Abel Owen

A Patriot of the American Revolution for NEW YORK with the rank of PRIVATE.
DAR Ancestor # A085162

Married: 1st in 1766 in Old Canaan, Berkshire Co., MA, to Anna (b. ca. 1743 of Hebron, Tolland, CT, d. ca. April 1797 Homer, Onondaga, NY);
2nd in 1805 to Elizabeth Abbott (daughter of Nathan and Hulda Abbott).

Children of Abel Owen and Anna:
- David Owen (b. 1765 Old Canaan, Berkshire Co., Mass., d. 1810);
- Charlotte Owen (31 Oct. 1767 Old Canaan, d. 1 July 1830 Lafayette, Onondaga Co., NY);
- Solomon Owen (b. 7 April 1770 Old Canaan, d. 26 Aug 1855 Palermo, Oswego Co., NY);
- Dr. Lewis Stiles Owen (b. 2 May 1772 Kings District, Albany, NY, eventually called New Lebanon, Columbia Co., d. 30 Jan. 1849 Homer, Cortland Co.);
- Lucy Owen (b. 1774 New Lebanon, Columbia Co., NY, married Jason Damon - see link below);
- Roderick Owen Owen (b. 20 Nov. 1777 New Lebanon, d. 5 Sept. 1849, Homer). https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/K6WD-JCK https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/90470734/abel-owen

Children of Abel and Elizabeth:
- Anna;
- Hannah Maria Owen (b. ca. 1808 Cortland);
- Almond Owen(b. ca. 1810 Cortland).

One source, "A History of Rensselaer County" (1913), reports that Abel Owen came either from Rhode Island or Connecticut before he moved to New York, and this occurred before the war. Like his Briggs and Damon relatives, Abel repeatedly moved west, following the frontier, looking for opportunities and relying on himself to make a success as a pioneer where new land was available.

Based on the place of his parents' marriage and father's death, he started his life in Hebron, Connecticut, but by the time of his children's births, he lived in Old Canaan along the border with Massachusetts where he is likely to have married. Since the state lines did not exist and various colonies claimed the same land, the births are reported in Massachusetts, but now Old Canaan is in Connecticut along the border. However, there is also a Canaan area just over the border in NY where the family also appears, so it might be that this is the Canaan the records suggest. Indeed, by 1772 Abel had moved again west across the border into the very large original Albany County where Lewis Stiles was born in the area called the Kings district. By the time Lucy and Roderick came along, the family was noted in the town of New Lebanon, still part of the Kings district, but in 1786 this part of Albany Co. was organized into the new Columbia County. Thus, in research the records for the birth of these two youngest children now identify the area as Columbia, but at the time it was Albany County.

No other record of Abel's role in this campaign has been found, but it is likely he remained with the regiment until the troops returned to this side of the border. The records for the NY units in this early period have been mostly lost and any notice of subsequent service has not survived. Yet various historical sources note he was a soldier in the Revolution, suggesting some noteworthy length of service. Also, other men named Owen who seem to be cousins served in the 2nd Regiment including a Daniel and Mowberry as well as Isaac Owens and Moses Owens.

Either late in the war or soon after Abel moved the family again to virgin land. This was in the area of Grafton in Rensselaer County which he might have seen while in the army's northern marches, and he became the first the first settler in the area. A history of the town records his early role AND the connection with the Damon family. What follows is noted in Chapter XXXIII "Town of Grafton" in the work LANDMARKS OF RENSSELAER COUNTY by George Baker Anderson, Madison & Co. Publishers, Syracuse, NY, 1897:
Abel Owen is generally believed to have been the first man to enter the rather unattractive mountain wilderness and build himself a home. He was a sturdy farmer, an indefatigable laborer, and to encourage further settlement the patroon gave him a grant of two hundred acres or more of what was then thought to be the best land in that section adapted to farming. Mr. Owen was not long without neighbors, if indeed there were not one or more families located in that vicinity when he built his log house.

"There is nothing to show when Mr. Owen moved to Grafton, but from subsequent settlements and other occurrences it is thought that it could not have been very long before the War of the Revolution. Possibly it was several years later, during that war or at its close. Immediately after the period when the colonists were fighting for independence, or beginning with 1784 or 1785, several families leased land in Grafton of General Van Rensselaer and began the cultivation of the land there. Abel Owen is recorded as a Revolutionary soldier, so that the preponderance of opinion is that no settlements were made in the town until the closing years of the war or later. Perhaps those who located there in the years mentioned accompanied Owen. About 1786 the latter had at least two or three neighbors, families named Coon and Demmon (Damon) being early lessees of the patroon's lands. About 1796 Abel Owen sold his (226 acre) farm to Lemuel Steward and removed with his family to Onondaga County."

