Elias Kane Owen was born on 21 November 1834, in Chicago, Illinois, the third and final child of Indian agent Thomas Jefferson Vance Owen and Emmeline Hochkiss Owen. In 1848, Congressman Abraham Lincoln of Springfield took the 14 year old Owen to Washington and had him entered in the United States Naval Academy as a Midshipman on 07 December 1848. Attending the Academy in 1849, Owen then served aboard Independence, the Mediterranean Squadron flagship, until 1852. Owen then served the next two years in the Africa Squadron aboard sloop Marion, being appointed a Passed Midshipman 15 July 1854. Owen then served in the Coast Survey, being promoted to Master on 15 September 1855, and Lieutenant on 16 September 1855. Briefly serving in the West Indies Squadron aboard sloop Jamestown during 1858, Owen spent the next two years on anti-slavery patrol in the Africa Squadron aboard sloop Saratoga. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he served aboard the steam gunboat James Adger, unsuccessfully hunting for the Confederate raider Nashville off Ireland. Owen then returned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off South Carolina. Promoted to Lieutenant Commander 16 July 1862, Owen assumed command of the Mississippi Squadron ironclad Louisville in late December 1862, seeing action in the Yazoo River campaign into 1863. Following the surrender of Vicksburg on 04 July of that year, Owen assumed command of the squadron's Fifth Division. In addition, he supervised the salvage of the sunken ironclad Cairo and battled Confederate guerillas in the area. In February 1864 he led the naval component of the Coates Expedition on the Yazoo, and in March-May participated in the Red River expedition. Posted to the New York receiving ship in spring 1865, Owen was promoted to Commander 25 July 1866. From fall of that year he served two years on special duty at Mound City naval station, overseeing the salvage of sunken vessels and disposing and demobilizing naval assets on the inland river. Owen next commanded steam sloop Seminole of the North Atlantic Squadron during 1868-1869. From September 1870 to September 1873 he commanded the Norfolk receiving ship, thereafter awaiting orders until retiring 09 June 1876. Commander Owen died at Kaskaskia, Illinois, on 08 April 1877, and is interred in Saint Marys Catholic Cemetery in Chester, Illinois.

[This bio is mainly derived from Myron J. Smith, Jr.'s Ironclad Captains of the Civil War, as the DANFS entry is terse to the point of pointlessness.]