My Genealogy Hound

Osben Lininger is one of the early settlers of Iowa, who took up his abode first in Ringgold county, while later he established his home in Union county. He now resides on section 32, Platte township, and is accounted one of the prosperous farmers of this part of the state, owning four hundred acres all in one body, lying in Union and Ringgold counties. A half century has come and gone since he arrived in Iowa and the year 1863 witnessed his arrival in Union county. He was born in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, November 11, 1833, and was there reared, while the common schools afforded him his educational privileges. As a young man he came to the middle west in 1856, settling first in Grant county, Wisconsin, where he worked on a farm for one season. In 1857 he came to Iowa and again secured employment at farm labor in Ringgold county. Several years were thus passed, during which time he put forth every effort to secure capital enough to enable him to engage in farming on his own account.

On the 19th of March, 1863, Mr. Lininger was married in Union county to Miss Rachel Ann Woods, who was born in Indiana and came to Iowa in 1844, and to this county in 1856. She was a daughter of Michael Woods, who was one of the early settlers of Iowa. Following their marriage Mr. Lininger rented land and thus carried on farming in Ringgold county until he purchased twenty acres of land where he now resides on section 32, Platte township. It was raw prairie but with characteristic energy he began its further development and improvement and in its midst built a little home. This served as the nucleus of his present extensive possessions. He has bought more land from time to time in Union and Ringgold counties until he now owns an excellent farm of four hundred acres of very rich and productive land, from which he annually gathers rich harvests. In 1906 he erected an attractive residence and he also has a good barn, sheds, and cribs upon his place. While his residence and some of the outbuildings are in Union county, his barn and other building are across the road in Ringgold county. He has planted an orchard and shade trees, and the farm is now well equipped and gives every evidence of the careful supervision and practical methods of the owner, who with his general farming interests also raises and feeds stock. His life has indeed been a busy and useful one.

Mr. Lininger has usually followed farming but in 1860 he put aside the work of the plow and made his way across the country to Denver, driving through with two yoke of oxen. Along the route there was no settlement after crossing the Missouri river. Nebraska City was the last sign of human habitation and then stretched the wild prairie with the mountains on beyond. Mr. Lininger returned with the same ox-team with which he had made the journey to the west. Denver at that time had about a dozen shacks or pole houses and the great west was practically a barren district, into which but very few hardy frontiersmen had penetrated. With the exception of this sojourn in Colorado, Mr. Lininger has continuously resided in Iowa since coming to the state in 1857.

Unto Mr. and Mrs. Lininger were born three children but the only one now living is William Lininger, a prominent and enterprising young farmer and stock-raiser, who is represented elsewhere in this volume. Politically Mr. Lininger is a stalwart democrat, who has served as road supervisor and also on the school board, but has never been a politician in the sense of office seeking. His wife is a devoted member of the Grove Chapel Methodist Episcopal church. Fraternally Mr. Lininger is connected with Lenox Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and is loyal to its teachings and its principles. He is indeed a prosperous, progressive and public-spirited citizen and one who is entitled to representation in this volume because of his long residence in this part of the state. The traveler who visits Union county today, noting its fine farms and its enterprising towns, can scarcely realize the fact that it is within the memory of any living man when this was a wild and windswept prairie, yet Mr. Lininger has seen the district when much of the land was still unclaimed and uncultivated, when deer roamed across the country and lesser game was to be had in abundance. He bore the hardships and trials of pioneer life, bravely met the privations incident to residence upon the frontier, and as the years went by aided in the work of general development and improvement. His labors, too, won merited success in the competence which has come to him, making him one of the substantial farmers of the community. Mr. Lininger’s first ride on a railroad train was in March, 1858, when he traveled from Chillicothe, Missouri, to the Mississippi river, from there to Galesburg, Illinois, and on to Wisconsin.