Today the farm house is called the "Grafton Inn Bed & Breakfast" and formerly "Moon's Mountain Top House." A post card from the 1941 pictures the place and explains on the back that "The Mountain Top House" was the first to be built in Grafton by early settlers. Moved to the present site by 16 yoke of oxen in the early 18 hundreds. Elevation 1,650 ft."

Abel's name came up in the unlike situation of a legal notice printed in the "Times Record" newspaper of Troy, N.Y, on May 23, 1958 concerning a foreclosure auction for a parcel of land in Grafton. The land is described in the old "metes and bounds" method using landmarks to show where property lines exist: "Beginning at a Beech tree marked Abel Owen 1791 with stones piled around it standing at the east side of the brook commonly called Lily Pond Brook and at the southwest corner of the farm surveyed for Abel Owen, and runs thence due east one chain and thirty-four links to a hemlock stake and stones...."(p 24). The official description of the land, which must have existed for 159 years, continued to carry Abel's name as of 1958. The notice was repeated on June 11 (p. 22).

The same newspaper named Abel again on July 22, 1961 in a feature story reviewing the history of the Grafton area. According to its sources, "Local historians say that Abel Owen and his family from New England were the first settlers of Grafton in about 1785. By 1887 (sic - 1787?) he had cleared many of the 200 acres he had received as a gift from Gen. Van Rensselaer.

"Shortly he was followed by the Demmnonds (Damons) and Voons families" (p. B2).

Much of the information in this piece was repeated in the paper on Sept. 23, 1966 when it published a story about the history of parks in Rensselaer county and how Grafton, due to the hills and 17 lakes in its boundaries, was well suited as the site of the main county park (p. B 16).

And still another notice of Abel Owen appears in the same newspaper on March 30, 1971 in the "metes and bounds" parcel description of a legal notice for a foreclosure auction. "BEGINNING at the point of intersection of stone fences at the Southwest corner of lands reputedly owned by William Bartels and at the Northwest corner of lands reputedly owned by Joseph R. Gagnon (which point is approximately three hundred thrity-six (336) feet Westerly from the Southwest corner of a stone fenced burying ground on lands once leased to Abel Owen and runs...." (p. 24). So Abel's name seems to live on in the contracts, legal notices, and property descriptions of Grafton long after he departed the town and this life.

According to "A History of Rensselaer Co.", in addition to the land in Grafton, it seems Abel had property in Stephentown where he is recorded in 1790. After the sale of the farm in Grafton, the family moved west again to Manlius in Onondaga Co. and then Cortland County. Abel seems to have used his profits for more land purchases in areas opening to new settlement. As noted in one source:
The war was over in 1783, but the bounty land didn't come through until 1790. Many soldiers got tired of waiting for the land and sold or assigned it. There is some confusion about his bounty land because one record shows that on 9 July 1790 Major Connolly received a patent (deed) for Ebenezer Temple's bounty land, 600 acres: Lot 26, Twp 19, which was Homer, NY. Other records show Ebenezer's warrant # 78990 was assigned to Jacob Ferris on 9 April 1791, and he then sold it to Abel Owen on 13 May 1791. In 1803 there was a lawsuit "Abel Owen and Roderick Owen vs. Ebenezer Temple and Martin Kingsley," with Kingsley contesting the title. The Owens won the lawsuit. It is not clear if Temple's name was on the suit because he originally owned the land or whether he was actually involved in the dispute.

Abel also purchased land on Nov. 22, 1791 in Onondaga County from John Clarke, a carpenter from Plattsburg, who was a fellow veteran and had received the property as a bounty for his service in the Revolution in an artillery regiment.

The family perhaps arrived in Homer in 1793 when Roderick is noted as an early settler. The census for 1800 shows Abel living in Homer township, at that time part of Onondaga County, where his three youngest children were born ca. 1808 and 1810. Besides Roderick, several of his other children settled there too with the same spirit to develop a new setting that Abel had shown so often in his life. Now however, as he settled in to one local, the place changed around him. As the population grew in western New York, new counties were created, and thus by the 1820 census Abel's farm in Homer was now part of Cortland Co. His son, Dr. Lewis S. Owen, had already arrived in Homer 1799, and erected the county's first frame house (instead of log cabin). He had studied medicine in Albany and became a leader in establishing the Cortland County Medical Society which he served as its first president in 1808. He was also on the first board of trustees for the Cortland Academy which the Regents of the University of the State of New York incorporated on 2 Feb. 1819. Roderick also came with his family by 1800, and the clan is repeated noted in Pioneer history; or, Cortland County and the border wars of New York: From the earliest period to the present time by Henry C. Goodwin, A. D. Burdick, publisher, NY, 1855. Robert C. Owen, the son of Lewis, was born in Homer in 1802 and followed his father's profession as a doctor after attending the Cortland Academy and then Harvard where he graduated in 1820. For 38 years he maintained the Owen presence in medical community for Cortland County as a "prominent practitioner."

