Benajah Osmun (died in June 1815, Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi) was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati. [1] [2] [lower-alpha 1] During the Revolutionary War he made Captain and was taken prisoner at Charleston. In politics he was a federalist and a strong partisan of John Adams. [3]
Originally from Hunterdon County, New Jersey, [2] during the Revolutionary War, Benajah Osmun fought at the Battle of Quebec on December 31, 1775, led by General Richard Montgomery. [4] He fought at the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, and he was taken prisoner there. [5] Osmun served as 2nd Lieutenant and Quartermaster in the 2nd Battalion, 2nd New Jersey Regiment under Colonel Israel Shreve beginning on January 1, 1777. [5] It was to Osmun that Colonel Shreve was asked to escort his family back to the Shreve family homestead at Mount Pleasant, in Mansfield Township, Burlington County, New Jersey. [6] After resigning from the previous post, Osmun was made again 2nd Lieutenant on September 12, 1778, and was taken prisoner at Charleston on April 25, 1780. He was made Lieutenant on January 1, 1781 [7] and Captain by brevet. [5] He served until the close of the war. [7]
He was made Lieutenant-Colonel in 1782 in the Adams County militia. [5] He served as a major for the cavalry of the government of the Mississippi Territory in 1798. [8]
In 1790, Osmun moved to Natchez, Mississippi, accompanying the Forman Family Colony that was founded by Ezekiel Forman, father of General Thomas Marsh Forman and brother of General David Forman. Prior to that, Osmun was the overseer of the plantation of General David Forman. [9]
Osmun built and lived at Windy Hill Manor at the foot of Half Way Hill near Natchez, Mississippi. [5] He was a good friend of Adam Cloud, an Episcopal minister who settled in Natchez and fought for religious freedom. [10] When Aaron Burr went under trial in 1807 on a charge of treason, Osmun was one of his bondsmen. [5] [lower-alpha 2] With Lyman Harding, they paid $10,000 for the bond. [13]
Benajah Osmun died in June 1815, in Natchez, Mississippi, unmarried, and was buried on the plantation. [5] [lower-alpha 3] In his will, dated May 17, 1815, Osmun requested that his slave Jerry was to be emancipated and freed from slavery. [14]
Natchez, officially the City of Natchez, is the only city in and the county seat of Adams County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 14,520 at the 2020 census. Located on the Mississippi River across from Vidalia in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, Natchez was a prominent city in the antebellum years, a center of cotton planters and Mississippi River trade.
Henry Miller Shreve was an American inventor and steamboat captain who removed obstructions to navigation of the Mississippi, Ohio and Red rivers. Shreveport, Louisiana, was named in his honor.
Henry Dearborn was an American military officer and politician. In the Revolutionary War, he served under Benedict Arnold in his expedition to Quebec, of which his journal provides an important record. After being captured and exchanged, he served in George Washington's Continental Army. He was present at the British surrender at Yorktown. Dearborn served on General George Washington's staff in Virginia.
Jonathan Dayton was an American Founding Father and politician from New Jersey. At 26, he was the youngest person to sign the Constitution of the United States. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1791 and later served from 1795 to 1799 as its third Speaker. He left the House in 1799 after being elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served one term. Dayton was arrested in 1807 for alleged treason in connection with Aaron Burr's conspiracy to establish an independent country in the Southwestern United States and parts of Mexico. He was exonerated by a grand jury, but his national political career never recovered.
James Wilkinson was an American soldier, politician, and Spanish secret agent #13, who was associated with multiple scandals and controversies, including the Burr conspiracy.
Tench Tilghman was an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He served as an aide-de-camp to General George Washington, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Winthrop Sargent was a United States patriot, politician, and writer; and a member of the Federalist party.
Edmund Pendleton Gaines was a career United States Army officer who served for nearly fifty years, and attained the rank of major general by brevet. He was one of the Army's senior commanders during its formative years in the early to mid-1800s, and was a veteran of the War of 1812, Seminole Wars, Black Hawk War, and Mexican–American War.
