A Twentieth Century History of Marshall County, Indiana, Chicago,
The Lewis Publishing Co., 1908. Page 640.
John Osborn was born in North Bend township, Stark [Starke] county, Indiana, five miles northwest of Culver , January 8, 1859, and
throughout his entire business life he has benn more or less prominently identified with the interests of Culver and its vicinity.
His father, William Osborn, is also a resident of this city, but he was born in Delaware county, Ohio, and from there moved to Stark
[Starke] county, Indiana, in 1840, and was identified with its agric ultural pursuits until his removal to Culver . He survives his
wife, Louisa J. Owens, who died at the age of seventy-six years. She was born in Bartholomew county, Indiana, and by her marriage to
William Osborn became the mother of six children, all yet living.
John Osborn, the third son and third child in the family, spent his early life on his father's farm in Stark county, but in 1879 he
left his boyhood's home for Union township, Marshall county, and was engaged in farming and stock raising there until 1892. In that
year he sold his farm and opened a bank at Culver , the Marmont Exchange Bank, which he conducted six years and then closed the
business by paying his depositors in f ull. Leaving Culver he went to Logansport, Indiana, to engage in the restaurant business,
but
after a year and eight months there he returned to Culver and established and conducted a provision store here for four years. The
business was then sold to the Stahl brothers, and Mr. Osborn turned his attention to contracting and building, a field in which he
has met with eminent success. He continues his building operations during the summer months and conducts a real estate business in
the winters. He owns at the present time five of the best business buildings in the town, besides other real estate and two farms,
one in Wells county and the other in Marshall county, and at this writing he is erecting a post office and bank building for Mr.
Shilling in Culver and a fifty-room hotel furnished with all modern conveniences, a house in which the citizens of this
community may well feel a just and commendable pride.
Mr. Osborn married, in 1884, Ora Morris, who at her death left two children -- William O. and Bessie. Mr. Osborn married, secondly,
Jennie Shoemaker, of Wells county, Indiana. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, belonging to the Blue Lodge of Culver , and is
a Democrat politically and has served his fellow citizens as a member of the school board.