Note 22 — NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY DOWN THE OHIO AND MISSISSIPPI, 1789-’90.

Benajah Osmun served, as Mr. Forman has previously stated, at the defeat of General Washington’s troops on Long Island, in August, 1776, when he was made a prisoner; he was then, apparently, a soldier in the ranks. On January 1, 1777, he was appointed a second lieutenant and quartermaster in Colonel Shreve’s Second New Jersey regiment, which he subsequently resigned. In September, 1778, he again entered the army as an ensign in the second regiment; was a prisoner of war on April 25, 1780; made a lieutenant January 1, 1781, retiring at the close of the war with the brevet rank of captain.

In 1802, he was made lieutenant-colonel of the Adams county militia; and when Colonel Burr visited the country, in 1807, on his mysterious mission, he was the guest of Colonel Osmun, who was one of his two bondsmen for his appearance at court, for they were fellow officers in the Revolution. Colonel Osmun settled a plantation at the foot of Half Way hill, near Natchez, became wealthy, and there died, a bachelor, at a good old age. Back