Washington is an unincorporated community in Adams County, Mississippi, United States. Located along the lower Mississippi, 6 miles (9.7 km) east of Natchez, it was the second and longest-serving capital of the Mississippi Territory.
The Battle of Springfield was fought during the American Revolutionary War on June 23, 1780, in Union County, New Jersey. After the Battle of Connecticut Farms, on June 7, 1780, had foiled Lieutenant General Wilhelm, Baron von Knyphausen's expedition to attack General George Washington's army at Morristown, New Jersey, Knyphausen and Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton, British commander-in-chief in North America, decided upon a second attempt. Although the British were initially able to advance, they were ultimately forced to withdraw in the face of newly arriving rebel forces, resulting in a Continental victory. The battle effectively ended British ambitions in New Jersey.
The New Jersey Line was a formation within the Continental Army in the American War of Independence. A "New Jersey Line" was the quota of numbered infantry regiments that the Congress of the Confederacy assigned to New Jersey at various times.
Lieutenant Colonel Edward Antill was an American soldier from New Jersey who served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He is known for his actions during the Invasion of Quebec in 1775–76.
Matthias Ogden was an American soldier and politician. He fought in the American Revolutionary War, and served in various political positions afterwards.
Israel Shreve was a colonel in the 2nd New Jersey Regiment during the American Revolution. He fought at the Battle of Brandywine and at the Battle of Germantown and wintered at Valley Forge.
Oswald Tilghman was an officer of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War; a lawyer; Maryland politician; Maryland Senator, Talbot County, (1894–96); Secretary of State of Maryland (1904–08); affiliate of the Maryland Democratic Party; author; and was active in veteran affairs. Native of Talbot County, Maryland.
David Forman was born in Monmouth County, Province of New Jersey, of parents Joseph Forman and Elizabeth Lee. His father was a wealthy shipowner and he was educated at Princeton. At the start of the American Revolutionary War he rallied to the patriot cause and was appointed lieutenant colonel of a New Jersey state regiment. When his commander assumed command of the brigade, he was promoted colonel of the regiment during the New York and New Jersey Campaign in 1776. At the time of the battles of Trenton and Princeton Forman's regiment waged a merciless war against the American Loyalists of Monmouth County. Then and later he became known as "Devil David" for his zeal in suppressing the local Tories. In January 1777, the Continental Congress authorized him to raise Forman's Additional Continental Regiment with the rank of colonel in the Continental Army.
Bruinsburg is an extinct settlement in Claiborne County, Mississippi, United States. Founded when the Natchez District was part of West Florida, the settlement was one of the end points of the Natchez Trace land route from Nashville to the lower Mississippi River valley.
Abijah Hunt (1762–1811) was an American merchant, planter, slave trader, and banker in the Natchez District.
Edward Turner was a state legislator and public official who served as Justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi from 1824 to 1832, and again from 1840 to 1843.
Peter Bryan Bruin was a landowner and judge in Mississippi Territory, United States. A veteran of the American Revolutionary War who served as an officer with Daniel Morgan and worked as an aide-de-camp to John Sullivan, he settled in the Natchez District shortly after the conclusion of the American revolution. He was later a host to a young Andrew Jackson and Rachel Donelson Robards, on what may have amounted to their honeymoon circa 1790. In 1798 Bruin was signatory to the "Memorial to Congress by Permanent Committee of the Natchez District," which encouraged the U.S. Congress to annex the Natchez District from Spain and to preserve and extend slavery in the region. After the Mississippi Territory was organized, he was appointed to be a judge by John Adams. Bruin was tangentially connected to Aaron Burr's still-mysterious shenanigans in the lower Mississippi River valley in 1806. In 1808, the Mississippi Territorial Legislature passed a resolution condemning Bruin's conduct on the bench, and delegate George Poindexter requested that the U.S. Congress open an impeachment investigation into Bruin. Bruin resigned his judgeship amidst public charges of alcoholism and dereliction of judicial duty.