Information below provided by Find A Grave contributor David Stearns.

Published in the "Portrait and Biographical Record of the State of Colorado" Containing Portraits and Biographies of many well known Citizens of the Past and Present
Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago 1899.


JOHN J. ABENDSCHAN, proprietor of a
general mercantile store at Las Animas,
came to Bent County in 1887 and opened a
store at Caddoa, where he conducted a fair business.
From there, in 1889, he came to Las
Animas and in 1893 erected the building in
which he has since carried on a large trade in dry
goods, groceries, shoes, hats and caps. He is a
native of Wurtemberg, Germany, and was born
June 11, 1841, to the union of Jacob and Rachel
(Riuer) Abendschan, being the youngest of their
seven children. He and his sister, Catherine,
were the only members of the family who attained
mature years, and he now alone survives.
Since 1846 Mr. Abendschan has made his home
in the United States. July 22, 1861, he enlisted
in Company B, Thirty-ninth Ohio Infantry, and
remained in the service until the close of the war,
when he received an honorable discharge. Besides
numerous skirmishes, he took part in seventeen
battles. He was at Corinth and Chattanooga
and accompanied Sherman to the sea. At Kenesaw
Mountain he was shot through the right
shoulder, the bone being broken; he lay on the
battlefield all night and the following day was
taken to a hospital at Marietta, Ga., and two
weeks later transferred to Rome, Ga. After a
time he was sent home on a furlough. This was
in July, 1864; he had been previously wounded,
in May of the same year, at Dallas, Ga., where
he received a flesh wound in the right leg. He
did not permit this wound to keep him long from
his command, but returned to service before it
had healed.
On his return home after the war Mr. Abendschan
engaged in the tannery business. April 8,
1866, he married Miss Catherine Sudder, who
was born in Germany and accompanied her
parents to America, settling in Washington
County, Ohio. For five years Mr. Abendschan
continued in the tannery business, but then sold
out and started a fertilizing plant, manufacturing
fertilizer from bones. This business he carried
on successfully for seven years. In 1888 he
moved to Stanton County, Kan., where he engaged
in farming on a claim he had homesteaded.
During his two years' residence there he lost considerable
money. Concluding it would be unwise
to remain there longer, in 1887 he came to Colorado
and settled in Bent County, where he now
resides.
Mr. and Mrs. Abendschan are the parents of
six children, namely: Catherine, Mrs. Hugo
Schneider, of Las Animas, who has one child;
Jacob, a farmer of Bent County, who is married
and has three children; Tillie, who died at nineteen
years of age and is buried at Las Animas;
Henry, who lives at Las Animas, is married and
has one child; Anna, at home with her parents;
and Victor, who died in Las Animas at the age
of twelve years. All of the children were born
in Ohio and received good educations in common
schools.
Since voting for President Lincoln, our subject
has always adhered to the Republican party and
its principles. He is deeply interested in school
work and, as treasurer of the school board, has
done all within his power to promote the educational
interests of his home town. He was reared
in the Lutheran faith, but is now identified with
the Presbyterian Church. While in Ohio he
served as treasurer of his church, but has declined
official positions in the church here. He is past
commander of the Grand Army Post No. 69, and
has attended various national reunions, and in
company with old comrades of war days, has
reviewed the past and renewed its associations
over many a campfire.