Samuel Osgood

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Samuel Osgood

Samuel Osgood (born February 3, 1748 in Andover , Province of Massachusetts Bay , † August 2, 1813 in New York City ) was an American businessman and politician . He represented the states of Massachusetts and New York in their respective parliaments. He also sat for Massachusetts in the Continental Congress and was the first post office secretary after the entry into force of the United States Constitution . Osgood belonged to the Federalist Party .

Early years

John Osgood, an ancestor of Samuel Osgood, came to Massachusetts from Andover , England , around 1630 . Around 1642 he founded a new settlement there and named it after his hometown Andover. His family was still living there four generations later when Samuel was born the third son of Captain Peter Osgood.

He attended Dummer Academy (now The Governors Academy ) and then Harvard College , where he studied theology and graduated in 1770. He then returned to Andover and pursued a commercial activity there. In the course of time he joined the local militia, from where he was later elected as a representative of the city in the continental congress and in 1775 in the national congress, which functioned as the revolutionary government .

The revolution

Osgood commanded a resident company of Minutemen in the battles of Lexington and Concord in the spring of 1775 . They pursued the retreating British and then besieged them near Boston . As the troops grew, he was promoted to the rank of major in a brigade stationed in Cambridge . Over the course of a year, he became General Artemas Ward's personal advisor and was promoted to Colonel . After the successful siege of Boston in the spring of 1776, Osgood left the army and resumed his work in the state congress.

The state government appointed Osgood to the Massachusetts Board of War , where he served until 1780 when the government was restructured. He was also a member of the state constitutional convention between 1779 and 1780. After the new constitution was passed, he was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 1780 . That same year the new government named him one of its delegates to the Continental Congress. He worked there from 1782 to 1784. In 1781 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

After a brief tenure in the Massachusetts House of Representatives , the government appointed him judge in 1785; however, he soon resigned from this post when the National Congress offered him the post of commissioner in the Treasury a year later . He then moved to New York, where he accepted this office, which he held until the end of his congressional tenure.

Postmaster General

When a new US government was established in 1789, President George Washington appointed Osgood as the first postmaster general with cabinet rank . However, when the decision was made a short time later to relocate the federal government to Philadelphia , before it would finally find its seat in Washington, DC ten years later , Osgood decided to stay and resigned from his post in 1791.

Osgood was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1800 , where he remained until 1803. During this time he was speaker of the house in 1801 . In 1803 he was elected Chief Naval Officer for the New York Harbor , a position he held until his death. In 1812 he became the first president of the newly formed City Bank of New York , which later became Citibank , the predecessor of today's Citigroup .

Osgood was a member of the American Philosophical Society . In his later years he devoted himself to writing and studying. He had extensive correspondence with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson , among others .

Samuel Osgood died on August 2, 1813 at home in New York and was subsequently buried in the Brick Presbyterian Church in Manhattan . The church is located at what is now Fifth Avenue and Thirty-seventh street .

family

Samuel Osgood had a daughter, Martha Brandon Osgood, who was married to Edmond-Charles Genêt , a French diplomat and ambassador to the United States.

Honors

Two streets in North Andover are named after him in Osgood's honor. There is also a portrait of him hanging in the US Senate .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Osgood, Samuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American businessman and politician
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1748
PLACE OF BIRTH Andover , Province of Massachusetts Bay
DATE OF DEATH August 2, 1813
Place of death New York City , New York