Isaac Osgood

Quick Facts

Significance:

Boston Vigilance Committee member

Place of Birth:

Andover, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

January 28, 1793

Place of Death:

Charlestown, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

June 22, 1865

Place of Burial:

Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Forest Hills Cemetery

Isaac Osgood, of Charlestown, served as a member of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee. 

Born on January 28, 1793, in Andover, Massachusetts, Isaac Osgood grew up as the oldest of Thomas and Hannah (Stevens) Osgood’s thirteen children. He came to Boston in 1799, where he built houses with his father. Eventually, Osgood left that business to work as a merchant in a dry goods store in Dock Square.¹

While living in Charlestown, Osgood committed himself to the local antislavery cause. Osgood joined the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization formed to help freedom seekers coming to Boston on the Underground Railroad in the wake of the new Fugitive Slave Law. Osgood attended their first meeting held in Faneuil Hall. While Osgood served as a member, any other specific contributions to the organization remain unknown.²

Osgood ultimately retired in 1855. While he never married, Osgood remained close with his family throughout his life. Osgood passed away on June 22, 1865, in Charlestown, Massachusetts; his remains are interred in Forest Hills Cemetery.³ He is remembered for his strong convictions: 

He was a man of marked character and convictions...a sturdy champion of human rights; a strong anti-slavery man from the beginning, and an indomitable patriot throughout all the changes of the war for the life of the nation.⁴

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Footnotes

1. The Boston Directory, (Boston: Sampson & Murdock Company, 1850), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015066720635&seq=258&q1=osgood; “New England Historic-Genealogical Society Necrology,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, (Boston: Samuel Drake, 1866), 173-174, The New England historical and genealogical register : Waters, Henry F. (Henry Fitz-Gilbert), 1833-1913 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive; “Isaac Osgood in the Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988,” Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011; “Isaac Osgood,” Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/268588602/isaac-osgood. 
2. "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society; “Subscription List,” The Liberator, March 3, 1865, 1; The Liberator, October 18, 1850, 3; “Subscription List of the Twenty-Seventh National Anti-Slavery Anniversary,” The Liberator, February 15, 1861, 4. 
3. “New England Historic-Genealogical Society Necrology,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, (Boston: Samuel Drake, 1866), 173-174.
4. “New England Historic-Genealogical Society Necrology,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, (Boston: Samuel Drake, 1866), 173-174;“Isaac Osgood,” Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/268588602/isaac-osgood.