There were several other men named Abel Owen in the area as well, and these appear to be other grandsons. An Abel Owen was in the 1820 census for Ulysses township in nearby Tompkins Co, but soon moved to another nearby county, Tioga. According to "A Memorial History of Tioga County, New York" edited By Leroy W. Kingman (W. A. FERGUSSON & CO. ELMIRA, N. Y., 189?), an Abel Owen is named in Chapter 24 as an early settler in the town of Candor in 1821 where he is still found in the 1840 census. There is also Abel Owen, a grandson born in 1795, the son of Solomon, who appears to be noted in the 1820 census in Pompey, Onondaga Co.. Following the example of his grandfather's military service, he seems to be the Abel Owen from Pompey who served as a corporal in the company of Capt. Jabez Castle, part of the 98th Regiment of N.Y. militia that saw brief service in 1814 as it marched off to confront any possible British assault across Lake Ontario; they saw no combat, but Abel was one of those who became sick during his service (reported in the "Syracuse Sunday Times" of on June 9, 1878). This Abel later shows up in Chautauqua, NY in 1829 where he married Elizabeth "Betsy" Davis (see a brief biography below). Later, having joined the Mormons in NY, he is found in the main Mormon settlement in Kirtland, Ohio in August 1841 when he is made an Elder of the church and later at Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois where he died in 1848.

By the time Abel reached old age in Homer he was surrounded by his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It was here that he passed after an active life as noted in the local newspaper of Homer, the "Courtland Observer," on 13 Jun 1827: "Died. In this town (Homer), on the 6th inst., Mr. Abel OWEN, aged 85 years." The notice was repeated in the "New York Spectator" "column headed "Died." "At Homer, N.Y., Abel Owen, aged 85 years."

Much of what is discussed above is described in the text "Genealogies of Connecticut Families: From the New York ..., Volume 1."

"ABEL OWEN (son of Issac), born at Hebron, Conn., 3 Apr. 1743, died in Cortland County 25 July 1827, aged 84 years. He married first, possibly at Old Canaan, Berkshire Co., Mass., about 1766,

"Abel Owen was living at New Canaan, Albany County, as early as 1 Oct. 1777, when Isaac Preston of New Canaan sold for £31 to "Jonathan Owen and Abel Owen of the same County, town and provence" a lot of land. About 1784 Abel sold his share in this lot to his brother Jonathan and went to Stephentown.

"Abel Owen served in the Revolution as a soldier "in the Line, 2nd Regiment, Col. Phillip Van Cortland, General Stephen Van Renssalaer." (New York in the Revolution, p. 36.)

"Soon after the close of the [Revolutionary] war, Abel Owen, a Revolutionary soldier [then living in New Lebanon] received 200 acres of land in Stephentown from General Stephen Van Renssalaer as an inducement to settle there. (See History of Renssalaer County, p. 547) He went to Grafton, built a home, and moved his family there.

"Abel Owen, a Revolutionary soldier, is believed to have been the first settler in Grafton." (Landmarks of Renssalaer County, p. 562.)

"On 19 Feb 1790 Abel Owen of Stephentown bought from Matthew Vischer of Albany for £25 lot 76, consisting of 600 acres, in the town of Pompey (then in Herkimer County), a part of the 'Military Tract.' It was on this land that Solomon Owen, son of Abel Owen, settled the next year.

"According to the 1790 census it is evident that Abel Owen was living in Stephentown in 1790 and that his family consisted of himself, his tow oldest sons Solomon and Lewi, both over 16, his daughter Lucy, his son Roderick (under 16) children by his first wife; also his second wife, Elizabeth, whom he had probably married in Stephentown about 1784, and their three children, Hannah Maria, Anna, and Almond, all born at Stephentown. Charlotte hos oldest daughter had married to Ebenezer Hill, Jr., of Grafton, and was living with her family near her father, Abel Owen.

"Abel Owen occupied his farm until about 1795, when he sold his place to Lemuel Steward, Esq., and with the rest of the Owens removed to lysander , onondaga Co;, and settled on a lot which was awarded to him as a Revolutionary soldier. (See History of Renssalaer County, p. 547.)

"The Abel Owen home in Grafton is now (1935) Mountain Top House, owned by Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Moon, on the road between Petersburg and Troy. The History of Renassalaer County States: 'Abel Owen, being a somewhat prominent citizen, the old road from Petersburg to Grafton is called in all the old leases "Owen Road." It is now a part of the Taconic Trail.'

"The will of Abel Owen, dated 16 Feb. 1827, mentions 'my three children by my present wife, that is to say, Anna Owen, Almond Owen, and Hannah maria Owen,' 'my four children, Solomon Owen, Rodericl Owen, Charlotte Hill, wife of Ebenezer Hill, and Lucy Demmon, the wife of Jason Demmon,' 'my wife Elizabeth' and 'Eunice Weld, the daughter of my last wife."