David Osgood

David Osgood was an innholder who kept a tavern on the County Road just north of the meeting house in Billerica Centre in the 1750s and 1760s. He was born on June 3, 1724, a son of Christopher Osgood and Elizabeth (Danforth) Osgood.

He was working as a joiner in Andover when, on February 20, 1746/7, he bought from Thomas Kidder for 900 pounds old tenor a lot of about three acres north of the meeting house, "together with a Mansion House and all other the Buildings thereon." This was the Kidder house, next north of the old Danforth homestead, and Osgood kept it as an inn. His first wife, Hannah (Davis) Osgood, died on February 15, 1747/8, and on November 15, 1748 he married Sarah Danforth, daughter of Samuel Danforth. Their children were David (1748), who died the day after his birth; Elizabeth (1749), who married Elijah Danforth; Hannah (1752), who died in 1773; Sarah (1754); David (1756), who married Ruth Badger, lived in Amherst, New Hampshire, and died in 1827; Dolley (1758); Phinehas (1760), who married Hannah Davis of Concord and died in 1813; and Molly (1764), who died in infancy.

On October 16, 1760 he bought from Thomas Danforth the old Danforth homestead next south, about twenty acres "near the Center of the Town" "with the Dwelling House and all the other Buildings thereon," with four acres of meadow and a sixteen-acre lot, for 266 pounds 13 shillings 4 pence (see Ensign Jonathan Danforth Jr. House). He moved his tavern into the Danforth house and in 1762 sold the Kidder house to Isaac Redington of Lunenburg for 120 pounds. He also made potash: his inventory lists a potash house, 760 bushels of ashes and potash barrels. He served as a selectman from 1763 to 1765, and in 1757 he helped appraise the estate of Oliver Whiting and stood surety for its administrator.

Osgood made his will on June 15, 1767 and died on February 2, 1768, aged 43. He ordered all his real estate sold, except that his wife was to have "Eight Rods Square of Land off my Homestead for to Build a House on and a Garden Spott" at the corner of the lane to Samuel Sheldon's, and his pew was not to be sold. Sarah, herself an innholder, and their son-in-law Elijah Danforth, a blacksmith, were the executors. On October 26, 1768 they sold the homestead "with all the Buildings Edifices and out Houses thereon" to the tanner Solomon Pollard for 484 pounds, reserving room for the Sabbath Day House that John Baldwin, John Patten and others kept on the lot. The old Danforth house became Pollard's tavern of the Revolution. Sarah Osgood died on January 16, 1773.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 102, OSGOOD 5

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.