Sacramento
County
Biographies
DAVID
OSBARN
DAVID OSBARN was born in Clark County,
Ohio, September 12, 1825, his parents being Isaac and Elizabeth (Rall)
Osbarn. The father was a native of New York and the mother of New Jersey. His
grandfather, Jacob Rall, a native of New York city, was a soldier of the
Revolution, entering the army, with his grandfather, at the age of
seventeen. The Ralls were of Dutch origin. After the war Jacob Rall
owned a grist-mill in New Jersey, where his daughter Elizabeth was born
September 11, 1805. He moved to Ohio, while his daughter was a little
girl, and finally settled on a farm in Clark County. Isaac Osbarn died
comparatively young, leaving two sons—the subject of this sketch and his brother,
Jacob Rall, born November 20, 1830. After some years the mother was
married at Carlisle, Ohio, to Joseph Clippinger, a widower of that
place. In 1876, on the occasion of Mr. David Osbarn’s visit to his home
and the Philadelphia Centennial, they were induced to spend the evening of life
with him at Courtland. They enjoyed some years of serene tranquillity in
the glorious climate of this section, and here they passed to the better land
within a few months of each other. The mother died toward the close of 1885, having
passed her eightieth birthday; and the stepfather had preceded her, aged
eighty-three. They lie buried side by side in the Sacramento cemetery in a
double grave constructed for their remains by the filial care of Mr.
Osbarn. Mr. David Osbarn left his home at Carlisle, Ohio, with nine
comrades, January 24, 1850, and New York, February 12, for California, by the
Isthmus route, arriving at Chagres on February 22. Crossing the isthmus in
those days was a peculiar experience for a man brought up amid the civilized
environments of an Ohio home. Mr. Osbarn and his companions ascended the
Chagres River in canoes "poled" by half-naked natives. When they
became overheated by their labors under a burning sun those dark sons of the
soil, often of mixed blood, did not hesitate to strip off their blouses, so
that while ladies traveling that way have been known to disguise their sex in
men’s clothing to mitigate their mortification. At Gorgona they left the
canoes to make the remainder of the journey to Panama by mules, along a narrow,
jagged track with a dense thicket on either hand. Arrived at Panama, this
particular company were confronted by a serious drawback of another
character. They were detained forty-eight days waiting for the steamer
Sarah Sands, a propeller with four masts, which relied on her sails fully as
much as on her engine for making headway. Mr. Osbarn and his party rented a
place, bought their supplies and boarded themselves. Finally they left
Panama, April 9, with about 300 passengers and a ship’s company of perhaps
another hundred persons. They were soon put on short rations for food and
water, the condensed steam being utilized and doled out for drinking. The
supply of coal was exhausted, and on April 18 they put into San Simeon Bay in
distress for wood, water and beef. Passengers volunteered and the seamen
gathered about fifty cords of wood. On the 22d they left, but the wind
being unfavorable and the wood inadequate to getting up the required amount of
steam power, it was found necessary to put back into the bay. A mounted
messenger was sent forward to Monterey to procure coal, and the passengers were
offered the alternative of going by land. Mr. Osbarn, who had suffered by
Panama fever and had been taken aboard before convalescence, concluded to try
the land passage to San Francisco. About half the passengers, including
Mr. Osbarn and five of his special party, set out by land by way of San Solidad
and San Jose missions, and arrived at San Francisco, June 1. The hardships
of the land trip had some compensations in the hospitality of the natives and
the relief from ocean dangers. Mr. Osbarn and his five companions paid
fifty dollars for a ride with a freighter from San Jose to San
Francisco. On June 1, they waded knee-deep in sand in the present metropolis,
and found but few good buildings. Aside from the custom-house and
postoffice there were one or two good hotels and gambling houses, the remainder
being shanties and tents. Awaiting the arrival of their baggage and
comrades by the steamer for about a week, they bargained with the opposition
steamer Hartford for a passage to Sacramento at $25 a head for a club of
twenty-five, the fare being $50 each by the regular line. They found
Sacramento a "half-dried up mudhole" and largely a city of tents and shanties. The
conspicuous exceptions were the Orleans Hotel and the El Dorado
gambling-house. It has always been a matter of surprise to thoughtful
observers like the subject of this sketch, how men could be such fools as to
stake their all against professional gamblers skilled in all the arts of
cheating. Before the close of June our party left for the mining region at
Georgetown, El Dorado County, by way of Brighton and Coloma. After
prospecting around, even into Nevada, and without pleasure or profit, Mr.
Osbarn was taken sick. His fibre was not tough enough and the surroundings
of mining life were disgusting. Recovering from a months’ illness he
bought a team, and making some money bought other teams, kept a hay-yard and a
blacksmith shop and had an interest in a store at Michigan Springs. After
a time he superintended his business from Sacramento, and suffered heavily with
everybody else from the fire and flood of 1852-‘53. His judgment prompting
him to return to the permanent and secure pursuits of his youth in Ohio, he
bought 160 acres in Yolo County, opposite Courtland, March 4, 1854, where he
remained until 1859. Traded his place for improved property in Marysville,
which he kept only a year. In 1861 he bought land at Courtland, in this county,
and has since become the owner of several ranches in that neighborhood or
within a radius of five miles, developing the thick-brush land of those times
into the fruit farms of the present. After all these years and much
experience and observation, Mr. Osbarn thinks "there’s no place like
home," and that the valley of the Sacramento is the garden spot of
earth. The subject of this sketch is a gentleman of strong religious and
moral convictions, inherited from his Methodist parentage, but his views are
rather evangelical than denomination. In politics, he was of the American
party in 1854, and has since been a Republican, while he would probably be a
Prohibitionist were he entirely satisfied of the wisdom of basing a political
party on the temperance reform movement. He recognizes and regrets the
tendency to moral decadence in the organized machinery of all political
parties. Remaining unmarried through all these long years, Mr. Osbarn’s
kindly nature has taken a very special interest in his brother and his
family. Jacob Rall Osbarn came to California in 1855 and after remaining
here about a year returned to Ohio; where he was married November 25, 1856, at
Carlisle, to Miss Mary Martha Clippinger, a native of that State, born December
10, 1834, daughter of Joseph Clippinger, already mentioned. Jacob R. was a
soldier in the civil war and after filling his term of service, volunteered
again to repel the Morgan raid in Southern Ohio. Some years later he moved
with his family to this State, and they have since made their home with him, in
city and country. Mr. and Mrs. Jacob R. Osbarn are the parents of three
living children: David Horace, born in Ohio, March 23, 1858; Donna Elizabeth,
November 4, 1861; Martha Rebecca, "uncle’s baby," July 31, 1875, now
attending grammar-school in Sacramento. Donna Elizabeth is married to
Henry Elliott, a contractor and builder of Sacramento. They are the
parents of Ratie Elizabeth, born October 9, 1883; and of David Osbarn and Donna
Orietta, twins, born June 25, 1888. David H. married Miss Agnes Dashiell,
a native of this State. They are the parents of two girls.
Transcribed 9-6-07
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source:
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California.
Pages 628-630. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Marilyn
R. Pankey.