JOSEPH RYMAN was born in Bavaria September 9, 1832, and is the elder of two children, and the only one living, born to Andrew J. and Eve (Hummerbauch) Ryman. Andrew J. Ryman was reared a shoemaker, but at the age of fifteen became a soldier in the Prussian Army, and was taken prisoner by the French at the battle of Austerlitz, where he had both legs broken. He afterward became an officer under Napoleon I, and accompanied the French Army in the disastrous Russian campaign. Having served in the German and French Armies twenty-two years, he was appointed, after the fall of Napoleon, Revenue Collector at one of the German posts, which position be held five or six years, and then engaged in farming in Germany until 1857, when he came to the United States and settled in Tippecanoe County, this State, where he died, November 7, 1864, a member of the Catholic Church. Joseph Ryman came to Tippecanoe County with his father and farmed on shares until February, 1870, when he came to this township and settled on forty acres of wild land he had purchased the previous year, and which he has since increased to 100 acres. In September, 1855, he married Catharine Paff, a native of Bavaria, who has borne him seven children, six still living. In politics, Mr. Ryman is a Democrat, and he and wife are members of the Catholic Church.

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