Ozias D. Sebree, of Carbondale, one of Garfield county’s most wide-awake, enterprising and successful cattle-growers, whose life in this state has been full of usefulness in developing its resources and promoting the interest of its people, was born at Canton, Fulton county, Illinois, on February 18, 1839, and acquired business capacity and enterprise in a store conducted by his father in that city, and strength of body and independence of spirit on a farm. His parents, Robert T. and Elizabeth (Ryan) Sebree, were natives, respectively, of Ohio and Kentucky, but reared in Virginia. They settled in Illinois in 1836, and there the father was a successful merchant and also connected with other enterprises in which he was prosperous. Both were members of the Baptist church. They had seven children, five of whom have died. The two living are George and Ozias, both residents of Colorado. The mother died in 1863 and the father in 1881. Their son Ozias received a good public-school education in his native town, and when he was fourteen took a position in his father’s store, but he was unable to continue long at the confining work, and in order to restore his failing health went to work on a farm. After a few years of the exhilarating life in the open air thus available to him, he accepted another mercantile position as traveling salesman for an omnibus line at Kansas City, serving with satisfaction to the company from 1869 to 1874. In the year last named he came to this state, and after a short stay at Denver, moved to Colorado Springs, where he was connected with a transfer company two years and a half. He then moved into the Arkansas valley and became interested in the toll road on Cottonwood pass in partnership with Charles Holmes. Not long afterward he sold his interest in the enterprise at a good profit, and going to Free Gold, where Buena Vista now is, he opened a grocery which he sold after operating it profitably a year, disposing of his interest to his partner, Charles Holmes. He then began freighting between Leadville and Canon City and Colorado Springs, and in this enterprise was very successful; but he sold his outfit a year and a half later and became interested in a saw-mill business conducted by the Fasson Company. In the spring of 1880 he quit this company and located at Aspen, where he devoted some time to prospecting. In the autumn of 1881 he located a homestead nine miles northwest of Aspen, and two years later he sold the improvements he had made on it and abandoned it. In the meantime he was conducting a feed store at Aspen, which he continued to carry on until 1888, then rented it until 1892, giving his attention to training horses for the race tracks. In 1893 he sold the feed business and began devoting his entire time to training horses and raising cattle and ranching on a place which he now owns and which is two miles and a half southeast of Carbondale. This comprises one hundred and fifteen acres and yields excellent crops of hay, grain and potatoes, and gives a generous support to his herds, which are profitable. He is a man of public-spirit and a Republican in politics. On November 7, 1903, he was married to Mrs. Alberta (Grubb) Winters, a native of Pennsylvania and daughter of Edward and Sarah Jane Grubb, also born in that state. They moved to Mankato, Minnesota, in 1867, and there the father followed his trade as a tanner. Four of their nine children survive him, he having died on April 20, 1899. The mother now makes her home with Mr. and Mrs. Sebree. Her living children are Lloyd, Eugene, Alberta and Josephine, the last named being the wife of Eugene Silvester, of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mrs. Sebree has been during the past ten years the postmistress at Carbondale, and during the last five the town clerk. She is an accomplished lady and a popular official, discharging the duties of her two offices with skill and fidelity, and in a manner that is creditable to herself and satisfactory to the patrons of both. Mr. Sebree is highly esteemed as a business man and a good citizen, and has the confidence and good will of the whole surrounding country in the midst of which he has for a number of years lived and labored.
Source: Bowen, A. W. Progressive Men of Western Colorado. Chicago: A. W. Bowen & Co., Publishers. 1905.