Benajah Osmun

Benajah Osmun (died on June 1815, Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi) was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati.[1][lower-alpha 1] During the Revolutionary War he made Captain and was taken prisoner at Charleston. In politics he was a federalist and a strong partisan of John Adams.[2]

Military service

Originally from Hunterdon County, New Jersey,[1] during the Revolutionary War, Benajah Osmun fought at the Battle of Quebec on December 31, 1775, led by General Richard Montgomery.[3] He fought at the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, and he was taken prisoner there.[4] Osmun served as 2nd Lieutenant and Quartermaster in the 2nd Battalion, 2nd New Jersey Regiment under Colonel Israel Shreve beginning in January 1, 1777.[4] It was to Osmun that Colonel Shreve asked to escort his family back to the Shreve family homestead at Mount Pleasant, in Mansfield Township, Burlington County, New Jersey.[5] After resigning from the previous post, Osmun was made again 2nd Lieutenant on September 12, 1778 and was taken prisoner at Charleston on April 25, 1780. He was made Lieutenant on January 1, 1781[6] and Captain by brevet.[4] He served to the close of the war.[6]

He was made Lieutenant-Colonel in 1782 in the Adams County militia.[4] He served as a major for the cavalry of the government of the Mississippi Territory in 1798.[7]

Personal life

Windy Hill Manor, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1938

In 1790, Osmun moved to Natchez, Mississippi, accompanying the Forman Family Colony that was founded by Ezekiel Forman, father of General Thomas Marsh Forman and brother of General David Forman. Prior to that, Osmun was the overseer of the plantation of General David Forman.[8]

Osmun built and lived at Windy Hill Manor at the foot of Half Way Hill near Natchez, Mississippi.[4] He was a good friend of Adam Cloud, an Episcopal minister who settled in Natchez and fought for religious freedom.[9] When Aaron Burr went under trial in 1807 on a charge of treason, Osmun was one of his bondsmen.[4][lower-alpha 2] With Lyman Harding, they paid $10,000 for the bond.[12]

Death

Benajah Osmun died on June 1815 in Natchez, Mississippi, unmarried, and was buried on the plantation.[4][lower-alpha 3] On his will, dated May 17, 1815, Osmun requested that his slave Jerry was to be emancipated and freed from slavery.[13]

Notes

  1. ↑ After his death, his grandnephew, William Case Osmun (1822-1902), was admitted to the membership of the Society on July 4, 1887.[1]
  2. ↑ Later, Burr visited Osman at Windy Hill and while staying there courted a neighbor's daughter, Madeline Price. Before they could marry, Burr was forced to leave. He asked Madeline to go with him. She refused and in the end, she married a merchant from Havana, Cuba.[10][11]
  3. ↑ In 1817, Windy Hill Manor was sold to future governor Gerard Brandon.[10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 The Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey: With the Institution, Rules and Regulations of the Society, General Officers, Officers of the New Jersey Society, By-laws, Roll of Members, Interesting Documents from the Archives of the Society, Etc., Etc. Times Publishing Company, printers. 1949. p. 113.
  2. ↑ John Francis Hamtramck Claiborne (1880). Mississippi, as a Province, Territory and State: With Biographical Notices of Eminent Citizens. Power & Barksdale. p. 286.
  3. ↑ Mississippi. Dept. of Archives and History (1909). Narrative of a Journey Down the Ohio and Mississippi in 1789-90. Department of Archives and History. p. 27.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Samuel S. Forman (2014). Narrative of a Journey Down the Ohio and Mississippi in 1789-90. The Floating Press. p. 53.
  5. ↑ William Y. Thompson (1979). Israel Shreve, revolutionary war officer. McGinty Trust Fund Publications. p. 38.
  6. 1 2 Mississippi Department of Archives and History (1905). The Mississippi Territorial Archives, 1798-1803. Press of Brandon Printing Company. p. 317.
  7. ↑ Mississippi. Dept. of Archives and History (1908). The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi. Department of Archives and History. p. 13.
  8. ↑ Dunbar Rowland (1907). Encyclopedia of Mississippi History: Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Volume 2. S. A. Brant.
  9. ↑ Catherine Cloud Templeton (1997). The Righteous Rebel: Adam Cloud and the Natchez Intrigues, 1790-1795. Eakin Press.
  10. 1 2 Marc R. Matrana (2009). Lost Plantations of the South. Univ. Press of Mississippi. pp. 174, 176. ISBN 978-1-60473-469-0.
  11. ↑ Magnolia Decouvrir (2015). 1891 Memoirs of Mississippi: Vol. I, Chapters 1 through 5. Terry Green.
  12. ↑ John Wesley Monette (1846). History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the ..., Volume 2. Harper & Bros.
  13. ↑ Mississippi (1824). The Revised Code of the Laws of Mississippi, in which are Comprised All Such Acts of the General Assembly, of a Public Nature, as Were in Force at the End of the Year, 1823; with a General Index. F. Baker.
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