Tioga County NyArchives Biographies.....Osburn, Ebenezer January 4, 1832 - February 2, 1906
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Author: J. W. Ellis

 

EBENEZER OSBURN. 

Ebenezer Osburn, who passed away on the 2d of February, 1906, was accounted one 
of the well to do and prosperous farmers of Van Buren township. His worldly 
possessions had been accumulated by the labor of his hands and brain and 
indicate the industry which he had exercised during the pioneer days of Jackson 
county. Mr. Osburn was a native of Tioga county, New York, having been born 
January 4, 1832. His father, Samuel Osburn, also a native of the Empire state, 
started for the west, bringing his family with him, in the summer of 1849, 
crossing the Mississippi river June 8th of that year. Ebenezer Osburn, the 
eldest of the family, was then a youth of seventeen years. In coming to the 
west, the Osburn family embarked on the Erie canal by which they traveled to 
Buffalo; thence they took a lake steamer to Chicago, which was then an 
unimportant village. There the father hired a four-horse team to convey them to 
Savanna, Illinois, for which he paid the sum of forty-five dollars. He had 
visited this section three or four years before, traveling on foot, and had 
chosen Iowa as his future place of residence. From Savanna they crossed the 
Mississippi to Sabula and thence made their way to Van Buren township, this 
county, where the father entered eighty acres of land and subsequently 
purchased ninety-five acres from a settler, and the son Ebenezer, three years 
later, entered the same amount—eighty acres. This is still in the possession 
and occupied by the widow and son of Ebenezer Osburn. 
The 12th of March, 1856, witnessed the marriage of Ebenezer Osburn to Miss Mary 
Osburn, who was likewise a native of Tioga county, New York, and came to Iowa 
with her parents in August, 1839, and settled in Van Buren township, this 
county. Four children were born to this union but the only one now living is 
Albert, who resides on the old homestead with his widowed mother. Mrs. Osburn 
on coming to this county with her parents was a little child of six and one-
half years and consequently has passed over seventy years of her life in 
Jackson county and is truly one of the early pioneers. Mrs. Osburn's natal day 
was the 8th of November, 1832. There were but three families in the entire 
township at the time of her arrival here and consequently she is a living 
witness to the many changes that have taken place in this county. Mr. and Mrs. 
Osburn have also reared an adopted daughter, Ettie, who is now the wife of W. 
R. Potter, of Sparta, Illinois, by whom she has two children. 
Mrs. Osburn and her son Albert own the old homestead farm of three hundred 
acres in Van Buren township which, being well improved and under a high state 
of cultivation, returns to them a gratifying annual income. Mrs. Osburn has now 
passed the seventy-seventh milestone on life's journey and during the long 
period of her residence here she has enjoyed the respect and esteem of all with 
whom she has come in contact, while her good deeds have endeared her to many. 
J. W. Ellis, History of Jackson County, Iowa, 1910 




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