My Genealogy Hound

FRANKLIN OSBURN, retired, Sewickley, is a native of Loudoun county, Va. The Osburn family are descended from an old English family, who came to America long before the revolutionary war, and settled on Long Island and in and about New York. The ancestors of the Virginia branch, John and Nicholas Osburn, emigrated from Chester county, Pa., about 1730, and settled in the Shenandoah valley, Va., in the present county of Clarke, but were driven across the Blue Ridge in 1756, by the French and Indians, locating at the foot of the mountain on the east side. Here and in the adjacent country the name has been continuous since, and has been honorably known in the legislative halls of the state and in state conventions, notably that which passed the ordinance of secession on the 17th day of April, 1861. It is proper to note that the member from Jefferson county resisted the secession movement throughout. Richard Osburn, the grandfather of our subject, and the latter’s parents, were born in Loudoun county, Va. Franklin Osburn was educated in his native state, and early engaged in teaching; was then in mercantile line; then in the lumber business in Allegheny, and also in farming in the Shenandoah valley, in Virginia, the latter twenty years, and in cotton-manufacturing in Steubenville, Ohio, three years. He married Henrietta W., a daughter of Griswold E. Warner, a citizen of this county, better known as Judge Warner. Ten children have blessed this union, eight of whom are now living: James W., Frank C., Jennie M. Olmsted, Mary E., Harry G., Robert D., William W. and Chara Louise W. Politically Mr. Osburn was a whig before the reconstruction policy of the dominant party after the war became known. Has since been an independent democrat. The adjoining borough of Osborn was named after our subject, John Way, Jr., superintendent of Sewickley Academy. His grandfather, John Way, came to Allegheny county in 1797, from Chester county, this state, where his parents and grandparents had lived and were farmers, to occupy a tract of land purchased by his father, Caleb Way, from the state in 1785. This tract is called in the patent “Way’s Desire,” and contained two hundred acres. He built and occupied a log house on the bank of the Ohio river, and afterward, in 1810, a brick house on the Pittsburgh and Beaver road. This brick house was, for many years, used as a tavern; it still stands, and is in good condition. John Way was a surveyor and agent for several eastern land owners. He was the first justice of the peace in Allegheny county, west of Pittsburgh, holding the office for some twenty years, until his death, in 1825, in his fifty-ninth year. He had a wife, Mary Clark, and four children: Abishai, Rebekah, Nicholas and James.