My Genealogy Hound

J. P. Schuster, general merchant of Unionville, was born in Meigs County, Ohio, June 14, 1850, and when three years of age accompanied his parents to Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa, and from there, in 1856, to Putnam County, Mo., locating at Martinstown, Elm Township, where our subject was reared upon a farm. When about eighteen years old he attended the State Normal School, at Kirksville, one term, and then began teaching school, in which occupation he engaged in Adair, Schuyler and Putnam Counties until 1875. In the fall of 1875 he embarked in the mercantile trade at Martinstown, where he remained until March 1, 1881, and then located at his present place of business near the northwest corner of the square in Unionville, being a member of the firm of Schuster Bros. In 1882 he began to conduct the business alone. He owns the building he occupies, which consists of two rooms on the ground floor, one 16 ½ x70 feet, used for the grocery department, and the other, 20x60 feet, used for the dry goods and clothing department. The building has two stories. In January, 1873, he married Elizabeth A. Wade, a native of Putnam County, by whom five children have been born, four sons and one daughter. Mr. Schuster is a Select Knight of the A. O. U. W. John Schuster, the father, was born in Bavaria, August 16, 1826. He was in the Revolution and, with Kossuth, emigrated to America, locating near Pittsburgh, Penn., where he married Elizabeth Isenhoot, a native of Germany. He served an apprenticeship at the cabinet maker’s trade, in Germany, and is now residing upon a farm in Elm Township, Putnam Co., Mo. The mother is also living. Of the four sons and two daughters reared to maturity our subject is the first child. All the children, with the exception of one daughter, are now living. The maternal grandparents resided near Pittsburgh, where the grandmother still lives and is now over eighty years of age. The paternal grandparents lived and died in Germany.