Memoir of Jacob Osborne. 

His birth dates with the birth of the nineteenth century. His parents lived near Trenton, New Jersey. They were of the Baptist order. His mother was a very pious and active Christian. Early in life their son Jacob was awakened to a sense of his sinful state, and finding hope, he was baptized, and almost immediately entered the ministry. He was licensed to preach when only nineteen years of age. His pure life, reserved, winning manners, devotion to study, and unvarying attentions to the offices of religion, awakened great hopes of his future usefulness. In person, rather tall, very erect, comely of form and countenance, a voice not strong, but clear and very attractive. 

In 1821, at the age of twenty-one, he entered Mr. Campbell's seminary on Buffalo Creek, Virginia, along with Joseph Freeman, where he remained two years, making most diligent application in his studies. During this time he employed his talents preaching in localities within reach of the seminary. Becoming acquainted in the family of the McElroys, Washington County, Pennsylvania— a family of marked character for manliness, decision, energy, and promptitude, and for devotion to the principles of religious reform—Mr. Osborne was united in marriage to their sister, Miss Susan McElroy. He was principal of the academy in Wellsburg one year, and preached in that town and vicinity. He came to the Western Reserve, and settled in Hiram, in the fall of 1824. The following year he moved to Braceville. Perhaps Bro. Osborne, more than any other man, prepared the way for the more complete ministration of the gospel which was soon to surprise the churches, and reform their modes of speech and action. He led on biblical investigations quite regardless of the dogmata of creeds and conventional forms of speech. He saw clearly the need of an extensive and thorough revision and correction of the terms and phrases, hackneyed and human, in which people were accustomed to talk of conversion and its kindred themes, and the substitution for them of the more appropriate and divinely authorized language of the Holy Spirit. In all this he was only abreast, scarcely ahead, of many others. At the request of Bro. Bentley, he removed to Warren early in 1827, and taught the academy for a year, still preaching as his health would permit. He was always present at the association and ministers' meetings, and on all occasions took a part more prominent and influential than is usually assigned to one so young and unassuming. For his talent, erudition, and zeal, he stood up as a Barnabas, and all heard him with delight. 

His health gave way, and in May, 1829, this young, influential, talented, beloved. Christian gentleman, admirable in all things, in many things a model, fell asleep. His disease was hemorrhage of the lungs. He was only in his twenty-ninth year. He died in Warren. 

-Early History of the Disciples In The Western Reserve, A. S. Hayden, p.140,141