John Wren Owen

John Wren Owen, 1822-1877 
Union Veteran and County Treasurer
 
Buried in Loosley Cemetery, Block 6, Lot 8, NW corner

(Photo of John Wren Owen, courtesy of
​Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.)

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John Wren Owen was born December 16, 1822, in Franklin County, Illinois, the son of Thomas Harvey Owen and Mary Paine Wren, hence his middle name. 
 
In 1850, shortly after the beginning of the California Gold Rush, his parents moved their family to Solano County, California, where they engaged in farming. By 1860, John Wren Owen was working as a real estate speculator at Suisun, Solano County.  
 
On November 30, 1864, Owen enlisted in the Union Army at the Presidio in San Francisco, California. He was commissioned a captain and given command of Company F, 7th California Infantry, on December 15, 1864. He transferred to Camp McDowell in Arizona Territory on August 2, 1865, after the Civil War had ended, and mustered out with his company at the Presidio on April 18, 1866.
 
Apparently, Owen’s time in Arizona had made an impression on him for he returned to Pima County. He was elected to the Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1868. The 1870 federal census shows him working as a clerk at Camp Crittenden in Pima County.
 
In 1874, Owen was elected treasurer of Maricopa County and reelected in 1876. As treasurer, he was responsible for paying certain bills out of the county taxes; however, he seems to have exercised those responsibilities loosely. He made no quarterly report of the funds in his possession to the territorial treasurer on June 30 or on September 30, 1877.
 
When Owen requested money for the public schools, the territorial treasurer authorized him to use the funds already in his possession, promising that he would be compensated later. On October 11, 1877, Owen replied that he did not have the money to hand but would have it by the end of the month. He then fell ill and died on November 4th. When his body was prepared for burial in the first City Cemetery, he had only $2 in his pocket.
 
His fellow veterans turned out for his funeral and he was eulogized as "a man of few faults and many virtues." It appears that John Wren Owen never married, and his obituaries did not mention any next of kin.
 
Following his death, a thorough search of his dwelling did not turn up any of the county's money. His friends speculated that perhaps Owen had loaned the money to someone and that that individual was keeping mum about it. A less charitable speculation was that he had spent it himself. At any rate, no money was ever recovered.
 
Notwithstanding the missing County funds, the late Captain Owen seems to have enjoyed a good enough reputation that, when Union veterans established a post of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) in Phoenix in September 1885, it was named in his honor.
 
© 2024 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 11 November 2025. 

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