Osborne, Richard B. (Richard Boyse), 1815-1899

Richard Boyse Osborne, a prominent civil engineer and "father of Atlantic City," was born in London on November 3, 1815, and died in Glenside, Pa., on November 28, 1899.

Osborne was educated at Bannow and Waterford, Ireland, and at Bath, England. In 1834 he sailed to New York and travelled to Upper Canada via the Erie Canal and Detroit in the company of two relatives, Townsend and George Gahan. Late in 1835 Osborne was in the Chicago area where he helped to lay out several new towns. He then went to St. Louis, travelling 1200 miles in a small open boat on the Des Plaines, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers accompanied by the Gahans. Their intention to proceed to New Orleans and embark for Hawaii was thwarted by the presence of yellow fever in New Orleans. They came east to Baltimore, where the Gahans parted from Osborne and sailed for Rio de Janeiro.

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