Captain Burr Osborn - Peerless Union City 1903

Captain Burr Osborn

Note - Regarding the "Captain Burr Osborn" ...(from the publication titled "Historical Industrial and Social Record of Peerless Union City Michigan" edited, compiled, and published by Tom F. Robinson in March 1903), EARLY HISTORY OF UNION CITY, reads: .... Among the older residents of Union City there is no more familiar figure or one who is more popular than the gentleman named above. Capt. Osborn was born near Bridgeport, Conn., April 25, 1826, and he lived in that locality until he was sixteen years old. At that early age he embarked in a whaling vessel and for the following seven years he sailed the oceans, during the last three years of this period being in the U. S. navy. His was a varied and interesting experience. He sailed round the world twice, visiting all the grand divisions of the globe, besides many of the islands. For a period of several months he was a subject of King Kamehameha III, of the Sandwich Islands, and it was at Honolulu that he enlisted in the U. S. navy, May 6, 1846, when the Mexican War was in progress. During this war he was on the U. S. surveying vessel, " Shark," and U. S. men of war in the Pacific, and was also with General Fremont in California. He assisted in the U. S. survey of the west coast of America from Terra del Fuego to Alaska and in the first survey of the Columbia River. He received his discharge in 1849 and afterward returned to Connecticut where he lived for several years. He came to Michigan in 1852, since which time his home has been in Sherwood and this place. While a resident of the first-named place he was for twelve years a justice of the peace, highway commissioner for six years and also school director for an extended period. In Union Township he was also chosen as highway commissioner and he always performed his duties in a highly satisfactory manner. Capt. Osborn is by nature one of the most companionable of men. His extensive travels have provided him with a fund of most interesting reminiscence and his memory serves him well in telling. A few years since, he published a volume entitled "Reminiscences of a Voyage Round the World in the Forties" and the same proved most interesting. Fraternally, he is affiliated with the three local Masonic lodges, and he was a charter member of Union City Chapter No. 53, R. A. M. He has two sons, C. R. Osborn, who is the station agent for the Michigan Central R. R. Co. at Albion, and G. A. Osborn, who lives at Jackson.