William H. Osborn


William Henry Osborn was a 19th-century American businessman and philanthropist. He was a railroad tycoon who became one of the most prominent railroad leaders in the United States.

Early life

Osborn was born to a farming family on December 21, 1820 in Salem, Massachusetts. Salem is also where he was educated. He was the son of William Osborn and Lucy Osborn.
His first paternal American ancestor to the United States was William Osborn, who came from England in 1684 and settled in Salem. From his mother's family, he was likely descended from the Salem navigator, Nathaniel Bowditch.

Career

Osborn began his career with the Boston East India shipping company. In 1841, he went to Manila as a junior partner in the firm of Peel, Hubbell & Co. After ten years working in business in the Philippines, Osborn took an interest in the Illinois Central Railroad in 1854. The Illinois Central, the first land grant railroad in the United States, was on the verge of bankruptcy in the wake of a stock scandal known as the Schuyler frauds that was connected with the New York and New Haven Railroad. One year after joining the railroad's Board of Directors, he was elected president, a position he held from December 1, 1855 until July 11, 1865, for nearly ten years.
Beginning in 1875 and 1882, Osborn became interested in the Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans Railroad and guided the railroad from difficult economic times to profitability.

Philanthropy

In 1882, he retired from the railroad business to concentrate on philanthropy near his Rhenish style home, Castle Rock, in Garrison, New York in the Hudson Highlands, which he purchased in 1859. He was involved with the New-York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled and the Training School for Nurses at Bellevue Hospital.
Osborn was a patron and close friend of Richard Cobden, Sir James Caird and Sir John Rose.

Art Patron and Collector

Osborn was also a close friend and patron of Hudson River School landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church, who sold him works including The Andes of Ecuador, Chimborazo, and The Aegean Sea. Osborn's son, William Church, was named for Church. Church introduced Osborn to other artists, including Samuel W. Rowse and Erastus Dow Palmer, from whom Osborn would also collect works, and may also have advised Osborn on the acquisition of European art. The siting of Castle Rock, Osborn's home overlooking the Hudson River in Garrison, was influenced by that of Church's home Olana in Greenport. Church died at the Osborns' Park Avenue townhouse on April 7th, 1900, less than a year after his wife Isabel had also died there.
Osborn also collected paintings by other American artists, including Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, George Loring Brown, John Frederick Kensett, Sanford Robinson Gifford, John William Casilear, Henry Peters Gray, Emmanuel Leutze, Daniel Huntington, and Louis Rémy Mignot, and European artists including Charles Landelle, Florent Willems, Franz Defregger, George Jacobides, and Benjamin Vautier.

Personal life

In 1853, Osborn married Virginia Reed Sturges. Virginia was the eldest daughter of businessman and arts patron Jonathan Sturges and his wife, Mary Pemberton Sturges. Her sister, Amelia Sturges, married J. Pierpont Morgan in 1861, but died of tuberculosis four months after their wedding, and her great-grandfather was Continental Congressman and U.S. Representative Jonathan Sturges. Together, Virginia and William were the parents of two sons:
Osborn died in New York City on March 2, 1894. After a funeral at their city residence, 32 Park Avenue in Manhattan, officiated by the Rev. Drs. Joseph McIlvaine and Joseph Duryea, he was buried at Saint Philip's Church Cemetery in Garrison. His eldest son Henry inherited Castle Rock and after his wife's death on February 7, 1902, the remainder of the estate was equally divided between their sons.

Descendants

Through his son Henry, he was the grandfather of Alexander Perry Osborn ; Henry Fairfield Osborn Jr. ; and Gurdon Saltonstall Osborn, who died young.
Through his son William, he was the grandfather of Grace Dodge Osborn; Maj. Gen. Frederick Henry Osborn, who married Margaret Schieffelin ; arts patron Aileen Hoadley Osborn, who married Vanderbilt Webb ; Earl Dodge Osborn, who founded the EDO Corporation; William Henry Osborn II, a founder of Scenic Hudson.