History of Michigan, / by Charles Moore. [Vol. 3]

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

1665

there is special consistency in giving due relative precedence to Mr. Osborne, who has here been engaged in the produce trade for more than
thirty years and who is thus one of the pioneer merchants of the city,
even as he is a progressive and loyal citizen to whom is granted the fullest
measure of popular confidence and esteem. He has held various local
offices of public trust and has done well his part in the furtherance of
those measures that have conserved the social and material progress and
prosperity of his home city.
Dorland Clapp Osborne was born in Hastings county, Province of
Ontario, Canada, on the I7th of July, 1844, and is a son of Robert and
Frances (Clapp) Osborne, both of whom were born in Prince Edward
county, Ontario. Robert Osborne became a pioneer farmer of Hastings
county, Ontario, where he reclaimed his land from the wilderness and
where he had the distinction of being the founder of the village of Melrose. In that county he continued to maintain his home until he was
summoned to the life eternal, at the age of seventy years, and his memory
is revered in the community that so long represented his home and in
which his influence was ever benignant. His cherished and devoted wife
passed away at the age of sixty years, and of the nine children only three
are now living,-Dorland C., William H. and Gilbert James.
To the common schools of his native county Dorland C. Osborne is
indebted for his early educational discipline, and as a boy he learned also
the lesson of practical industry, through his association with the work of
the home farm. He attended school until he had attained the age of
eighteen years and thereafter continued to be associated in the operation
of his father's farm until he was twenty-four years old, when, in i868,
he came to Michigan, and made location at Saginaw. There he engaged
in the lumber business in association with his brother-in-law, Henry Lingham, who had married Miss Clarinda Osborne, both being now deceased.
For two winter seasons Mr. Osborne worked in the lumber woods in
the vicinity of Tawas City, Iosco county, and passed the intervening summers at Saginaw. In I870 he went to Milford, Oakland county, where
he entered into a contract to build the first three and one-half miles of
the line of the Pere Marquette Railroad. After the successful completion of this contract Mr. Osborne established his residence at Milford,
where he erected an elevator and engaged in the grain and produce trade.
He continued his successful operations from 1871 to I882, and in the
latter year disposed of his interests.at Milford to identify himself with
the business activities of Petoskey. With a capital of only $I,ooo he
here engaged in the produce trade, his previous efforts having virtually been offset by severe losses entailed by the panic of I873, when he
lost nearly all of his accumulated capital through unfortunate operations
in the buying and shipping of wool. He was not of the fiber to permit
adversity to dampen his courage and self-reliance, and with the passing
years he has achieved large and worthy success, having continued to the
present day in the produce trade at Petoskey, with operations that show
an annual average of $90,000. Mr. Osborne is at the present time, in
point of continuous operations, the oldest business man in Petoskey, and
he still occupies for his business the building in which he here initiated
his local business. He has been careful and conservative, as well as upright and honorable in all dealings, and is one of the substantial men of
Emmet county. He owns in Petoskey his warehouse, residence and other
realty, and in addition to this tangible evidence of his prosperity he is
the owner of a farm of eighty acres, situated within a few miles of his
home city.
Broad-minded and progressive as a citizen, Mr. Osborne is a stalwart advocate of the principles of the Republican party, and he has been