Who is this G. W. Osborne?

by Glenn N. Holliman

Recently I received an email and pictures from a former antique dealer who found this blog on the Internet.  She has in her possession an object that has the name G.W. Osborne embedded.  I thank her for her email.  Here are her words.

"Do not know if this has anything to do with your family. I am redoing a room and when I was cleaning my old vintage register (see pictures) I took notice in the label on the side of it.

It reads:     Re-Order From

                    G. W. Osborne

                   Box 358

                   Crystal River, Fla.

I thought I still had the little work orders in the file, but when I was cleaning they are not there any longer. It seems to me if my memory is right that the work orders were small yellow paper and might of been a machine shop or repair business of some sort. The pictures are not great as I can not get a clear shot on my staircase. The thing weighs a ton, or I would take it outside and take better pictures.

Thought I would google it, and came up with your address.

I have had it for years. I am actually from Cape Cod Mass. When I was there I sold antiques. I used to go on antiques buying trips into Penn. all around  Lancaster, Allentown, and York. I picked it up on one of my trips, back in the mid 80's. Have carried it around with me ever since. Love it. I would love to know the history of it."

Left, a photograph believed to be my great grandfather, G.W. Osborne, not a merchant in Florida but a farmer in North Carolina and Tennessee

Hmmm...yes, my great and great, great grandfathers are named George Washington Osborne, but to my knowledge neither every visited Florida, much less lived there.  G. W. Osborne, 1803-1882, was born in Grayson County, Virginia, the son of Jonathan Osborne, 1753-1831, who was born in Yadkin Valley in Rowan County, North Carolina, and died on a farm in Grayson near his more famous pioneer brother, Enoch. 

Local Ashe County, North Carolina historian, Rufus Myers, has written about numerous of my Mother's ancestors (Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, 1923).  Her grandfather, George Washington Osborne, 1846-1927, the son of the above G. W. Osborne, was born along the North Fork of the New River in Ashe County. 

This G.W. farmed in Sutherland, Ashe County after marrying Frances Caroline Wilson (1851-1940), daughter of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson.  Later he moved his family to Cove Creek, Watagua County, North Carolina, and during the Depression of 1896 tried farming and the mercantile business in Blountville, Tennessee, Damascus, Virginia, Afton, Tennessee and finally retired to Bristol, Tennessee where he died and is buried.

According to Myers and my research the Osbornes originally came from New Jersey.  I have yet to prepare a comprehensive history of this branch of my family, but many Americans were named after the first President George Washington.  Perhaps one branch of the prolific Osborne family did settle along the Gulf Coast of Florida. 

Crystal River, Florida is about two hours north of Tampa, and is only a century old.  Originally the community developed from the local cedar that was cut and made into pencils.  Perhaps this Mr. Osborne migrated  south from the mountains and made furniture from the native Florida wood at the turn of the last century?

My thanks to the inquisitive lady who wrote me. Can any one help us with this family mystery?

From the Scrapbook of Shirley Sorrell 4

by Glenn N. Holliman


Continuing our tour of Shirley Sorrell's Family Album....

Our continued thanks to cousin Shirley Sorrell for sharing this magnificent collection of Wilson family photographs of the descendants of Isaac (1822-1864) and Caroline Greer Wilson (1828-1911).  These families lived along the North Fork of the New River in Ashe County, North Carolina surrounded by mountains and lush forests.


"The earliest settlers to Ashe County cleared small patches of upland soil and cultivated it by scratching the surface with crude home-made implements.  When the cleared patches decreased in productiveness they were said to be 'worn out' and then new land was cleared and brought under cultivation.  Within one or two seasons the abandoned land became covered with grass, mainly clover and blue grass.  

This development tended to increase stock raising but, as a matter of fact, there was not great demand for livestock for many years.  Apparently each settler was interested in just enough work stock for his individual use, and cattle, sheep, and hogs were raised to supply the home demand for beef, milk, butter, mutton, and bacon." - p. 208, Ashe County, a History by Arthur Lloyd Fletcher, McFarland Publishers, Jefferson County, North Carolina, 1963 (reprinted 2006).


While limited agricultural land meant that some children of prolific parents such as Wilson descendants had to move west, others remained to engage in age-old subsistence farming.  These turn of the 20th Century photographs capture the last generation of an agricultural era now gone. By World War II, most of these farms were uneconomical.  Seasonal homes, gated communities, Christmas Tree farms, tourism and work in service industries have replaced the family farm.

