Christian Adolph Overbeck

In 1781 Overbeck married Elisabeth Lang (1753–1820), whose family was originally from Nürtingen and shared ancestors with Friedrich Hölderlin and Ludwig Uhland.

Overbeck's career began with a failed attempt in 1776 to found a school, the Erziehungsanstalt für Knaben, in Bremen, after the example of Joachim Heinrich Campes.

In the same year he began his legal career as a barrister in Lübeck, and in 1779 he was appointed Supreme Court procurator.

During Lübeck's occupation by France he filled the office of Receveur de la caisse communale.

He had a gift for languages, demonstrated in translations of Greek and Latin odes, French drama and English travel literature.