Sullivan-Bradford County PA Archives Biographies.....OSTHAUS, Francis William 1821 - 
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  File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
  Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com April 22, 2007, 4:28 pm
  
  Author: Thomas J. Ingham (1899)
  
      FRANCIS W. OSTHAUS. - The foreign-born residents of this section constitute
  a most desirable class of citizens, and the subject of this sketch, a worthy
  representative of the thrifty, enterprising class, is deserving of special
  mention in this volume. For many years he has been identified with the
  agricultural interests of Forks township, Sullivan county, while he also
  conducts a large mercantile business at Overton, Bradford county, and in both
  these lines of work he has met with marked success.
  
      The ancestral home of Mr. Osthaus is in Munster, Germany, and his
  grandfather, Antone Osthaus, a life-long resident of that place and a prosperous
  wine merchant, died there at the age of eighty-four years, leaving two children:
  Henry A., father of our subject, and a daughter who married and remained in
  Germany. Henry A. was born in Munster, April 22, 1766, and when a young man
  moved to Hamburg, where he secured a position as bookkeeper in a large
  merchandising house. He remained there a few years, when his health failed, and
  in 1793 he took up farming. He located first on government land in
  Himmelsthueur, or Heavensport, remaining about fifteen years, then renting a
  farm at Woeltingerode, near Goslar, where he died in June, 1838. He was married
  in 1803 to Clara Van Buck, who was born in 1786 and was the daughter of Major
  Van Buck, an officer in the army of the Bishop of Munster. Her death occurred in
  February, 1844. Our subject was the youngest of four children, the others being:
  Minnie, who married Gustavus Wienhagen, a farmer in Germany, and is deceased;
  Carl, who succeeded his father on the home farm and died in 1879; and Elizabeth,
  who is now the widow of Carl Boettcher, a judge in Hertzberg in the province of
  Hanover.
  
      Francis William Osthaus was born in Woeltingerode, May 10, 1821. He grew to
  manhood in his native province, receiving a college education, and at the age of
  eighteen was employed by a gentleman who lived in the city as overseer and
  administrator of his farm land. This position he held for twelve years. In 1852
  he came to America and located in Forks township, Sullivan county, where he
  first purchased fifty acres of partially cleared land. This he sold a few years
  later and he now owns two adjoining farms, one of one hundred and seventy and
  the other of ninety acres, having about one hundred and fifty acres in all under
  cultivation. He is a general farmer but has been interested in stock-raising for
  many years, and was extensively engaged in that business during the Civil war.
  In 1854 he went into the mercantile business in the same township, and in 1867
  built his present store at Overton, where he has a lucrative trade in general
  merchandise. Politically he is a "gold standard" Democrat, but has never aspired
  to public office, and at one time when elected, justice of the peace, he
  declined to qualify. Although not a church member he is in hearty sympathy with
  religious movements and has always been a friend to progress in any form.
  
      In 1851 Mr. Osthaus was married to his first wife, Miss Minna Huebenir, who
  died in 1859. In 1861 he was married in Sullivan county to Jennie, a native of
  Prussia and a daughter of Edward and Augusta (Groskopf) Francke. By his first
  marriage he had four children: Herman H., who was educated in Heidelberg and
  Goettingen, Germany, and in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he was graduated in 1877;
  in 1878 he was admitted to the bar and at present is practicing law at Scranton,
  Pennsylvania; Arthur, who was a Normal graduate, and died in 1876, at the age of
  twenty-one years; Elizabeth, who is the wife of Dr. Herrmann, of Dushore,
  Pennsylvania; and Gustavus died in infancy. By the second marriage there were
  three children: Rowena; Carl Edward, who resides at home and is in partnership
  with his father in the store at Overton; and Adolphus, who died in 1876, aged
  two and a half years.
  
  
  Additional Comments:
            Extracted from: 
              
            History of Sullivan County Pennsylvania
            by Thomas J. Ingham
              
            Compendium of Biography
              
            The Lewis Publishing Company
            Chicago: 1899
  
  
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