Ralph, Thought this might be of interest. This email was written to my cousin Gayle Hamilton Osburn (correct spelling), daughter of my dad’s sister Mildred Osborn Hamilton. Jerry  04/12/08

 Hi Gayle,

When I visited Depauville NY in 1988 I had only a few hours to look around because I had to be back in Boston in time for work on Monday. Church was in session when I arrived so I dropped in during the service with the thought someone may be able to give me directions to something of interest. After the service people surrounded me because I was a new face in the tiny town. When I told them I was hunting for Osborn’s I was informed there were no longer Osborn’s in the area but someone remembered that there had been a window in the Church some years before that had been dedicated to Phineas Osborn. I was stunned when I realized that our gg grandfather had actually worshiped in the very church I entered that day. All the people I met were extremely friendly and helped me find the various grave sites and gave me a bit of history about the town.

When Kristen visited there a couple years ago she asked the town librarian, Sheila Reff, about the windows. Sheila was aware of them and said another party had been interested and had obtained one of them. Before Kristen could return Sheila died and the negotiations to get Phineas’s were lost. When she found Sheila gone a couple weeks ago she went to the Church and she and the assistant pastor searched the premises and finally found the panes stored in a closet in a small crate. The Phineas pane was the bottom glass in a stack of five panes. The Pastor was very happy that someone was interested and willingly gave it to her.

As I understood it the denomination or leadership of the Church had changed and the dedications were no longer considered relevant so were removed about 30 years ago and replaced with plain stained glass. In the photos you can see that the dedication would have fit in one of the two narrow spaces near the bottom of the windows.

Phineas was born in 1802 and died in 1880 so I suspect the glass is about 125 years old. It is currently carefully packed and is stored while we debate how to safely mount and display it. Once in a while you find a gem while digging through all the rubble out there!

 Jerry  

Deacon Phineas Alden Osborn 1802-1880