A brief business and family history of John Owens who once ran a store in Monroe County was compiled by Claude Rankin. It is the preface to the microfilmed records of two volumes of business records compiled by Owens during the course of time that he was doing business. The first volume covers the period 1827-1829 and consists of 563 pages; the second volume covers the time 1829-1830 and ends with page 527. Both volumes represent an accounting of business transacted by the store by various members of the community. This material located on Reel 13, Local History Microfilm Collection, Monroe County Public Library, Bloomington, Indiana. Information from the preface has been abstracted below by Randi Richardson. The business records of John Owens, who ran a country store in the early 1800s, were found in an old trunk in the attic of his "foster" son, Benjamin I(nman-) Owens, whose home stood a short distance from where the store was once located. John Owens was the "son of an Irish country gentleman and a successful merchant, farmer and money-lender of his portion of Monroe County somewhere near the date of 1816. He imported from England five head of the first blooded short horn cattle to be brought into Indiana having them driven from Baltimore to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, brought from there by boat to Madison, Indiana, and thence by foot to his farm on Stout's Creek." John Owens married the widow of his good friend, John Inman, who settled in Greene County, Indiana. Both men knew each other as boys and came to America together. Owens adopted Inman's children who hyphenated their name to Inman-Owens. From these children came the Fee and Owens families.