Wayne County IN Archives Biographies.....Osborn, Charles Worth February 8, 1833 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Glapha Cox rcoxfam@earthlink.net January 24, 2006, 8:18 am

Author: History of Wayne County, Indiana;Volume II, (1884)

Perry Township
p. 705 - 707

Charles Worth Osborn, son of Isaiah and Lydia Osborn, was born in Economy, 
Feb. 8, 1833, and for twenty-seven years was a resident of Perry Township. 
Residing since then within two miles of Economy, though in the edge of 
Randolph County, his life-work has been almost as closely identified with 
Wayne County as though he lived within its borders. Up to the winter of 1845-
'6 he was sent to various private schools in the neighborhood. His father died 
when he was thirteen years old, and from that time on for six or seven years 
he only attended school a few weeks during the winter, staying at home to work 
a day, or two almost every week. After securing the harvest of 1853 he left 
home with $2.25 in his pocket (the proceeds of the sale of some apples in 
Hagerstown) to attend the remaining two months of the summer session of the 
Union Literary Institute---a manual labor school near Spartansburg, Randolph 
Co., Ind. Here students could pay half their board in work; here he could work 
more than enough to pay half his board, and sell his time for money to others 
who preferred to pay all money. In this way he was enabled to pay his way with 
but little aid from home. He and his sister Rhoda attended the two following 
sessions of five months each at this institution. At the commencement of the 
first the board dismissed the Superintendent, and not being able to supply his 
place till spring, they employed Charles to attend to the duties of the office 
for the term, which consisted in providing for the table for thirty boarders, 
superintend their work on the farm, collect and keep an account of their 
board, etc. This, in addition to five studies and hearing one class recite 
each day, so occupied his time that for more than two months he allowed 
himself but four and a half hours' sleep each night. The following session the 
superintendent was absent much of the time, and he gave the immediate care of 
the farm work to Charles, thereby enabling him not only to pay his own way but 
to assist his sister also. The teacher in this institute was Prof. E. Tucker, 
a graduate of Oberlin College, and an excellent instructor, and the year spent 
under this preceptor was the most important of Charles's education. In 
December, 1854, he began his first public school in Green Township, having 
obtained a license for two years; farmed the next summer, and the following 
fall and winter taught the first of five sessions in Economy; taught in 
Greensboro, Henry County, in the spring of 1856, and then went to Antioch 
College two terms. He taught during the winter and farmed in the summer for 
the most part till 1867, when he left the school-room for the farm, but not 
without some regrets. His father and sister having died of consumption, and 
the generally crowded and poorly ventilated school-rooms of those times 
subjecting him to frequent colds, he deemed it best to follow an occupation 
that would bring him more in the open air. Charles W. Osborn is a minister in 
the Society of Friends; was Clerk of his Monthly Meeting for seventeen years, 
and fills other important positions in the church. He has ever been an active 
worker in the temperance cause, appointing meetings and talking temperance in 
the surrounding neighborhood, while attending school at the institute. He has 
been identified with the different temperance movements since that time, and 
for the past four years has been President of the Economy Temperance League, 
an organization that has met weekly during this time. He has also been 
prominently connected with the Sunday-school work of his church and also of 
Wayne County. In the spring of 1858 he was married to Asenath W. Wood, 
daughter of Jacob and Phoebe Wood, of Greensboro, Ind. They have had six 
children, three of whom are living. He is now comfortably situated with his 
family, on a little farm two miles north of Economy.

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