Transcription contributed by Arne H Trelvik 11 October 2005

Page
987

JOHN SANDERS, proprietor hotel, Foster's Crossing. The gentleman whose name heads this sketch was born in Saarbruck, Prussia, in 1819; he is a son of John and Martha Sanders, of Prussia, in which they were reared and married. In 1836, they, with their family, emigrated to America; they landed in Baltimore after a tedious voyage of sixty-five days from Havre de Grace, France. From the place of landing they went to Pittsburgh, Penn., and afterward removed to Butler Co., Penn., where they purchased a farm, on which they lived and died; they were parents of five children, one son and four daughters; the daughters married and remained in Pennsylvania, and are named as follows: Margaret, Mary, Catherine and Elizabeth. John, the father of our subject, died at the age of 87, and his wife at the advanced age of 95 years. In Butler Co., Penn., our subject learned the shoe trade, which he followed there till 1839, at which time he went to Brady's Bend, Penn., where he started a shop of his own, which he carried on till 1842; here he was unfortunate, and lost about $2,000; the failure discouraged him, and he resolved to emigrate westward, and soon after was in Cincinnati, where he remained through the winter, and, in the following spring (1843), settled in Foster's Crossing, and for three years following, clerked in the hotel for James Foster In 1846, he was married to Margaret Gruber, and, immediately after, started in business for himself, and kept grocery and railroad boarders; this business he followed for some years, and then branched into the dry goods business, which, however, did not prove successful, and so allowed himself to drift back to saloon and boarding house keeping, in which he is now engaged; here Mr. Sanders had quite a diversity of changes, and really saw many "ups and downs," yet withal he has been successful, and is now enjoying the comforts of a good home and is doing a paying business To them have been born nine children, six of whom are living, viz., Joseph, John B., Catherine, Anna, Theresa and Salinda; the deceased, viz., Mary, Margaret and William. For ten years, he was toll-receiver at Foster's Crossing, on the Cincinnati, Montgomery & Hopkinsville Turnpike. He, his wife and their children are consistent members of the Catholic Church, in which all were baptized and received into the church according to every prescribed rule of that great religious body. Mr. Sanders owns a good property in the village, and is now, though suffering from ill health, enjoying life under his own vine and fig tree. He formerly owned 20 acres of land adjoining the river, on which were found many relics belonging to aboriginal and pre-historic times.