Richard Lemon Owings (1812–1902), more commonly known as "Richard Owens" or "Dick Owens", was a pioneer of the American West who played an important role in John C. Fremont's third expedition to the Great Basin and California. He is best known as a frequent companion and close friend of

Kit Carson Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman. He was a fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer. He became a frontier legend in his own lifetime by biographies and n ...

. The

Owens Valley Owens Valley (Numic Numic is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, Snake River basin, and southern Great Pl ...

Owens River The Owens River is a river in eastern California in the United States, approximately long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 17, 2011, It drains into and through the ...

, and

Owens Lake Owens Lake is a mostly dry lake in the Owens Valley on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in Inyo County, California. It is about south of Lone Pine, California. Unlike most dry lakes in the Basin and Range Province that have been dry for th ...

in eastern California were all named after him by Fremont, even though Owings apparently never visited any of them.

Biography

Owings was born in

Owings Mills, Maryland Owings Mills is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Baltimore. Per the 2020 census, the population was 35,674. Owings Mills is home to the northern terminus o ...

, and grew up near

Zanesville, Ohio Zanesville is a city in and the county seat of Muskingum County, Ohio, United States. It is located east of Columbus and had a population of 24,765 as of the 2020 census, down from 25,487 as of the 2010 census. Historically the state capita ...

before going west in 1834 with Caleb Wilkins. His adventures with Carson and Fremont took place in the years between then and 1850. Around 1850 he returned to his family near Marion, Indiana, and in 1854 married Emily Miller. He moved to Iowa during the Civil War and then to

Circleville, Kansas Circleville is a city in Jackson County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 153. History Circleville was founded in 1863. It may have been named after Circleville, Ohio, or because the town "circled" ...

in 1872, living there until he died in 1902. He and Emily had four sons, three of whom survived him. In 1839 Owings spent three months trapping beaver with Carson in South Dakota. The two became close friends and were frequent companions over the following decade. Carson and other "mountain men" invariably called Owings by the name "Dick Owens". Carson and Owings both spent most of the early 1840s living near

Taos, New Mexico Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Nuevo México Governor Fernando Cha ...

, and in March 1845 the two started a joint farming venture fifty miles away in Rayado. When they learned, however, that Fremont was preparing a third expedition to the Great Basin and California, they sold everything at a loss and moved to join Fremont's company. (Carson had served Fremont as a guide on his earlier expeditions and was highly trusted by him.) The expedition traveled across the Utah desert to Oregon and spent some time there before moving south along the eastern flank of the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada. In the vicinity of Truckee a small group broke off, including Fremont, Carson, and Owens, and crossed the Sierra Nevada range, arriving eventually in Sacramento. Meanwhile, the majority of the group continued southward, traveling through the area that Fremont would later name

, not crossing the mountains until they reached

Walker Pass Walker Pass (el. ) is a mountain pass by Lake Isabella in the southern Sierra Nevada. It is located in northeastern Kern County, approximately 53 mi (85 km) ENE of Bakersfield and 10 mi (16 km) WNW of Ridgecrest. The pass prov ...

. Thus Owings did not actually see the river, valley, and lake that Fremont would later name after him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Owens, Richard 1812 births 1902 deaths Explorers of California People from Owings Mills, Maryland