OSGOODS IN MASSACHUETTS AND NEW YORK

    The American version of the Osgood family has been a power in both Massachusetts and New York for over two centuries. The founder was Captain John [1595], who came to New England about 1635, and settled in Massachusetts. In 1639, he was admitted a freeman of the town of Newbury. Subsequently, he joined the pioneer party which settled in the virgin forest, cleared the land, and established the celebrated town of Andover. He was a religious enthusiast in these Puritan times and devoted all his leisure time "to the glory of God. His was the second house to be erected in the little settlement, and it had hardly been completed before it was utilized as the church/meetinghouse of the neighborhood. The original homestead remained in the possession of the family for more than two hundred years.

    According to his contemporaries, he feared neither the theological devil nor the red ones who prowled in the neighborhood. He went to church with a musket, and whenever Indian conditions looked threatening, he and his sons went about their business armed to the teeth. No better type of the Godfearing and stout-hearted pioneer can be found in the early pages of New England.

    For a century, the family remained in the neighborhood of its first home. It grew in numbers, wealth, and influence. The records show them to have been prominent in commercial, agricultural, political, and ecclesiastical affairs. They were farmers, merchants, and traders, grandjurymen, town clerks, assessors, highway commissioners, selectmen, and chairmen and secretaries of town meetings, deacons, elders, trustees, moderators, and clergymen. They had high ideals as to public virtue, and were honest and patriotic to a fault. From the beginning, they set store upon public education, and gave their children the best instruction which could be obtained. The sons were sent to Boston, and afterwards to Cambridge, when Harvard was established; while the daughters were carefully brought up in the woman's curriculum of New England. To this period belong such characters as Colonel Isaac, Dr. Henry, Colonel John, the Rev. Thaddeus, the Rev. Daniel, Captain Isaac, the Rev. David, Dr. Kendall, Captain Samuel, and Colonel John.

    When the agitation began throughout the colonies in favor of greater liberty and in opposition to the tyrannical features of the colonial government, it found the Osgoods among the strongest supporters of popular rights. They were not agitators, but zealots.  They were not to be bribed nor corrupted, because their wealth rendered them independent and above temptation, and their high social position made them superior in many respects to the officials who were sent across the sea from Westminster to govern the Crown possessions.

    Between 1760 and 1776, their name dots the record of the campaign for freedom. In 1765, Captain Peter and Colonel John were members of a committee which drew up resolutions against the Stamp Act and other inequitable imposts. In 1768, Captain Peter was the leading member of the committee formed to encourage home manufactures in defiance of the policy of the Crown and to discourage the importation of all superfluities from Great Britain. When Captain Peter was asked what were superfluities he responded with grim Yankee humor: "Everything imported from England."

    In 1774, the indomitable Captain and Dr. Joseph, his cousin, were members of the Committee of Safety. Of their record in the Revolution, naught can be said but praise. They did not manifest high military talent, but made up for this by a patience, discipline, endurance, and stoical courage which are of equal value in the field of Mars. At least thirty served in the great struggle, one and all of whom made model soldiers.

    In this group of distinguished patriots was Samuel [1748], the statesman, the founder of the branch in New York City. He was graduated from Harvard in 1770, and took up the study of theology. His health breaking down, he relinquished the pulpit for public life. In 1774, he was elected to the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts. When the British sent their expeditions to Lexington and Concord in 1775, he organized a company of minutemen, and fought the redcoats at both places. The same year he was made major, and in the fall aide-de-camp to General Ward, with the rank of colonel. His popularity was so great that a colonelcy of a regiment was offered to him, but he declined on the ground that there were many better soldiers than himself who could take the command, and that he could do more good for his fellow countrymen as a member of the Provincial Congress.

    Upon entering that body, he was made a member of the Board of War, on which he served with signal success for four years. He then became a Senator and a member of the Continental Congress, where he remained until 1784. He was again elected, and in 1785 was made a Judge. A few months afterwards, the Federal Government appointed him First Commissioner of the United States Treasury, which he remained until 1789. He was then appointed Postmaster-General, which post he held until 1791, when he resigned because he preferred remaining a private citizen in New York City to being a Cabinet officer in Philadelphia, to which city the national capital was then removed. The people of NewYork City must have appreciated the compliment thus paid, because they elected him to the State Legislature (1800-1801-1802), and during the first two years of that period he was made the Speaker to the Assembly. From 1801 to 1803, he was State Supervisor, and from the last named year to his death in 1813 he was the Naval Officer of the Port of New York.

    During the thirty years in which he resided in the metropolis he was one of its most distinguished citizens. No man had more at heart the welfare of the community. When the present public school system was devised, on the list of the incorporators the first two names were those of De Witt Clinton and Samuel Osgood. When the New York City Dispensary was founded, he was one of the first trustees, and in nearly all of the public movements in the last part of the eighteenth century he was a conspicuous figure.

    Beneath the man of affairs was the thinker and the scholar. Late at night and early in the morning he devoted his time to studying topics utterly disconnected with the routine of his life. Among the works which he published were a monograph on Chronology, a curious study upon Daniel and Revelation, Theology and Metaphysics, Letters on Episcopacy, and other philosophic, Biblical, historical, and ecclesiastical topics. He was twice married, his first wife being Martha Brandon, who had no issue, and his second, Maria Bowne Franklin, widow of Walter Franklin, after whom Franklin Square, New York City, was named, by whom he had three daughters. Of these, Martha Brandon married the French Minister, Edmond C. Genet, from whom comes the Genet family of New York; Julia married her cousin, Samuel Osgood, and Susan Maria married Moses Field, and was the mother of judge Maunsell B. Field.

