Grundy-Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Osburn, William October 3, 1854 - 
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Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com February 20, 2006, 4:03 am

Author: WW Stevens, 1907

William Osburn makes his home in Morris but is the owner of valuable and 
extensive farming interests abdut nine miles from Wilmington and has a very 
wide and favorable acquaintance in Will county and this part of the state. He 
is, moreover, a native son of Will county, having been born in Florence 
township, October 3, 1854, his parents being Nial N. and Sarah (Steadman) 
Osburn, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. His education was 
acquired, after he had left the public schools, in the University of Kansas, 
where he remained as a student for seven years, being graduated in the class 
of 1887. He devoted two years to teaching school in Will county, Illinois, and 
then joined the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church, devoting ten years 
of his life to active ministerial duty in Colorado, during which time he 
preached at Durango, Colorado City, Manitou, Montrose, Loveland and Georgetown.

Again entering the teacher’s profession, he became one of the instructors in 
Walden University and in Meharry Medical College, at Nashville, Tennessee, 
where he remained from 1890 until 1901. He afterward taught for three years in 
Cincinnati University and the Hughes high school of that city, having charge 
of the department of biology. In 1904 he located in Morris, where he now 
resides, giving his attention to the supervision of his farm of about one 
thousand acres in Grundy county. He has improved the place by the erection of 
many new buildings until the farm at different places presents the appearance 
of a thriving little hamlet or village. He has put up four new buildings, five 
barns, seven corn cribs and granaries, built fifteen poultry buildings, a mill 
house, separator house, carpenter shop and a number of sheds for the shelter 
of hogs. He has also drilled four artesian wells and in the management and 
control of the property has displayed excellent ability along agricultural 
lines.

He raises eight different breeds of chickens, making a specialty of Barred 
Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island Reds, White Wyandottes and Buff Orpingtons. He 
holds a public sale each February and October, disposing of much of the stock 
upon his place. He is vice president of the Illinois Berkshire Association and 
has displayed in the last two years an aptitude for successful management in 
farming interests. His life work also includes the authorship of three 
textbooks, one on histology and bacteriology, another on botany, and a third 
on biology—nature study.

In his political views Mr. Osburn is a stalwart prohibitionist, being in 
hearty sympathy with the work of the party along temperance lines. His 
influence has ever been given on the side of right, justice and truth.

Source: "Past and Present of Will County, Illinois" by W.W. Stevens, 1907, The 
S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago, Page 393


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