Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/640

600 Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England" (1839) ; " The Happy Release, or the Triumph of Love," a play written at the request of Sheridan Knowles ; " Poetry of Flowers, and Flowers of Poetry " ' (New York, 1841) ; '^ Poems " (1846) ; "The Floral Offering" (Philadelphia, 1847); and "Poems," illustrated (1849). A complete edition of her poems has been published (New York, 1850). Soon after her death a " Memorial " by her friends, with a " Life " by Rufus W. Griswold, appeared.

OSGOOD, Helen Louise Gibson, philanthropist, b. in Boston, Mass., about 1835 ; d. in Newton Centre, Mass., 20 April, 1808. During her childhood she removed with her parents to Chelsea, Mass., and after their death she became the ward of Francis 13. Fay, of that place, in whose family she lived for several years. She was well educated, and was endowed with great musical and conversa- tional powers. When the civil war began she was among the first to organize soldiers' aid societies, and provided employment for those wives and daughters of soldiers that were in straitened cir- cumstances. In the early spring of 1862 she went to the army as a nurse. She organized and con- ducted for many months a hospital for 1,000 col- ored soldiers of the Army of the Potomac, and dis- played great executive ability. In 1866 she mar- ried Mr. Osgood, who was connected with the sani- tary commission in the Army of the Potomac. Her patriotic labors superinduced the illness which caused her death.

OSGOOD, Howard, clergyman, b. in Plaque- mine parish, La., 4 Jan., 1831. He entered Har- vard, but left in 1849 before graduation. His degree of A. B. was sent to him in 1858. He was educated in the Protestant Episcopal church, but, having adopted Baptist views, was ordained to the minis- try in that denomination. After holding pastor- ates in Flushing, L. I., and in New York city, he was in 1868 called to the professorship of Hebrew in Crozer theological seminary. Pa. In 1875 he was elected to the same chair in Rochester theological seminary. He was a member of the American com- mittee for the revision of the Old Testament. The degree of D. D. was conferred on him by Brown in 1868. Dr. Osgood has made three visits to Europe, and has contributed to periodicals numerous ar- ticles that are marked bv great research.

OSGOOD, Kate Putnam, author, b. in Frye- burg. Me., in 1841. She began to write early, and has contributed both in prose and poetry to the magazines. In 1869 she went abroad, spending several years in France, Germany, and Switzerland, returning to the United States in 1874. Her best- known poem, " Driving Home the Cows," published anonymously in " Harper's Magazine," in March, 1865," was copied by nearly every journal in the United States, and was one of the few poems of merit that were suggested by the civil war. — James Ripley Osgood, the publisher, is her brother.

OSGOOD, Samuel, statesman, b. in Andover, Mass., 14 Feb., 1748 ; d. in New York city, 12 Aug., 1813. John Osgood, from whom he was fifth in descent, came from Andover, England, to this country about 1630, and was the second settler in Andover, Mass., to which he gave its name. Samuel was graduated at Harvard in 1770, and began to study theology, but abandoned it for commerce on account of impaired health. He was often in the legislature, a delegate to the Essex county convention in September, 1774, and served on many important committees in the Provincial congress. He commanded a company of minute- men at Lexington and Concord in 1775, and soon after the gathering of the troops at Cambridge was made major of brigade. He was then aide to Gen. Artemas Ward, with the rank of colonel, till Feb- ruary, 1776, when he refused the command of a regiment, and left the army to enter the Mas- sachusetts Provincial congress. He was ap- pointed by that body a member of the board of war, and served till 1780, when he was elected a state sena- tor under the new constitution that he had helped to frame. He was a member of the Continental con- gress in 1780-'4. and in 1782 headed a dele- gation that was sent to urge the assent of Rhode Island to Alex- ander Hamilton's res- olution concerning the duty on imports and prizes. On the expiration of his term he was again elected to the Massachusetts legislature, and on 31 Jan., 1785, he was appointed a judge by the governor, but a few months later he became first commissioner of the U. S. treasury, which office he held till 1789. In the latter year lie was made post- master-general, but he resigned in 1791, on the re- moval of the government to Philadelphia, and con- tinued to reside in New York city. He was afterward a member of the New York legislature, and speaker of the house, supervisor of the state in 1801-'3, and from the latter year till his death naval officer of the port of New York. Mr. Osgood devoted much of his time to literary pursuits, and his correspond- ence with eminent men, including George Wash- ington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, was extensive. He was an origi- nal member of the American academy of arts and sciences, and a founder of the New York dispensary. His house in New York, which stood on Franklin square, became Washington's headquarters on his arrival in the city. Mr. Osgood was buried in the church on the corner of Nassau and Beekman streets, of which he had been an elder. His pub- lications include "Letter on Episcopacy " (1807) ; " Remarks on Daniel and Revelation " ; " Chro- nology " ; and " Theology and Metaphysics."

OSGOOD, Samuel, clergyman, b. in Charles- town, Mass., 30 Aus:., 1812 ; d. in New York city, 14 April, 1880. He was graduated at Har- vard in 1832 and at the divinity-school in 1835. For two years following he was edi- tor of the " Western Messenger " at Louis- ville, Ky. He assumed charge of a Unita- rian congregatidn in Nashua. N. H., in 1837. He was called to the Westminster church in Providence, R. I., in 1841, and in 1849 went to the Church of the Mes- siah (Unitarian) in New York city. He remained in charge of this congregation for twenty years, but resigned in 1869 and went to