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Press: The Owens Family

The following is excerpted from the family history called, Yocona, A Place in Time, by Amil Mask

Although we have much less information on the Owens family than on the Mask family such as we have is included here to give clues to anyone interested in further researching the Owens line.

Gus and Hattie Laura Hanks of Satartia, Mississippi gave the clues that started our research on the Owens family. Gus’s father Edgar Hanks was the son of Henry, who was the son of Wiley Hanks who died in a Yankee prison camp. Henry’s mothers was war widow Mary Ann Hanks, whom it will be recalled John Silas Mask married at the end of the war. Thus began the first of the close ties of the Yocona Masks to the Hanks. Edgar Hanks married Eddie Owens, the third daughter of Whit and Martha Bullard Owens, and the Mask/Hanks relationship became tighter in Lafayette Cty because the oldest girl of the Owens, Lorena, was married to George Mask. The Mask/Hanks kids then were double first cousins. Gus was only seven days old when his father Edgar died in 1914 and Eddie moved back into her parents’ home with her three young boys, Buren, Oren and the infant Gus. Whit Owens became both father and grandfather to them. Gus says that "Grandpa Owens was the only father I ever knew.".

Gus tells us the Whit’s father was Daniel Owens, who was born in LaGrange, Troup Co., Georgia, and married Martha Ivy. Martha Ivy Owens died in 1860, and Dan Owens died in the siege of Vicksburg, MS., between May and July 4, 1863. One of the family stores that Gus remembers is that Dan slipped out of Vicksburg during the siege, and came home "to put in the crop." He escaped capture at home be hiding under a large hooped skirt of one of the family women when soldiers came looking for him. Dan Owens had one brother that Gus knew about, named Bryce Owens.

Dan Whittington "Whit" Owens was born February 10, 1855 or 1856 in Mississippi, probably in Lafayette County. He had one sister, Florence, who married _____ McBroom. Florence had 2 children: Arch, and a daughter.

The 1860 US Federal Census of Lafayette County, MS shows a family that could be ours, but the father is listed as A.R. Owens, age 35, farmer, born in GA. The mother is C. Owens, age 26, born in GA, but the two children are Witamore, age 4, born in MS and Florence, age 1, born in MS. This particular edition is a transcription from the census microfilm. A note has been added: Camillia A. Ivy m. A.K. Owens in Lafayette Co., MS April 12, 1855. More research is needed on whether the initial is "R" or "K". Also, research in the Mississippi State Archives did not reveal any military Confederate soldier named Daniel Owens at the siege of Vicksburg. Therefore, the Confederate records need to be checked for a A.R. or A.K., who probably is the father of "Whit". Caution is given however, because many Confederate records are incomplete, probably because "we lost the war".

D.W. (Whit) Owens married Martha Bullard, daughter of Wiley and Martha Jane Beard, on January 24, 1878 in Lafayette Co., MS (Lafayette Co. Marriage Record Book 5, page 1). Both the Owens and Bullard families were part owners of a cotton gin in Troup Co., Georgia. Gus and Hattie visited the gin site in the spring of 1994. It was still standing.

On March 14, 1883, W.B. Robuck sold 120 acres to Martha Owens for $300. It was described as the East 1/2 of SW 1/4 of Section 22, Township 9, Range 2 West and the SE 1/4 of the NW 1/4 of Section 22, Township 9, Range 2 West in Lafayette Co., MS (This was part of 320 acres of land in a Deed of Trust executed Feb. 17, 1880 by W.B. Robuck to Wiley Bullard, Martha Owens’ father. (Deed Book Y, p. 456). This 120 acres is the only land that Martha and Whit Owens ever owned in Lafayette before they owned the land, 2 daughters were born, Lorena, Nov. 11, 1878 and Cordie on March 29, 1881. The other Owens children were born on the "Owens Place".

The land played an important part in the families financial affairs. It was used as collateral for a Deed of Trust executed to William Frasier on a $200 loan from George Morgan in 1892. When Whit defaulted on the repayment of the loan, the land was sold to the highest bidder - none other than Whit Owens himself, who bought the land again, for $167. He then used the same land as security for the $167 which he had borrowed from the Bank of Oxford. So we find Whit using this land greatly to his financial advantage.

In 1899, after the birth of seven daughters, a son, Marshall was born to Whit & Martha. Sadly, this only son died of whooping cough on February 26, 1901, and was buried in Kingdom Cemetery at Yocona The year 1901 was a pivotal year for the Owens family, as well as for all the rest of the extended family at Yocona Life would never be exactly the same for any of them, because "shame" entered the family equation. Grandpa went to jail and then to prison. Grownups always talked in whispers, privately, and children were always "shooed out of the room: when the subject was discussed according to J.D. Kisner, one of Aunt Nettie’s boys. Microfilm newspaper articles from 1901 to 1904 however, together with MS Supreme Court decisions, and the case file located in the Mississippi State Archives in Jackson, Mississippi, reveal the story.

