Sacramento County
Biographies
DAVID H.
OSBORN
DAVID H. OSBORN.--An enterprising rancher who is also an experienced orchardist, is David H. Osborn, of Sutter Island, near Courtland. He was born in Ohio, on March 23, 1858, the son of J. R. and Mary Martha (Clippinger) Osborn, the former a native of Ohio, and the latter of Maryland. His father came out to California for the first time in 1851, and tried mining; and having returned to Ohio, he married, and in 1875 came West again with his family. An uncle, David Osborn, had come to California in 1850, and put in a brief season in the mines near Placerville, and later he took a team and carried supplies from Sacramento to the mines, in the mountains. He then settled on Randall Island, and there J. R. Osborn joined David in farming. In time, Uncle David deeded to his brother a ranch of fifty acres, and later the subject of our story acquired title to this property. David H. Osborn, together with his uncle, built many levees along the ranch, making them at first so low that wheelbarrows could be used in their construction; but these levees were washed out during the floods, and the land was submerged, time after time. After raising the level of the levees three times, the one now adequately serving the community was erected by means of dredgers.
David H. Osborn lived on Randall Island until twenty-five years ago, when he bought his present ranch on Sutter Island, built there a fine home, and improved it to fruit trees. He has now some of the most fertile acres to be found anywhere in California, but the wonderful results he enjoys have been made possible only by years of hard, unremitting work, inspired by optimism and guided by past experience; and Mr. Osborn is certainly entitled to the high honors of a sturdy pioneer who stuck by the job and never gave up the ship. Sacramento County, and indeed California in general, cannot be too grateful to such path-breakers as Mr. Osborn, his father and his uncle, who have opened up new avenues to lasting prosperity, and have truly advanced the stages of civilization.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With
Biographical Sketches, Page 913.
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.