Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry showcases a photo album of California pioneers, featuring the Osborn and Moore family lines. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
A photo album in the collection of the Society of California Pioneers holds the family pictures of New England-born Captain Joseph Warren Osborn (1818-1863) and his wife Lucretia Ann (Moore) Osborn (1821-1891). They married on 3 October 1852 in San Francisco, California.
I found many interesting newspaper clips on the family in GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives and will cover them in the second part of this series.
The Photo Album
The first page of the album has an image of “Oak Knoll,” the Napa Valley, California, vineyard and estate of Captain Osborn, with an inscription: “Mrs. L. Osborn, Christmas Day, 1863.”
Captain Osborn was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to William and Anna (Bowditch) Osborn, whose photographs are part of the family album.
The captain’s father, William Osborn (1792-1892), is the son of Aaron and Lydia (Proctor) Osborn. His wife, Anna Henfield (Bowditch) Osborn (1795-1857), is the daughter of Thomas and Lucy (Mansfield) Bowditch.
Captain Osborn had a brother, railroad tycoon and philanthropist William Henry Osborn (1820-1894), who served as president of the Illinois Central Railroad (and later president of the Chicago, St. Louis & New Orleans Railroad), a position solidified through his marriage to Virginia Reed Sturges, daughter of Jonathan Sturges, a New York merchant and one of the incorporators of the Illinois Central Railroad.
Captain Osborn was a direct descendant of Samuel Symonds, Quakers Lawrence and Cassander Southwick, Thomas Gardner, William Bowditch and Mary Gardner, and John Proctor – who was executed for witchcraft in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials.
According to George Granville Putnam’s account of Salem vessels published by the Essex Institute of Peabody (now Peabody Essex Museum), Captain Osborn commanded several ships including the St. Paul in 1841. At some point after that voyage, he set his sights on California’s Napa Valley.
Putnam noted:
He [Captain Osborn] was a pioneer there [California], and was shot April 25, 1863, by a man whom he had hired for a year, but whom he had discharged. He left a widow and three children. He was very highly esteemed in his hometown in California.
Here are two more photos from the family album, of Captain Osborn and his daughter Katharine “Kitty” Osborn (1855-1925). She married Melancthon Lloyd Woolsey, son of Commodore Como Melancthon Brooks and Mary Louisa (Morrison) Woolsey.
Captain Osborn’s wife Lucretia Ann (Moore) Osborn was born in Massachusetts to journalist, printer, newspaper editor, historical writer, and San Fransisco’s first postmaster, Jacob Bailey II and his wife Mary Adams (Hill) Moore, sister to Isaac Hill – who was a journalist, political commentator, newspaper editor, United States senator, and 16th governor of New Hampshire.
Lucretia descends from Anne Dudley and Simon Bradstreet, Tristram and Dionis Coffin, Edward Starbuck, Henry Lunt, Anthony Somerby, Richard Knight, John Pike, Henry Brown, Edward French, Thomas Bradbury and Mary (Perkins) Bradbury – who was accused of witchcraft in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials and sentenced to be executed, but escaped the gallows.
Here is a photo of Lucretia and one of her infant children, most likely her son Warren Moore Osborn, born in 1861, who married Mildred Fenn, daughter of Julius and Celia J. (Pinney) Fenn.
There are several photos in the album of the Moore male line. including Lucretia’s father and brothers.
Here is a picture (left) of Lucretia’s father Jacob Bailey Moore II (1797-1853), son of Jacob Bailey I and Mary (Eaton) Moore, who married Mary Adams Hill; and (right) Lucretia’s brother George Henry Moore (1823-1892) son of Jacob Bailey II and Mary Adams (Hill) Moore, who married Mary Howe (Givan) Richards, daughter of John and Mary Ann (Evertson) Givan and widow of Henry Smith Richards.
Here is a picture (left) of Lucretia’s brother Frank Moore (1828-1904), son of Jacob Bailey II and Mary Adams (Hill) Moore, who married Laura M. Bailey, daughter of John and Anne (Young) Bailey; and (right) Lucretia’s brother Jacob Bailey Moore III, son of Jacob Bailey II and Mary Adams (Hill) Moore.
I found Jacob, age 49, in the New York 1880 census, along with his mother Mary, age 80, and sister Lucretia Osborn, age 52, widowed with her children.
To be continued…
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Note on the header image: the harbor of San Francisco, California, in 1851, with Yerba Buena Island and the Berkeley Hills in the background. Credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.