Osceola County MI Archives Biographies.....Farsberg, Rev. John November 9, 1834 - 
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Jan Cortez http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00020.html#0004939 January 25, 2008, 3:40 pm

Author: Chapman Brothers, Chicago

Rev. John Farsberg, Pastor of the Lutheran Church located in Tustin, was born 
Nov. 9, 1834, in Sweden.  His father, 

Johan Farsberg, died when he was in early childhood, and thereafter, until the 
age of eight years, he was cared for by 

his mother, Christiana Farsberg, in the home of his maternal grandfather.  In 
1842 he went to live with an uncle to be 

instructed in the business of a blacksmith, and later he worked as a pubbler 
in a foundry.

When he was about 30 years of age he was appointed Government Inspector of the 
machine shops throughout the kingdom of 

Norway.  He spent one year on the traverse of the country in the discharge of 
the trust.  On the expiration of his 

commission in 1866, he came to the United States and remained about a year in 
the city of Chicago, where he obtained 

employment as an axle-filer in various carriage factories.  He became at the 
end of that time a missionary among his 

countrymen, and after laboring among them some months he returned to his trade 
as a mechanic, and operated three years 

in the manufacture of plows.  He went thence to Moline, Ill., where he 
officiated in the Lutheran ministry one year.  He 

went thence to henry County in that State and preached two years in the 
country.  In 1874 he returned to his former 

field in the city of Chicago, where he acted as a missionaru about three 
years.  He next proceeded to Rock Island, Ill., 

and spent a year in study at the Swedish seminary, and at the close of his 
course was regularly ordained a minister.

In 1877 he took a final leave of his people in Illinois, and, answering to an 
urgent call from Osceola County, he 

located at Tustin.  On his arrival he found the society without organization 
or place of worship, and he at once entered 

vigorously into the work of remedying the deficiency.  He has organized 
churches of his faith at Tustin, Reed City, 

Cadillac, Hobart, Morley and Bounds' Mill, all of which are now included in 
his circuit save at Reed City.

At Tustin he has added 125 members to his society, and the membership over 
which he has charge, aggregates 500 in round 

numbers.  Since his arrival in Osceola County he has been instrumental in 
erecting five church edifices and a parsonage. 

 He has been indefatigable and unremitting in his parochial labors, and has 
often labored both day and night in his 

periods of effort.  He is an earnest and zealous promoter of the principles of 
the Republican party.

Mr. Farsberg was married in 1866, in Norway, and three months after he came to 
Chicago, where his wife died six months 

later, leaving no child.  He was again married Dec. 26, 1878, in Chicago to 
Betsey Kunoson, who was born Oct. 22, 1845, 

in Sweden.  She was well educated in her native land, and when 18 years of age 
came to Chicago, with her parents, who 

went later to Minnesota, where they are farmers.  Mr. and Mrs. Farsberg have 
had four children, one of whom, John is not 

living.  Those who survive are Antony W., Anna M., and Joseph T.

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