. He was an engaging youth, a
Kentuckian by birth, with all the suavity and charm of the Southerner.
Behind him lay a truly romantic ancestry, for, through John Stewart,
who was stolen and brought up by the Indians, and never knew his
parentage, he was a collateral descendant of Daniel Boone.[4]

[Footnote 4: Stewart, who acquired by his life among the
Indians a thorough knowledge of the trails of the
country, became a guide, and it was he that led Boone on
the expedition to explore Kentucky. The connection
between them became even closer when he married Boone's
youngest sister, Hannah. At the State capitol there is a
picture of him in the striking costume of the hunter and
trapper, pointing out to Boone the lovely land of
Kentucky.]

On December 4, 1857, in a house on Michigan Street, which had already
been prepared and furnished for their occupancy, Samuel Osbourne, aged
twenty, and Fanny Van de Grift, aged seventeen, were united in
marriage. All the notables of the town, including Governor Willard, to
whom young Osbourne was private secretary, and the entire staff of
State officers, attended. The young bride looked charming in a
handsome gown of heavy white satin, of the kind that "could stand
alone," of the "block" pattern then in vogue, and made in the fashion
of the day, with full long-trained skirt and tight low-necked bodice
trimmed with a rich lace bertha. Her hair was worn in curls, fastened
back from the face on each side. The groom, who is seldom mentioned
in these affairs, deserves a word or two, for he made a gallant figure
in a blue coat with brass buttons, flowered waistcoat, fawn-coloured
trousers, strapped under varnished boots, and carrying a bell-topped
white beaver hat. One who was a guest at the wedding says, "They
looked like two children," as indeed they were. It was a boy-and-girl
marriage of the kind people entered into then with pioneer
fearlessness, to turn out well or ill, as fate decreed.

The young couple took up their residence in the same house in which
they were married, and before the young husband was twenty-one years
old their first child, Isobel, was born. The little mother was so
small and young-looking that once when she was on a railroad-train
with her infant an old gentleman, looking at her with some concern,
asked: "Sissy, where is the baby's mother?"