Biographies For Muscatine County Iowa 1889

Source: Portrait and Biographical Album, Muscatine County, Iowa, 1889, page 304
HON. RICHARD MUSSER, Vice President of the Musser Lumber Company, and one of the pioneer lumber men of Muscatine, was born at Adamstown, Lancaster Co., Pa., Nov. 15, 1819. He received a common-school education, and began his business career as a merchant's clerk. Later he joined his brother Peter in the tanning and leather business at Pine Grove, in Schuykill County, and continued in that line of business until October, 1854, when he emigrated from Pennsylvania to Iowa. The first year Mr. Musser spent at Iowa City, and in 1855, located at Muscatine, where he formed a limited partnership with his brother Peter and Edward Hoch in the lumber business, the firm being known as Hoch & Musser. The partnership was for a term of three years, and at the expiration of that time Mr. Hoch retired, and the business was continued under the firm name of R. Musser & Co. Various changes in the firm occurred until the incorporation of the Musser lumber Company in 1881, but during all this time, with the exception of three years, from 1873 to 1876, Mr. Musser has been prominantly identified with the business, and since the corporation of the present company he has served as its Vice President.

In 1849, at Pine Grove, Schuykill Co.,Pa., the marriage of Mr. Musser and Miss Sarah Filbert, daughter of Peter Filbert, of that place, was celebrated. In a little less than a year after her marriage, Mrs. Musser died, and about five years later Mr. Musser, who was then in business in Muscatine, returned to Pine Grove, Pa., and was united in marriage with Miss Sarah Berger, in March, 1855. Nine children were born of their union, of who only five are now living: William, the eldest, resides at Iowa City, the four daughters, Sue, Kate, Grace and Gertie, reside with their parents. Two sons and two daughters died in childhood.

In early life Mr. Musser was a Whig in political sentiment, but on the dissolution of the old party. he joined the infant Republican party, which has since become historic in the annals of the Nation. He has taken a warm interest in the cause of education, and has served nine years as a member of the Muscatine School Board. He was a member of the City Council one year, and has served two years as Mayor of the city, first in 1874, and again in 1878. He has been prominently identified with the leading manufacturing industry of Muscatine for over thirty years, and by his energy and enterprise has been instrumental in building up one of the most important lumber corporations on the Middle Mississippi. He is also identified with the extensive sash, door and blind factory carried on by the Muscatine Manufacturing Company. During all these years in which Mr. Musser has been in active business, his course has been uniformly upright, fair and honorable. As a business man and citizen, no one stands higher in the estimation of the worthy people of the community where he resides than does the subject of this brief sketch.

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