Osborne later acquired the Kirby, Forbush and Ketcham mower patents which, by about 1860, made Osborne and Cyrus McCormick the largest U.S. The Osborne Library will serve that purpose.īorn in 1822, David Munson Osborne left his family's New York farm in 1843 and after clerking for five years in a New York City hardware store, ended up in Auburn, N.Y., building straw cutters and corn shellers. However, nothing in Auburn, the family's hometown, remains to house, inform and excite the public of that legacy, so it is nearly forgotten today. The Osborne-Wright legacy is part of the historical foundation of Auburn, Cayuga County and the Corridor of Conscience between Monroe and Madison counties. Osborne & Company, was also an important innovator and manufacturer of agriculture mechanization equipment changing the business of agriculture throughout the world. The Osborne-Wright Family, through its D.M. The Osborne-Wright legacy also includes national leadership in Temperance and in the WEIU movement to teach poor women industrial skills needed for their employment. All of us were visiting at th e Osbornes, a r eal love feast of the few that are left and he re came Harriet Tubman!' Wright and the wife of William Lloyd Garrison, Jr. Ella Wright Garrison, the daughter of Martha C. Wright, in company with Elizabeth S mith Mill er, the only daughter of Gerrit Smith, Miss Emily Howland, Rev.

I saw he r but the other day at the beautiful home of Eliza Wright Osborn e, the da ughter of Martha C. 'This most wonderful woman - Harriet Tubman - is still alive. The family's and the mansion's historical significance can be seen in the following paragraph, written by Susan B. The family - Martha Wright, Eliza Osborne and finally Josephine Osborne, a local niece of Eliza - oversaw Harriet Tubman's financial affairs. It was Martha Coffin Wright, Lucretia Mott and Frances Miller Seward who drew Harriet Tubman to Auburn, assuring her that bounty hunters would find Auburn an uncomfortable place to capture fugitive slaves. Martha Wright's West Genesee Street neighbors in Auburn considered her 'a very dangerous woman' because she entertained Frederick Douglass and put him up overnight.

Its factories employed former slaves and helped them gain self-respect. Its financial aid and connections settled many of them here. The family helped make Cayuga County a harbor for freedom seekers. The Abolition Movement spawned the women's rights movement, in which the Osborne-Wright Family was also central. Anthony once wrote that the Osborne Family was among the movement's most important sources of funding. Martha Wright's daughter, Eliza Wright Osborne (1830-1911), continued the women's rights struggle until her death. In 1848 she and her sister, Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793-1880), were organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention, the world's first formal meeting about women's rights. Martha Coffin (1806-1875) was a Philadelphia Quaker who moved to Cayuga County to teach in a Friends school and married one of New York State's most prominent lawyers, David Wright. Wealthy, erudite and idealistic, the family deeply involved itself in the women's rights movement from its beginning. The Osborne Library, being all that remains of the magnificent Osborne mansion complex, is already a part of the National Register South Street Historic District. The Osborne-Wright Family was instrumental in shaping the most important of America's late 19th and early 20th Century struggles.

Eliza osborne