Osborn, Thomas Ward, 1833-1898

Colgate class of 1860. Officer in Civil War. Active in Reconstruction. Senator from the state of Florida. Two books of Osborn's Civil War correspondence and journals have been published to date.

Lawyer, Senator.

Born in Scotch Plains, Union County, N.J., March 9, 1833, Osborn moved to New York in 1842 with his parents, who settled in North Wilna. He attended the common schools and graduated from Madison (now Colgate) University, Hamilton, N.Y., in 1860. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1861. During the Civil War, Osborn entered the Union Army in 1861 as lieutenant and became captain, major, and colonel of Battery D, First Regiment, New York Light Artillery.

After the war he was appointed assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees and Freedmen for Florida 1865-1866, and settled in Tallahassee, Fla. where he commenced the practice of law. He was appointed register in bankruptcy in 1867. He was a member of the State constitutional convention in 1868 and moved to Pensacola, Fla. He also served in the State senate.

Upon the readmission of Florida to the Union he was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate, serving from June 25, 1868 to March 3, 1873. He served as United States commissioner at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pa. in 1876. He moved to New York City and resumed the practice of law and engaged in literary pursuits. He died in New York City, December 18, 1898 and is interred in Hillside Cemetery, North Adams, Berkshire County, Mass.