Author: Osgood, Samuel Stillman
Biography:
OSGOOD, Samuel Stillman (1808-85: WBIS)
Osgood was an artist, born to Elizabeth (Badger) and James Osgood in New Haven CT. He studied painting in Boston; besides portrait commissions and other sales, reproductions of his work began to appear in periodicals about 1830. In 1835 he married Frances Sargent Locke of Boston, a poet whose work did not begin to appear in separate volumes until 1838. From 1835 to 1839 they lived in London where he continued his education at the Royal Academy. They had three children but all died young. After their return they lived in New York, where Osgood was made an associate of the National Academy of Design. From 1844 to 1847 they lived apart; there has been speculation about Frances Osgood's relationship to Edgar Allan Poe (whose portrait her husband painted), but the Osgoods were reconciled long before 1849 when he left to prospect for gold and to paint portraits in California. She died of tuberculosis in 1850. He designed the tomb in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge MA where she is buried together with her husband, their three daughters, and his second wife, Sarah Rodman (Howland) Osgood. Osgood himself died in California. (ancestry.com 21 May 2020; "Osgood, Frances Sargent Locke," ANBO 21 May 2020)
Other Names:
- S. S. Osgood