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Jacobus Osborne
d.Abt 1814 Sophiasburgh, Prince Edward, Ontario, Canada
Family tree▼ (edit)
m. Abt 1762
Facts and Events
[edit] AncestryGiven the 1924 article provided by his great-grandson, Alexander Campbell Osborne (1835-1924), who learned much from his grandfather, Nathaniel, Jacobus's son, it is almost certain that Jacobus was a great-grandson of Richard Osborn (1617-1685) who immigrated from London, England, to Windsor, Connecticut in 1634. However, the intervening three or four generations have not been uncovered. Two Y-DNA lines of Richard Osborn (1617-1684) have tested (and match) and if a Y-DNA line descendant is in the Canadian family, a Y-DNA STR test would confirm the link. See: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tlosborne/AusburnSurnameProject/subgroups/subgroup11.htm . See also: https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Osborn/default.aspx?section=ycolorized. The 1924 article is by far the most detailed account and most consistent with the facts that can be confirmed. In Pioneer Life on the Bay of Quinte, a source that is normally considered fairly comprehensive and reliable the account does not even name Jacobus and is almost entirely devoted to his son Richard, who is referred to as "the pioneer." PLBQ does, however, provide the names of the wives of Jacobus's sons James (Jacobus), and Nehemiah, while the 1924 OHSPR article does not. [edit] Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records, vol XXI, PIONEER SKETCHES AND FAMILY REMINISCENCES (extracted)By Alexander Campbell Osborne The following narrative of events and family incidents was gleaned principally from my grandfather, Nathaniel Osborne, who became totally blind at the age of seventy-seven years, from Sergt. John Lowe, his comrade during the War of 1812, who also became totally blind in his closing years, both of whom it became my duty when a boy to lead around in their visiting expeditions among old friends and neighbours, from the late Rev. Dr. George Young of the Manitoba Methodist Conference, who was my first cousin, and from my own revered mother. ... The Osbornes of Sophiasburgh The Osbornes were of English extraction. The first of the name to migrate to America, and the founder of the New England branch of the family, was Richard Osborne, of London, who came with the Pilgrim Fathers and settled at Windsor, Connecticut, where the name is still perpetuated. Branches of this family migrated to Ridgefield, Bergen County, New Jersey, where Jacobus Osborne, my great-grandfather, and four of his sons, Nathaniel, Richard, William and Nehemiah, were born. Mrs. Maude Benson, the Canadian writer, has in her possession a pewter platter which was given to her by Jerome Osborne, of Osborne Hill, Herkimer County, N.Y. [Ed note: check http://worldconnect.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=fredrose27&id=I30885 - this line leads to Thomas Osborne and Mary Goatley, not Richard. Jerome was a noted collector of relics and Maude - Helen M? - may have contacted him in that capacity without believeing him to be a cousin]. He claimed it was brought from London by this Richard Osborne, and from Connecticut by Rev. Amos [Asa?] Osborne, his grandfather, when this branch stuck out into the New York wilderness. In course of time, Jacobus Osborne and family migrated to Fulton County, New York, where another son, Jacobus, and two daughters, Abigail and Mary, were born. In common with other Loyalists, the family resolved to avail themselves of the British offer of lands and seek new homes in the Canadian wilderness. In 1785 they procured a Schenectady boat on which they loaded household goods and supplies, and from Johnstown voyaged up the Mohawk river, then up one of the smaller tributaries and portaged ten miles to the head waters of the Oswego River. My grandfather often told me that in going up these rapids the boat got out of their control when they were almost at the top, and slipping back, went all the way to the bottom of the rapids, and they had to do their work over again, although they were very tired. Then they passed down the Oswego River into Lake Ontario; then following the shore, reached Kingston; then up the Bay of Quinte, rounding Thompson's Point to the eastward and landing on the north shore of the Long Reach in the township of Sophiasburgh. Here they camped for the first, and subsequent, nights under the shelter of a maple until their first cabin was built. I knew the spot well, my grandfather having frequently pointed out the landing-place -- a rare bit of smooth, gravelly