Jacob Osgood

Jacob Osgood (16 March 1777 – 29 November 1844) was the founder of a 19th-century Christian sect in New Hampshire known as the Osgoodites.

Early life Osgood was born in 1777 in South Hampton, New Hampshire. At age 12, his family moved to Warner, New Hampshire. When he was a young adult, he married Miriam Stevens; together they had eight children.

Osgoodites Osgood became a farmer in Warner and was a member of the local Congregational Church. In the early 19th century, both Calvinism and Universalism were becoming popular theological perspectives among New England Congregationalists. Osgood was averse to both approaches and left the Congregational Church.

Osgood taught his version of Christianity to others in Warner. who could heal people through the laying on of hands. Osgood taught that anything that was established by law was the work of Satan. Members refused to vote, serve in the military, or pay taxes. In 1820, Osgood was imprisoned in New Hampshire, where he began to write his autobiography and set out his teachings in detail. The first congregation of Osgoodites was established in Warner, with a second one of approximately thirty families being organized in Canterbury in the early 1820s. Osgood also had numerous followers in Mink Hill, Sutton, Bradford, Gilford, Gilmanton, South Hampton, and Newton. After Osgood's death, Charles H. Colby and Nehemiah Ordway succeeded him as joint leaders of the Osgoodites.