News: Owen – Woodland Hotel Origin (1976 Story)

Transcriber: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: McCarty, Owen, Woodlands

---------Source: Owen Enterprise (Owen, Clark County, Wis.) 29 Sep 1976

The Woodland Hotel has been a familiar landmark in Owen since it was built in 1906. The name had always seemed appropriate in this community, which owes its existence to the forests of Wisconsin.

Recently new information has been provided by Miss Elizabeth McCarty of Saginaw, Michigan, which revels the real origin of the name as associated with the Owen family.

In the eleventh century, at the time of the Norman invasion, a man called William-of-the-Woodlands had charge of the government wood lands on the coast of Kent in England. His descendants continued to carry on this hereditary responsibility for many centuries.

About 1812 a direct descendant of William-of-the-Woodlands, Elizabeth Woodlands, married Dive Owen of Wood church, Kent, England. Two of their sons, Dr. Woodland Owen and John G. Owen came to America, landing in New York on May 24, 1842.

John G. Owen was the father of John Sabine Owen, who started the lumber Mill here in 1893, and the grandfather of Aloney Rust Owen, who made his home here.

Besides giving the historic family name to the Woodland Hotel, the A.R. Owen family also gave the name to their youngest child, Katherine Woodland Owen, who died in 1914 before the age of three.

The material about the Woodland family background was contained in the History and Biographical Record of Lenawee Co., Michigan, Vol. 1, published in 1879.

By Virginia Sutter.