Scope and Content Note
The Field-Osgood Family Papers span the years 1702-1938, with the bulk of the material dating from about 1780 to 1930. The papers pertain to three ancestral families of the donor and are arranged in three sections: the Bradhurst family, the Field family, and the Osgood family, with the Field and Osgood papers forming the bulk of the collection. Many of the items were removed from deteriorating scrapbooks. With the exception of occasional items of a general nature concerning the family, the material is arranged alphabetically by individual family member. The papers include correspondence, financial material, legal documents, genealogical material, speeches and writings, printed matter, photographs, lithographs, and engravings.
Because so many individuals are represented in this collection, the topics touched upon are disparate and numerous. Of major importance are the papers of Samuel Osgood (1748-1813), member of the Continental Congress, one of the three members of the United States Board of Treasury (1785-1789), first postmaster general, and naval officer of the port of New York. A small amount of correspondence, writings, and Board of Treasury and port of New York documents are in the collection. Most of the Samuel Osgood material, however, relates to household financial matters. Additional household financial matter is found under his wife's name, Maria Bowne Franklin Osgood, including items concerning her financial obligations to Chloe Field, an African American woman. Also in the collection are four sermons of David Osgood (1747-1822), three printed and one holograph. One printed sermon of Joseph Lathrop (1731-1820) can be found in the folder for Thaddeus Osgood.
Samuel Osgood's daughter, Susan Kittridge Osgood Field, maintained a lively correspondence with her sisters, Martha Brandon Osgood, married and living near Troy, New York, and Juliana Osgood, married and living in or near Andover, Massachusetts. She also corresponded with Mary (a cousin?) living in Charleston, South Carolina. Nearly all of the letters date from 1814 to 1821, the year she married Moses Field. The letters from her sisters are full of descriptions and details of the everyday life of these young women. Susan Osgood Field's correspondence is filed with the Field family material.
Three items in the Field family papers merit notice: two eighteenth century manumission documents from New York state and a letter of 1845 from Robert Browning to Hickson Woolman Field. Also in the Field family papers are a collection of materials from the United States Signal Corps on aerial photography dating from 1917 to 1918 and a group of intelligence reports (circa 1918-1919) from the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department. Both groups of papers relate to William B. Osgood Field.