Thomas Osborne.
Thomas A. Osborn was the sixth governor of Kansas from 1873 to 1877.
Osborn was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania, on October 26, 1836. During his boyhood, he attended public schools, and at the age of 15, he entered a printing office and learned the trade. While serving his apprenticeship, he saved his money, entered Allegheny College, and paid his own way through. In 1856, he began the study of law with Judge Derrickson of Meadville, and the following year, he moved to Michigan, where he was admitted to the bar.
In November 1857, he came to Lawrence, Kansas, where he found employment with the Herald of Freedom as a typesetter, assistant foreman, and temporary editor. He remained with the paper until March 1858, when he began the practice of law at Elwood, Doniphan County. Although a few months past his majority, he was an ardent Free-State man, and soon after locating at Elwood, he became an active factor in shaping the political destinies of Doniphan County. On December 6, 1859, he was elected state senator from the county to the first state legislature, which met in March 1861. At the second session of this legislature, in 1861, Mr. Osborn was elected president of the senate over John J. Ingalls. While holding this position, he presided over the impeachment trials of the governor, secretary of state, and auditor.
In November 1862, he was elected Lieutenant-Governor on the Republican ticket, and in April 1864, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him U.S. Marshal for the District of Kansas. He then moved to Leavenworth, Kansas.
When a difference of opinion arose between President Andrew Johnson and Congress in 1867, Osborn advocated the Congressional policy of Reconstruction and was removed from the marshalship, but his removal added to his popularity. In 1868, he was a member of the Republican State Central Committee; he was elected governor in 1872 and re-elected in 1874 for the term ending in January 1877.
On May 31, 1877, President Hayes’s Envoy commissioned him as Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Chile, and in June, he started for Santiago. In 1881, he was promoted to the Brazilian Mission, but before leaving Chile, the government publicly thanked him for his work in settling the question of the boundary between that country and the Argentine Republic.
Upon his return home from South America, Osborn became interested in various business enterprises including banking, railroad construction, and real estate. As early as May 1866, he had been one of the North Kansas Railroad Company and was a director of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad from the time the company was organized until his death.
In 1898, he went to New York to attend a meeting of the railroad directors and stopped at Meadville, Pennsylvania, for a short visit with some of his old boyhood friends. While he was there, he suffered a major hemorrhage on February 4, 1898, and died within a few hours. His remains were brought to Topeka and laid to rest by the side of his wife, who had died some years before.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, updated June 2025.
Also See:
Native American History in Kansas
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