Van Osdel was born on July 31, 1811, in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the eldest of eight children of James H. Van Osdel, said to have been a descendant of Lyman Van Arsdale who emigrated to New York in 1653.
Leaving his wife and family in Baltimore, the elder Van Osdel, a carpenter, cabinetmaker, and building contractor, went to establish himself in New York. At fourteen, temporarily deprived, through an accident, of the father's support, John undertook to provide for the family by making benches and stools, on an original investment of one board.
Education
In New York, where the family soon went, Van Osdel entered into the apprenticeship with his father and studied architectural books at the Apprentice Library.
Career
At eighteen, Van Osdel embarked in business for himself. Returning to Baltimore, he worked at his trade and found time to write one of the numerous carpentry handbooks of the time. In New York, to which he returned in 1836, he reached a turning point in his career his meeting with William Butler Ogden, the most prominent citizen of Chicago. Employed by Ogden to plan and erect a large mansion, he established his family in Chicago in 1837, the year of its incorporation as a city.
The Ogden house on Ontario and Rush streets, which was burned in the fire of 1871, had a cupola and classic porticoes, occupied with its grounds a full city block, and was perhaps the most imposing dwelling in Illinois at the time. After one more excursion to New York in 1840, where for a short time he is said to have been associate editor of the American Mechanic, Van Osdel returned to Chicago and lived there until his death. When Van Osdel went to Chicago the city contained only thirteen brick buildings; of the remainder more than half were one-story cottages, many of log construction. There were no architects.
In 1844, after Van Osdel had spent a year or two in the machinery business and in shipbuilding, he finished two of the first steamboats built in the city, the building-contractors of the town promised to give him their support if he would open an architectural office. In that year six hundred new buildings were put up. In the three years ending in 1859, it is said, Van Osdel earned $32, 000 and had to his credit most of the buildings of importance in the rapidly growing city, including the very large Second Presbyterian Church in Gothic, unusual in 1851.
During the great fire of 1871, with characteristic resourcefulness, he dug a great pit in which he buried all his plans and records. While the embers were still red he opened a new office and in eighteen months erected 8, 000 linear feet of new buildings. Among them were the Palmer House, the Tremont House, the Oriental and Kendal buildings, and the McCormick and Reaper Blocks.
He also designed what were regarded as the three finest residences in Illinois those of Peter Schuttler in Chicago, Joel A. Matteson in Springfield, and John Wood in Quincy, Illinois. His health, not unnaturally, showed signs of strain; in 1873 he spent sometime in the Yosemite and the far West and for a year following was in Europe.
In 1883, his recollections were published in the Inland Architect and Builder. He was a trustee of Illinois Industrial University (later the University of Illinois) and was early actively interested in the development of technical training.
Van Osdel lived to see the development of skeleton construction, and the passing of his methods of design and construction. His first buildings, notably the second courthouse, begun in 1851, were in the style of the Greek Revival, as was the Rush Medical College (1844); of his later buildings, none rises much above the low level of the taste of the time.
Achievements
Van Osdel was the first Chicago architect. He is considered a peer of the most prominent architects in the history of Chicago.
Politics
In politics, Van Osdel was a Garrisonian Abolitionist. He was an active participant in the campaign of 1860, and published a pamphlet and even wrote a poem on the subject.
Personality
A gentleman of the old school, with a charming dignity, wearing by custom a dress coat with brass buttons, Van Osdel carried gracefully and modestly the honor of being Chicago's first architect.
Connections
In 1831, Van Osdel married Caroline Gailer of Hudson, New York. After the death of his first wife, in 1846, he married Martha McClellan of Kendall County, Illinois; since he had no children by either marriage, he adopted a boy, who died in youth, and three girls.
Father:
James H. Van Osdel
Wife:
Martha McClellan Van Osdel
28 January 1817 - 16 December 1895
Wife:
Caroline Gailer Van Osdel
September 1815 - 25 February 1845
colleague:
William Warren Boyington
1818–1898
Was an architect who designed several notable structures in and around Chicago, Illinois.
