Editing Owen County, Kentucky (section)

==History==

Numerous Native American burial mounds were located in Owen County.<ref name="klebe">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CcceBgAAQBAJ&q=owen+county+native+americans&pg=PA700|title=The Kentucky Encyclopedia|last=Kleber|first=John E.|date=January 13, 2015|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|isbn=9780813159010|language=en}}</ref> Many pioneers made their homes on land grants along the many streams which flow through the county.

Owen County was formed as the 63rd county by the Commonwealth of Kentucky and approved February 6, 1819.<ref name=acts>Acts of 1818-1819 Chapter 287 page 702 http://www.myowencountyky.com/owen-county-history/</ref> It was formed from the counties of Franklin, Scott, Gallatin, and Pendleton. Hesler (Heslerville) was the first county seat. Owen County was named after Abraham Owen, an Indian fighter and Kentucky legislator, who was killed at the Battle of Tippecanoe. Colonel Owen also surveyed and mapped the region that became Owen County.<ref name=klebe/> On November 16, 1820, the legislature passed another act which restored to Franklin County part or all of what was taken from it under the 1819 act. To compensate for this, the legislature took some more land from Gallatin County and gave it to Owen by act dated December 26, 1820.<ref name=acts/> Therefore, Hesler was no longer in the center of the county. Accordingly, on January 15, 1822, the county court ordered that the seat of justice be removed to land owned by Andrew Parker, James Hess, and William H. Forsee. The town Owenton was developed. Court was held at the new county seat on February 11, 1822.<ref name=acts/>

In 1844, after Kentucky began to construct locks and dams on the Kentucky River, packet boats on regular trips between Frankfort and Louisville made stops in Owen County at Monterey, Moxley, Gratz, and other towns. New Liberty was founded before 1800 and was the site of one of the first churches.<ref name=acts/>

In the 1870s, Owen County saw Deputy U.S. Marshall [[Willis Russell]] struggle to suppress the local Ku Klux Klan chapter, which was committing violence against former slaves in the years during [[Reconstruction Era|Reconstruction]]. Russell was murdered by an unknown assassin in 1875.