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CHARLES H. OSGOOD. Occasionally, in every community, a man appears endowed with traits pre-eminently qualifying him to enforce law and order. Such a man was Charles H. Osgood, for several years the well-known jailer of Brooklyn, Conn. Born in Abington Society, in the town of Pomfret, June 3, 1841, he received his education in public and select schools of that neighborhood, and in the Suffield Literary Institute. In 1878 he married Annie E. Hart, of Brooklyn, N. Y., who died Dec. 5, 1889. They had no children.

"For a few years in early manhood Mr. Osgood engaged in farming in Pomfret, making a specialty of fruit culture and live stock. Early recognized, however, as a man of exceptional executive ability, at the age of twenty-three he was appointed deputy sheriff of Windham county, under Sheriff May, and in point of age he never had a peer in that position in his county. For six years he served in that capacity; then, at twenty-nine, upon Mr. May's death, he was called to fill that official's unexpired term. How admirably he bore the responsibility in the opinion of the public is shown by the fact that he was afterward elected sheriff for five terms, making altogether a record of sixteen years, during which time he resided in Putnam, where he had his office and was for a time engaged in other business. From 1889 to 1893 Mr. Osgood served by appointment, with unqualified success, as sole prosecuting agent for Windham county. Finally, in 1895, he was appointed, by Sheriff Pomeroy, keeper of the Brooklyn jail, a position in which his masterly qualities had ample scope for asserting themselves. Being a man of large penetration and of extraordinary understanding of the needs of the criminal class, Mr. Osgood at once set about a reformatory work among his prisoners. When he took his position the jail was overcrowded, with scarcely any conveniences--in every way inadequate. In fact, the state of affairs was such as to engender surliness and disorder in prisoners in place of reforming them. With great persistence Mr. Osgood repeatedly reported the conditions of affairs to the State, and insisted upon Representatives giving the premises a personal inspection. The result was the appropriation of a large sum of money for improvements, with which splendid buildings have been since erected.

"Mr. Osgood was an unswerving Republican all his life. Socially he stood high, and was a member of Quinebaug Lodge, F. & A. M., and the Royal Arcanum of Putnam. Good breeding and early advantages counted for much in winning him success, but of much more value was his strong, steady will. His death, which occurred June 14, 1902, was sincerely and widely mourned."

--—Commemorative Biographical Record of Tolland and Windham Counties Connecticut Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens and of Many of the Early Settled Families, Chicago: J. H. Beers, 1903, p. 486.

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