Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 516 - 517 

HENRY BUSENBARK, a worthy representative of the farming and stock-raising interests of Grant Township, pitched his tent within its limits before the organization of the school districts, and presided as Chairman of the first meeting held for this purpose. He has watched the development of the resources of Southern Kansas with the interest which every intelligent man feels in regard to the section of country where +he has spent the best years of his life, and should feel satisfaction in the thought that he has been no unimportant factor in bringing it to its present condition. He experienced all the trials and difficulties of frontier life, but is now enjoying the reward of his labors, and his struggles in the possession of a fine homestead, where he is surrounded by all of the comforts and many of the luxuries of life.

            James Busenbark, the father of our subject, was a Pennsylvanian by birth, and spent his early life in Butler County, Ohio, where, upon reaching manhood, he was married to Miss Elizabeth Good, a native of the same State. They became the parents of eight children, Henry, of our sketch, being the fourth in order of birth. About 1823 they left the Keystone State, and settled in Montgomery County, Ind., where, with his excellent wife, the father carried on agriculture, and battled with the difficulties of life in a new country. He had entered a tract of Government land, from which he opened up a good farm, where he spent the balance of his days, resting from his earthly labors in the spring of 1876. His first wife, the mother of our subject, had died several years before the decease of her husband, and the latter was a second time married.

            The early life of our subject was spent upon his father's farm, and he obtained his education in the district schools of Montgomery County, Ind. In 1847, when twenty years of age, he crossed the Mississippi into Linn County, Iowa, where he commenced farming on 220 acres of land, which had been given him by his father. There also he was destined to meet his future wife, Miss Judith Scott, with whom he was united in marriage on the 22d of May, 1853. This lady became the mother of three children: John A. is engaged at the mercantile business, in Garden City, Kan.; Franklin Pierce is a resident of Osawatomie; Jane, Mrs. Underwood, lives near her father in Grant Township. Mrs. Judith Busenbark is divorced.

            Mr. Henry Busenbark came to this county in 1871, and homesteaded eighty acres on section 18, in Lincoln Township. In 1884 he came into Grant Township, and subsequently became the owner of 640 acres of land, a part of which he has now given to his children. Besides his farm, which now comprises 160 acres, he owns three city lots in Wichita, and one in Valley Center. He has had very little to do with politics, but casts his vote with the Democratic party, and has held the office of School Treasurer.

            The second wife of our subject, to whom he was married in 1871, was formerly Miss Augusta Tracy, a native of Germany, and now divorced. The present Mrs. Busenbark was in her girlhood Miss Amanda Terry, and was first married to David Minard. She was born in Otsego County, N. Y., in 1836, and was the seventh child of Samuel and Ruth Terry, who were the parents of fourteen children, ten girls and four boys. She was married to our subject March 23, 1885. Her parents were natives of New York, and are now both dead.

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