Robert S. Osborn is a native of Boone county, Missouri, and was born October 31, 1826. In April, 1841, he accompanied his parents in their removal to Daviess county, and has lived upon the farm upon which they settled in Jefferson township for forty years. He owns a very desirable tract of land containing 544 acres, upon which he lives and is engaged in farming and stock-raising. His parents, who were natives of Scott county, Kentucky, are both dead.
Mr. Osborn was joined in marriage to Miss Maria Osborn, on the 14th of March, 1850. Their union was blessed with five children; named, respectively, Mary E., born March 11, 1851, died November 22, 1856; Parmelia E., born January 30, 1856; Richard J., born January 8, 1859; Ruth A., born February 6, 1863; and Stella L., born May 28, 1866, died January 13, 1867. Mrs. Osborn died April 15, 1872, and her remains repose in their last resting place in Victoria Cemetery. On the 2d of February, 1873, Mr. Osborn and Mrs. Agnes Reid were married. They have two children by this union; namely, Dudley C., born December 9, 1873; and Clay, born September 28, 1879. Mrs. Reid was the mother of five children by her first marriage as follows: Adelbert W., born November 10, 1861; Sarah A., born August 31, 1863; Elsie, born June 19, 1865; Oscar B., born September 18, 1869, died June 9, 1872; and Merritt, born June 23, 1871. Mrs. Agnes Osborn is a regular descendant of the Randolphs of Virginia. Mr. Osborn has a vivid remembrance of the early pioneer days when he ground corn with a hand-mill and had to go fifteen or twenty miles to a blacksmith shop to get a plow sharpened.