Sarah Osborn

For the Salem witch trial victim, see Sarah Osborne.

Sarah Osborn (February 22, 1714 – August 2, 1796) was an early American Protestant and Evangelical writer who experienced her own type of "religious awakening" during the birth of American Evangelicalism, and through her memoirs, served as a preacher.

Born in London, she moved to New England as a child, where she would eventually go on to write a series of memoirs which were later preserved by Samuel Hopkins, entitled, Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Sarah Osborn, Who Died in Newport, on the Second Day of August, 1796[1] Enclosed within her diary, are the musings of a troubled and complicated woman, who experienced a great deal of hardship, and in turn, wanted to show that her life had meaning through the "grace of God."[2] First written in 1742 at the age of 29 as a way to deal with life's difficulties, she quickly became aware of her work's value, and later "emerged as the leader of a remarkable religious revival that brought as many as five hundred people-including large numbers of enslaved people-to her house each week."[3]

Sarah Osborn died in Newport, Rhode Island on August 2, 1796 at the age of 82.

  1. ^ Samuel Hopkins, Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Sarah Osborn: Who Died in Newport, on the Second Day of August, 1796, in the Eighty-Third Year of Her Age (Gale & Sabin International, 2012).
  2. ^ Catherine A. Brekus, Sarah Osborn's World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2013).
  3. ^ Catherine A. Brekus, Sarah Osborn's World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2013): 6.