Edgar Osborne and Conley Wilson, ca 1910. Edgar, born 1893, the son of Walter Raleigh and Effie Lewis Osborne, was one of the many who migrated to Oregon. Conley, a son of John and Rebecca Wilson Wilson, elected to stay in North Carolina and farmed until his death in 1957.

"Prior to 1872, all plows hoes, shovels and other implements used in Ashe County were homemade from iron ore taken from the mines of Ashe and forged in Ashe County forges." - p. 208, Fletcher.

 

Above, 1907 ca Sutherland, North Carolina Callie, Minnie, John, Don, Preston and Ruth Wilson.  John Wilson (1855-1928) and his wife, Rebecca Wilson Wilson (1862-1954), were the parents of ten children who grew to maturity.
 

"The cutting and shocking of corn was first practiced in 1882...Commercial fertilizer was not used prior to 1891.  There were no facilities for soil testing in those days, and Ashe county farmers saw no need for it." -  Fletcher, p. 208

Above and below, herding sheep, Bob (1860-1949) and Ellen Wilson's (1866-1952) farm in Sutherland, North Carolina. Help in identifying these persons most welcome.

"In 1925, it took 10 to 15 acres of corn to feed a team of horse.  By 1963 in Ashe County, less than one acre of corn will feed a team of horse for a year." - Fletcher, p. 213

As the 20th Century moved on and mechanism increased "One man, plus the proper machines, could do the work formerly done by ten men or more.  There was no farm work waiting for the boys finishing high school...." - Fletcher, p. 216

"The exodus from American farms marked the end of self-sufficiency and an uprooting of families from their heritage. In 1900 40% of  the U.S. work force was in agriculture. Today the number is about 2%" - Atlantic Monthly, June 2013

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More Photographs from my Sister's Attic

by Glenn N. Holliman

Last post, I placed pictures of The Rev. William A. Wilson, my grandmother's (Mayme Osborne Stansbery) uncle.  These were found in my sister's attic (Becky Holliman Payne) in Tennessee.  Below is one of the pictures posted of Will Wilson evidently outside of his Methodist school in Japan.

Cousin Shirley Sorrell,  descended through John Wilson, a brother of Will Wilson, had in her collection of family photographs a picture (see below) evidently made at the same time and place in Japan as the pictures held by my branch of the family!  Somewhat damaged, the clothing, flowers, building and setting are identical.  This was probably made in the 1920s, the last decade of Uncle Will's forty years of service in the mission field.

 

 

 In the same group of 'attic' pictures saved through the generations by my family branch are pictures of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson, my generation's great great grandparents.  These two copies are 'rough' and seem to have had some hand drawn 'touch up'.  On the back of each, in my grandmother's handwriting is the following identification:

 "Caroline Greer Wilson, born Dec. 10, 1828, died Sept. 8, 1911.  Fell and broke hip June 8, 1907".  Many of my distant cousins have the same pictures, although in better condition.

 

  

 The 'touch up' is much more visible in the picture of Isaac Wilson.  Note his collar and front are basically a drawing. Written on the back of his photograph are the words: "Isaac Wilson, born Dec. 16, 1822.  Died June 17, 1864. Killed in Civil War."

 

 

The attic box revealed two photographs of my grandmother that I had not seen before.  The one below must have been taken ca 1897 when Mayme Osborne was only one year old.  It was about that time that G.W. and Frances Wilson Osborne (daughter of the above Isaac and Caroline Wilson) left Cove Creek in Watauga County, North Carolina and moved to Blountville, Tennessee in Sullivan County.  The county was wracked by a Depression during that time, and George Washington Osborne gave up farming and meager farm prices to run a general store.  

 

 Below is Mayme O. Stansbery ca 1940, a formal portrait taken when she was in her mid-40s. She was in ill health much of her adult life, and she passed away at age 47, December 1943.  She and Charles S. Stansbery, Sr. parented three children - Louise Frances Stansbery Sherwood (1914-2006), Charles S. Stansbery, Jr. (1918-2006) and Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick (1923-2015), this writer's mother).

 

 

For more information or to ask for an invitation, please contact Glenn N. Hollian at glennhistory@gmail.com. Or vvisit the Holliman-Long family tree in Ancestry.com.  Likewise the virtual archive www,bholliman.com.