSACRE DIES

Thomas R. Owen, Bluffs Pioneer Who Escaped at Julesburg, Dead on 90th Birthday

Thomas R. Owen, who helped ferry Mormon emigrants across the river to Florence, and was one of the two survivors of the Julesburg, Colorado, Indian massacre, died on his ninetieth birthday Thursday at Jennie Edmundson Hospital. His health had been declining for several months.

He arrived in this territory 85 years ago with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Owen. They traded the ox team and cart which had brought them from St. Louis for 80 acres of timberland in what is now known as Hazel Dell. Council Bluffs was then still a name of the future, the stockade and surrounding cabins being called Kanesville, near the site of Pierce School.

He was helper on the ferry to Florence when the Mormon bands crossed. At 16, Owens became a mule driver for a trader named West, who transported supplies for the federal government to Colorado and Wyoming. Before marrying in 1866 he had made 11 trips.

On the fourth trip, Owen and his partner fell behind the main caravan of 66 men and camped for the night near Julesburg. A party of Indians in war paint, accompanied by three evil looking white men galloped up. They didn't molest the two after being notified that the main party had gone ahead. Next morning, the two found the scalped bodies of their comrades amid heaps of dead animals and burned wagons.

Owen served as bridge and roads trustee for Garner Township, Pottawattamie County, for many years.

He is survived by his sons, Thomas, Jr., with whom he had lived and Fred A., who farms nearby. The body was taken to the Woodring Funeral Home. Burial will be in Walnut Hill Cemetery.

[Omaha World Herald, Omaha, Nebraska, Published May 19, 1933--submitted by Ann]

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THOMAS R. OWEN IS DEAD ON BIRTHDAY

Thomas R. Owen, pioneer resident of Pottawattamie County, died Thursday morning of senility at a local hospital on his ninetieth birthday. He had been ill for about three months. He was born in England, but was brought to the United States by his parents when only 1 year old. With his parents he came to Pottawattamie County in 1848 to the town of Council Bluffs, then under the control of the Mormons and known as Kanesville. The trip to St. Louis was made by boat up the Mississippi River. From there the party came overland in a horse cart to the city.

As a youth he was freight driver and made several trips across the plains with government supplies for a contractor. On one occasion he missed an Indian massacre by being just a few hours late to a rendezvous. The Indians annihilated a wagon train of which he was a member, but he was behind the party and escaped. Later he operated a ferry across the Missouri River between Florence, Nebraska, and Crescent City, Iowa, transporting many of the Mormons across the river.

His political activities were confined to township trustee of Garner Township for thirty years. He had lived on his farm in Garner Township for the last sixty two years. Mr. Owen is suvived by two sons, Thomas, Jr., and Fred A. both of Garner Township. Funeral services will be held Sunday at 2 p.m. at Jackson's Chapel, Rev. M.B. Pringle officiating. Burial will be in Walnut Hill Cemetery.

[Nonpareil, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Published May 18, 1933--submitted by Ann]