Jacob Osgood was an American religious leader and founder of the Osgoodites sect in New Hampshire.
Background
Jacob Osgood was born on March 16, 1777, at South Hampton, New Hampshire, the son of Philip Osgood, farmer, and a descendant of William Osgood, who emigrated to Salisbury, Massachussets, in 1638. Philip Osgood was married in succession to Elizabeth, Appia, and Mehitable Flanders, daughters of a South Hampton farmer; Jacob was probably son of Mehitable. In 1790 the family moved to Warner, New Hampshire.
Education
Jacob Osgood was trained as a singer, and taught singing classes.
Career
In 1802 Jacob Osgood was converted, but he rejected both Calvinism and Universalism as inventions of the devil. Although he felt himself ordered of God to preach, timidity prevented, and he became a "pharisee Christian, " attending services in the Congregational meeting house. Again awakened religiously in 1805, he began to preach and cause disturbances in the meeting house at Warner and elsewhere. He joined the Freewill Baptists, but refused to acknowledge any theological principles except that one must love God and one's neighbor or be damned. This refusal, together with his unconventional methods of preaching, made him a suspect to the elders of the church. Others embraced his views and in 1812 the Osgoodites became a separate sect. They enjoyed occasional revivals, especially in 1816-17, and won disciples in Warner, Canterbury, Sutton, South Hampton, Newtown, Amesbury Mills, and Newbury-Byfield. As late as 1885 a few still bore the name.
Osgood believed that everything established by law was from the devil. He was particularly opposed to paid ministers, law courts, magistrates, town meetings, and military training; he said that it was wicked for Christians to fight. Between 1819 and 1826 a few of the sect were imprisoned and otherwise persecuted for refusing to attend training or pay the fines imposed for absence. Osgood himself had a heifer taken from him, and in 1820 was imprisoned for eleven days; while in prison he preached and sang to his followers through the bars, and also enjoyed much "good beer. " When released, he refused to leave the jail, saying that he had been thrust in against his wish and must be carried out; he was, although it took several men to lift his ponderous frame.
Members of the sect also suffered some ill treatment from their neighbors, but people soon realized that they were honest and harmless. They were opposed to doctors and practised faith healing. Osgood claims to have healed a consumptive girl by laying his hands on her, after doctors had said her case was hopeless. He is credited with remarkable powers of prayer. According to tradition, God often answered his petitions by sending rain after drought and fine weather after rain; on one occasion, it was said, when a frost in early autumn killed his neighbors' corn, through his prayer to God his own corn was spared. His curses were considered equally efficacious: two or three times persecutors were killed or hurt in accidents after Osgood had threatened them with the wrath of God.
Osgoodite meetings were a disorderly mixture of hymns, prayers, and exhortations, in which all the brethren participated. When a lull came Osgood would dismiss them with the words: "If there's no more to be said, meeting's done. " When he preached he sat in a chair, closed his eyes, and held the side of his face with one hand. Osgoodite hymns were composed by Osgood and other members of the sect; they consisted mostly of denunciations of clergymen, lawyers, doctors, Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists, Universalists, Millerites, Whig politicians, abolitionists, female reformers, tobacco-smokers, and builders of railroads. Though opposed to tobacco, the Osgoodites attacked the temperance movement because of its clerical origin.
Osgood died on November 29, 1844.
Achievements
Membership
Jacob Osgood was leader of the Osgoodites sect.
Personality
Osgood weighed 345 pounds. He was simple, outspoken, and courageous.
Quotes from others about the person
"He would talk and weep and laugh almost in the same instant, and his talk never seemed tedious. "
Connections
In 1797 Jacob Osgood married Miriam Stevens, by whom he had eight children.