beach, and the maple under whose grateful shade I had often gambolled in my boyhood days. The location was an ideal one, attractive and wisely chosen. The escarpment of hills fronting the highlands of Sophiasburgh and skirting the north shore of the Long Reach, clothed from top to base in a forest of oaks and maples, sweeps back in a curve, enclosing a small but level lain, a miniature table lands, studded here and there with groups of maples, sloping gently to the water's edge, the scene presented to the weary voyageurs a haven of refuge. Such was their introduction to the wilds of Canada, the scene of their future pioneer struggles, and here they pitched their tents. Having pre-empted a block of 400 acres in the first concession of Sophiasburgh, Lots 37, 38, 39 and 40, including that on which they had encamped, they built their temporary log cabin and began the task of hewing out a home. Jacob Shorts, a pioneer neighbour who accompanied the Osborne family in their migration from Fulton County, N.Y., shared with them the hospitality of the sheltering maples on their first night in Canada. ... As already stated, Jacobus Osborne had five sons, Nathaniel, Richard, William, Nehemiah, Jacobus, and two daughters, Abigail and Mary. Abigail married Jacob Benson. Mary married his brother, William Benson. Both settled at the well-known Benson's Hill. Nathaniel, eldest son of the pioneer, was born in Ridgefield, New Jersey, in 1763, and settled on Lot 37, Sophiasburgh. He married Sarah Campbell, daughter of Lieut. Alexander Campbell. Of this union, four sons, James C., Richard, Thomas C., and John C., were born, and four daughters, Elizabeth, Sarah Margaret, Jane and Fanny. he built the first log cabin on the shore of the Long Reach, where his children were born, and which became a sort of military post, stopping-place and headquarters for officers during the war of 1812. He served as Sergeant-Major in the war and had charge of transportation. Richard, second son of the pioneer, was born in New Jersey and settledon Lot No. 36, Sophiasburgh. Later he moved to Pleasant Bay, a short distance west of Wellington. He served in the war of 1812, and his house at Pleasant Bay also became headquarters and rendezvous for officers during the war. For services rendered during the war he was granted 200 acres in the fourth concession of Ameliasburgh, to which he removed later, where he was killed by a vicious bull in 1852, in his eighty-fourth year. William, third son of the pioneer, also born in New Jersey, settled on Lot 39, first concession of Sophiasburgh, near his father and brothers, but later moved to Tyendinaga, where he left a long list of descendants. Nehemiah, the fourth son of the pioneer, was also born in New Jersey, and settled in the second concession near Fish Lake. He was totally blind for many years previous to his death. The Pioneer, Jacobus Osborne, reached the age of eighty-one when death summoned him. In a remote, secluded corner overlooking tiny cove near the original landing-place, Jacobus Osborne and his wife were buried, and their remains still repose side by side in a nameless grave, well-nigh forgotten. The resting place of these hardy toilers and wrestlers with the stern wilderness differs not from that of hundreds of others of Canada's U.E. Loyalist pioneers, whose remains scattered here and there in the beloved land of their adoption, rest in nameless sepulchres, marked by no tablet, honoured by no cenotaph raised to their memory, consecrated only by weary years of deprivation and toil, while singing birds and moaning winds and lapping waves alone unite to chant their lonely requiem. [edit] PLBQ The Osbornes (extracted)The Osbornes are of English stock who had their abode in that part of England which borders on Wales, from which part of the United Kingdom they emigrated about a hundred years prior to the disturbances between Britain and the colonies, culminating in the revolution of 1776 [Ed. Note: a better source indicates they descend from Richard Osborn, who came from London to Windsor, Connecticut in 1634]. They came to New York State and had improved their material opportunities during a century of residence to such an extent that the father of Richard Osborne [Ed. Note: i.e Jacob] was, at the close of the war, considered one of the wealthy loyalists whom the Argus-eyed Republic selected as a man to whom especial attention should be paid in way of reprisal [Ed. Note: no evidence of this]. The Osbornes were sufficiently indoctrinated with loyal principles and addicted to loyal practices to bring about their expulsion from the boundaries