Harris Burnett Osborn

Bio. of Harris B. Osborn

Portrait and Biographical Record of Kalamazoo, Allegan and Van Buren

Counties, Michigan, Chicago, Chapman Bros., 1892. Page 915.

transcript

HARRIS B. OSBORNE, M.D., was born in Sherman, Chautauqua County, N.Y.,

August 11, 1831. His parents, Platt S. and Mary A. (Platt) Osborne, were

natives of Kingsbury, Washington County, of the same State. His maternal

grandfather was Nehemiah Platt, for whom our subject's father was named, he

being an old friend of David Osborne. The Osborne family traces its

ancestry back to the old Norse conqueror who spelled his name "Asjourn."

Three brothers who had emigrated to America at an early day were driven from

Long Island and their property confiscated on account of their joining the

ranks of the Colonists.

Platt Osborne was a musician in the War of 1812, and lived to the

advanced age of eighty-four years. He was a merchant and manufacturing

tanner. Our subject worked in his father's tannery until reaching his

sixteenth year, when he started out as a peddler of musical instruments and

Yankee notions through Ohio and Illinois, and finally located in Kane

County, the latter State. After three years spent there, he began the study

of medicine under Dr. Samuel McNair, of Blackberry, Ill., attending school

at Elgin and Aurora until 1861, when he entered the State University of

Michigan. After attending there for a period, he enlisted in the Third

Board of Trade Regiment, at Chicago, serving in the field in Mississippi and

Tennessee. He passed examination before the Army Board, and was

commissioned Surgeon at Vicksburg, May 9, 1863, and after the fall of that

city was made Post Surgeon and health officer at that place. He occupied

that position until October, 1866, when the city was turned over to the

civil authorities.

In 1866-67, our subject was graduated from the medical department of the

Bellevue Hospital, New York, and began the practice of his profession at his

old home in Sherman, New York, remaining there until 1880. In 1874, Dr.

Osborne took a post-graduate course at the New York College of Physicians &

Surgeons, and, in 1880, came to Kalamazoo, thinking the climate would prove

beneficial to him as he was a great sufferer from asthma.

Dr. Osborne enjoys a lucrative practice, and stands high in the

profession. He is a member of the State Medical Society of New York, the

American Medical Association, the State Medical Association of Michigan, and

the Association of Railroad Surgeons of the United States. He is at the

present time Surgeon of the Kalamazoo Division of the Lake Shore & Michigan

Southern Railroad, and is President of the Borgess Hospital Staff. In

politics, he is a Republican, and is a stockholder in various manufacturing

and business enterprises in the city.

October 29, 1878, Dr. Osborne was married to Miss Nettie J. Ames, a

native of Rutland, Vt. She was a teacher in Kaneville, Kane County, Ill.,

at the time of her marriage. The Doctor is a Free and Accepted Mason,

belonging to both Chapter and Council. He was for a number of years member

of the Pension Board of Examiners. He is a member of the Grand Army of the

Republic. He has been President of the Chautauqua County Medical Society.

With his wife, he is a member of the Congregational Church. They make their

home at No. 122, East Lovell Street, where the Doctor has erected a

handsome, modern brick residence.