On November 16, 1901, two Deputy U.S. Marshalls, "revenuers," were killed at Will Mathis’s and Aunt Cordie’s house in connection with an arrest for moonshining, and Grandpa Whit Owens was alleged to have been involved, as well as Will Mathis (Cordie’s husband), and a negro named Orlando Lester. The community was greatly agitated, and a lynching was narrowly avoided. There were a number of trials in District Court in Oxford, in which there was a great deal of adverse testimony against Grandpa Whit Owens as an accomplice, or an "accessory before the fact." this testimony also resulted in another indictment against him as an accessory in the killing of a negro a few weeks earlier who was to become a witness in the distilling charge which was to be brought against Will Mathis. These trials, and the appeals which resulted from guilty findings, continued for over two years for Grandpa. Will and Orlando were found guilty of murder and were hung at a public hanging in Oxford on September 24, 1902. Will was 27 and Orlando had just turned 21 years old. Grandpa, through numerous appeals, was eventually acquitted on the incident which occurred at the Mathis place, but was found guilty as an accessory on the killing of the negro Hamp Williams in the earlier incident, and was sentenced to life in the penitentiary. He entered the penitentiary in May, 1904.

It is interesting to note, however, that Grandpa’s land again played an integral part in his life. He mortgaged it twice for a total of $2000 to hire two of the best lawyers to be found, and the lawyers were successful in saving Grandpa from the gallows at the time son-in-law Mathis and the negro Lester were hung. Of course, he couldn't’t repay the note on the farm, and he lost it. Aunt Amma says Grandpa Owens was an excellent farmer and he had the best livestock and equipment around.

Here the story improves somewhat. Grandpa apparently was a model prisoner. He was assigned to the Rankin County Prison Farm, near Jackson. Gus says that "Grandpa was a trusty, and Grandma could even come down and visit him. He even had his own house." Research into the Mississippi Penal System at the time reveals that the Rankin institution was used exclusively for white prisoners, and included a large number of young men who were not hardened criminals. Grandpa, of course, was a long timer, and older, and he had an absolutely clean record; he had never been indicted for anything in his life. He was an ideal candidate for "trusty," and was made one. The penal system also provided for early release based upon "meritorious conduct" with a recommendation from the Superintendent, and approval of the State Board of Prison Trustees. A minimum of ten years must be served, however, by any convict under life sentence. Grandpa Owens prison file reveals that he was discharged on January 13, 1912, for "meritorious conduct in preventing the escape of a fellow inmate." It was well known, of course, by the "trusty's" that such prevention's might lead to an early release, and sure enough in Grandpa’s case it did. These original records can be viewed in the State Archives in Jackson, Mississippi. So Grandpa Whit Owens had been in jail, or prison, from November 18, 1901 to January 13, 1912. The Supreme Court Case File number in the Mississippi Archives is 11078, resulting from the sentence received in Yalobusha County District Court (change of venue from Lafayette County), for the murder of the negro Hamp Williams.

After his release from prison, Whit Owens returned to the Yacona Community. Several of his daughters had married and life was not the same at home as it had been ten years earlier. When he left there were five daughters in the household ranging from 17 years to 5 years of age. By 1910 only Blanch, then 19, and Clara, then 15, were still living at home with his wife Mattie, whom he always referred to as Mat. It must have been a blessing to Whit when Eddie moved back into the household in 1914 with her three sons, all of them preschool age. Gus tells that he has been called Grandpa’s favorite, that as soon as he was old enough, Grandpa would sit him on the saddle and ride him around the farm wherever he had to go. Remember, Grandpa had lost his only son, Marshall, in infancy. After what he had been through the previous decade, this must have seemed like a bit of heaven.

But life wasn’t the same in the community though. The farm no longer belonged to Whit. It had been mortgaged, and lost, to pay his attorney’s fees. However, the new owner had let Grandma and the girls keep living on it though. The 1910 U.S. Census record shows them there, with a young man shown as "worker" living on the place with them. The community, no doubt, was no longer the accepting place it had been before. By 1920, George Mask and his wife Lorena Owens Mask had lost their place also for failure to repay a note, and had moved their family of eight down to the Mississippi Delta. soon Whit also moved his family to the Delta as well. Again they all lived close by. Whit’s family was now himself, Mat, and Eddie with her three sons. George’s family moved on out to New Mexico in 1921, and again Whit moved his family, this time to the area near Haystack Mountain, close to Mangum, in western Oklahoma, where two of Mattie’s sisters lived. Gus says the family raised two or three crops in Oklahoma, before moving once again in 1925 -- back to the Delta six miles west of Drew, Mississippi. Gus says that Grandma never did like the Delta. she yearned for "the hills" around Yacona.

Grandma "Mat", died in the Delta July 26, 1927. George Slaughter, Aunt Blanch’s husband reported her death. she was buried in her beloved hills at Kingdom Cemetery at Yocona on January 27, late in the evening. The family story is that another son-in-law Jake Kisner, Aunt Nettie’s husband, was bringing her body up to Kingdom in a wagon. Uncle Jake got lost on the way, and did not arrive at Yacona until about 9:00 p.m. The burial took place that night when he got there.

Whit grieved after his wife’s death. He told the family that he had nothing to live for following Mat’s death. He died October 17, 1928 having been under a doctor’s care since April 1, 1928. He was buried beside Mattie at Kingdom Cemetery.

 

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