He was born on September 23, 1859, in Auburn, New York, to David M. Osborne (1822-1886) [REF].
His grandmother, Martha Coffin Wright, and in succession her daughter and Osborne's mother, Eliza Wright Osborne, and a niece, Josephine Osborne, oversaw the finances of Harriet Tubman, who spent her last half-century in Auburn.