of the Republic. It was in 1786 [sic, 1785], when Richard Osborne was sixteen years of age, and his father already an old man, that they were compelled to forego the acquirement of many years and accept the bounty of a paternal government which could utilize their powers of development and accumulation in that part of the continent, which it still retained. Richard's father, having contrived to save some stock and money out of the general overthrow, found his way to Adolphustown. In consideration of the large loss sustained by him, he had been granted six hundred acres of the best land in Sophiasburgh [Ed. Note: true, granted to Jacobus and four sons]. Proceeding by way of Picton, he went along the high shore and made his choice of land in the district about a mile west of the holding now occupied by Austin VanDusen, where he and his son were the first white settlers to put in an appearance. This large tract of land was then a wilderness. Especially hard must it have been for a mere youth of sixteen, whose father certainly stood by his side, but with energies nearly spent, to contemplate the prospect before him [Ed. Note: bizarrely it does not mention that his four brothers, one older, mother and two sisters, and family friend Short were also there]. But whether alone or associated with his father, Richard Osborne cannot have faltered, for there he lived and labored for forty years, became a leading citizen of the district and was esteemed as one of the foremost men of the county until his death in 1852, in his eighty-fourth year. In 1812 he had to lay aside the ploughshare for the sword, and in the War of Defence was many times in action. During the progress of the war his house at Pleasant Bay was a rendezvous of the British officers while they were engaged in watching and directing the operations of their respective commands. For services of a useful character, like the one just mentioned, and others fraught with more immediate personal danger, the Osbornes were again brought under the notice of the British authorities ; and for services rendered in 1812 they received a further grant of two hundred acres. It was while living on this farm, lots 92 and 93, 4th concession of Ameliasburgh, and which had been given by the Pioneer [i.e. Richard, son of Jacobus the pioneer] to his only son, John T. Osborne, that he met his death. One day in assisting his grandson with the cattle, a bull of the herd turned on the old man and crushed him against one of the outbuildings with such violence as to cause his death. He had married Sarah Trumpour [Marie Sarah Trumpour], the daughter of a United Empire Loyalist, who had died thirty years before in her fiftieth year. Besides John T., the Pioneer left seven daughters, two of whom married into the Roblin family, and a third into the Foster family. He mainly divided his Green Point property among these daughters, when, shortly before his death, he went to live with his son, John T. John T. Osborne married Sarah Greeley, who was a first cousin of Horace Greeley, the eminent journalist. Her father, Jonathan Greeley, was one of the three Greeley brothers, who settled respectively in Vermont, Ohio and Upper Canada; and it was Jonathan, who, as a civil engineer, did most of the early Government surveying in Prince Edward County. John T. was born in 1809; he was an enthusiast in military affairs and was out in the Mackenzie rebellion. He was a Justice of the Peace and served his township in other public capacities. His son, Richard J., took part in repelling the Fenian Raid. He had been first engaged in farming, then for some years in mercantile business in Consecon, after which he took up farming again. He was also well known as a leading commercial traveller in the district. His brother, Jonathan, was a lieutenant of the Prince Edward company of militia at Kingston at the time of the Fenian Raid, and Edward, another brother, was captain of a company at Sarnia ; both saw active service. The Pioneer had several brothers, James or Jacobus Osborne, settled at Bethel, Sophiasburgh, and married Tremis, daughter of Horatio Trumpour. Their daughter, Elizabeth Osborne, married Henry Rightmyer; a son, John Osborne, is still living, aged over eighty years, at Hallowell Mills. Nehemiah Osborne married Deborah Trumpour, and Nathaniel married Sarah Campbell. [edit] Legacy and Descendants[edit] List of male line (Y-DNA carrier) descendants (to facilitate DNA testing and participation in projects)
[edit] List of female line (mtDNA carrier) descendants of Jacobus's unknown wife
References
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