T. J. Osborne

T.J. Osborne, a well-known citizen of Cleveland, who is connected with lake interests by virtue of his position as superintendent of dredging for the firm of L.P. & J.A. Smith, government and municipal contractors, was born in Cleveland, in 1848. He attended the public schools of his native city and is a graduate of the old West High School.

Mr. Osborne's first work was in the employ of United States engineers in charge of river and harbor improvements in various capacities. He left that service in 1889 to accept the position he now holds as superintendent of dredging for the firm of L.P. & J.A. Smith, of Cleveland. Col. P.M. Poe, under whose direction he worked for many years, gave him a generous testimonial as to the thoroughness and quality of his work and his qualifications as a superintending officer, as did several other United States engineers in charge of the work upon which he had been engaged. Since 1889 he had had charge of the entire dredging plant of the Smith brothers and has superintended all of their contract work with the government and city of Cleveland, including the dredging of the Cuyahoga river, and work of the same nature at Bar Point, Ashtabula harbor, Conneaut and Fairport, all of which has been satisfactorily accomplished. Mr. Osborne has won the entire confidence of the firm for which he works. The Cuyahoga, which has heretofore been a river to be avoided by heavily laden vessels on account of the many delays in getting on the bottom in shoal spots, has been uniformly deepened under his supervision, and such annoyances done away with. Mr. Osborne is a man of a genial and happy disposition and is very popular among his associates. He makes his home at No. 16 Monroe street, Cleveland, Ohio.

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Volume I

This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.

Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.