    Samuel [1812], of the sixth generation, a famous divine, was graduated from Harvard College (1832), and from the Harvard Divinity School (1835). After a brief career as an editor, he took a pulpit in Nashua, N. H., and in 1849 accepted the pastorate of the Church of the Messiah in NewYork City, in which place he died in 1880. His life may be divided into two epochs: twenty years in active clerical labor and eleven in hard literary work.

    His contributions to American literature were numerous and valuable. Among his chief productions were Studies in Christian Biography, God with Men, The Heartstone, Milestones in Our Life's Journey, Student Life, American Leaves, and an address before the New York Historical Society upon "Thomas Crawford on Art in America." He translated from the German Hermam Olshausen’s History of the Passion, and De Wette's Human Life. For four years he was editor of the Christian Inquirer, while his magazine articles, lectures, college addresses, and critical studies were more than two hundred in number.

    In the seventh generation were several conspicuous members. Walter Franklin [1791] was educated at Columbia College (1809), from which he also received the degree of A.M. He inherited a handsome fortune, of which he took good care. He was prominent in church and social circles, and was connected with several moneyed institutions. The Rev. Alfred [1807] was a scholarly and enthusiastic home missionary. Ordained in 1835, he took up the onerous life of an evangelist in newly opened or sparsely peopled districts. For ten years he labored in Ulster County and adjacent districts in the Catskills, and then, at the request of the Missionary Board, he went to La Salle, Ill. where he worked with remarkable success. Besides founding several churches, he mapped out and planned a settlement upon the open prairie which grew into the present community of Hope town. He married Paulia C. Pelt, by whom he had three children. Of these, Alfred T., the only son [1844], was prominent in financial matters. He married Clara Kenyon, by whom he had issue. The Rev. David [1813] was notable in the Methodist Episcopal Church. His eloquence and scholarship have given him an enviable celebrity. He was twice married: first, Harriet K. Ladd, and, second, to Maria Carle. His children were three in number: David L. [1843], Mary M. [1851] and Harriet K. [1854].

    Samuel Stiliman, the artist [1808], was for many years prominent in the world of painting. His specialty was portraitmaking, and many of his canvases are treasured in the great public collections of the country. He married twice-first, Frances Sargent Locke of Boston, and, second, Sarah R. Howland of New York. The first wife, Frances, was the author known by the pen name of "Fanny Forrester." Her literary talent was developed at an early age, and she wrote several fine poems when a mere child. Her contributions to periodicals were many and attractive. Most of them were collected and published in book form. Among her works were The Casket of Fate, A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England, The Poetry of Flowers and the Flowers of Poetry, Poems, The Floral Offerig and Poems. From 1840 to her death the Osgoods resided in New York, during which time their home was a literary and artistic centre.

    In the eighth generation, the Rev. Howard [1831] was the most distinguished. He took sacred orders and settled finally in Rochester, where he conducted a very successful pastorate. He was a contributor to the religious press. He married Caroline Townsend Lawrence of New York, by whom he had issue.

    In the ninth generation, a conspicuous member was Professor Herbert Levi. He was graduated from Amherst (1877), where he took the degree of A.M. in 1880. He entered the Post-Graduate School of Political Science at Columbia University, where in 1889 he received the degree of Ph.D. He was an educator by profession, and professor of history at Columbia.

    Howard Lawrence [1855], son of the Rev. Howard, was a lawyer at Rochester, and was identified with the affairs of that city. He married Catharine Rochester Montgomery, by whom he had issue.

    The characteristic of the Osgood race has been a strong religious nature. At the beginning of their career they were stern, and it may be narrow, Puritans. The pioneers of Massachusetts were tolerant only of themselves and denied to others the liberty of worship for which they themselves were ready to die. With the increase of wealth and culture, their natures broadened, and their religious conceptions grew more generous. In the eighteenth century, the leading representatives had departed from the iron creed of the seventeenth, while in the nineteenth, many of them belonged to the most liberal faiths.

    No family has given a larger number of sons to the pulpit. There have been so many that the name has a distinctly religious sound.  The tendencies which are involved in this field of spiritual endeavor have shaped the destinies of those who did not enter the sacred calling. Many Osgoods have been famous in charities, institutional work, the Red Cross Society, prison reform, and the management of asylums and hospitals. The wealth and culture of the race have been expressed by the contingent who have entered other learned professions. Among them are editors, poets, playwrights, historians, lawyers, physicians, archaeologists, pedagogues, and artists. Few seem to have cared for commercial life, and while intensely patriotic, they have not enjoyed the perpetual clash and struggle which prevail in political life.

    Their career in the Empire State has been paralleled by that in the Bay State. Those who have gone into other commonwealths have carried with them their simple modes of living, their culture and love of learning, and their intense civic and patriotic spirt.  While the family has never been marked by great wealth, high military genius, or political skill, it has impressed itself upon the State and nation by its indomitable moral and religious force. It has been a power for good, from the first pioneer, who Worshipped God with his loaded musket in hand, down to the score of clergymen who were and are trying to raise the moral standards of today.