Section 1 Research
Who was Harrison Osborne
The actual research for the origin of Harrison Osborne began about 10 years ago. Some of the first things determined was that Harrison Osborne had signed up in the Confederate Army as a Volunteer. He served in Company E, 48th Regiment and was shot during the Battle of Fredricksburg and died two weeks later, January 1, 1863, at a Richmond hospital. A search for his burial site has been unsuccessful. Through a search of Census records, it was determined that Harrison was born around 1839 to William Stancil & Elvina Osborne (Census records from 1840, 1850 & 1860). No marriage record was ever found for Harrison and his alleged wife Elizabeth Phillips. However, in order for Elizabeth to obtain the monies that the Confederate Army owed Harrison for his service, Elizabeth gave a legal deposition, with witnesses, that she was the wife of Harrison Osborne. The transcribed deposition and resolution can be seen here. THIS SECTION WILL BE EXPANDED AT A LATER DATE.
John Osborne "The Diarist"
During the early research period, the John Osborne Diary of 1800-1802 was found at the Carolinas Genealogical Society in Monroe, NC. This diary was very interesting and spurred the research on to try to discover who John Osborne was and to determine if he was tied to this line of Osbornes. The search for additional diaries at the time was not successful. The proverbial "brick wall" cooled the research for some time. It was not until recently that the discovery of the second portion of the diary was made apparent (See Note below). This portion of the diary, written between 1819-1821, proved to be the link that had alluded the previous research.
John Osborne "The Diarist" lived in the Waxhaw area of Mecklenburg County, NC during the first diary but William S. and Harrison Osborne lived in the Lanes Creek area south of Monroe. The Lanes Creek area is in present day Union County, NC, but during the time of the diary, it was still part of Anson County, NC. These areas are separated by 30 to 50 miles. However, there are two very important entries in the second diary that provided the link. On July 31, 1821, an entry in Johns diary states that he purchased land in Anson County from Jesse Lewellan. On September 15, 1821, another entry states that he purchased land from Isaac Lewellan. Both of these entries have corresponding Deeds of Sale which can be seen along with the diary entries linked above. Then on January 7, 1835, in a Deed of Sale from John Osborne to William S. Osborne, it is stated that the land being sold to William S. Osborne is a part of the land purchased from Isaac Lewellan. With this information, along with the Census records of 1850, where W. S. Osborne is residing in the house on the next line of the Census record and in the 1860 Census record, where John Osborne, at age 86, is living in the household of W. S. Osborne , the assumption can be safely made that John Osborne "The Diarest" was the father of William Stancil Osborne.
Note:
I would like to recognize Pat Osborne Cheek (pollyperf@yahoo.com) as the person who made me aware of the second diary. She is fairly new at genealogy research and happened upon this diary at the library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She found my name at the Carolinas Genealogical Society in Monroe, NC where I had left a picture of Harrison. She contacted me about the second diary because she recognized it's importance. She is also a descendant of John Osborne. Thank you very much Pat for finding the clue that many of us were looking for, and there are many of us. All you John Osborne descendants out there give Pat a HURRAH!!!
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