HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1630, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1855.
Charles Brooks, Ed.

The third minister of Medford was born in the south-west part of Andover, within half a mile of the Tewksbury line. His father, Captain Isaac Osgood, who lived to an advanced age, was born upon and occupied the same farm which had been owned and cultivated by his father before him, Mr. Stephen Osgood, who belonged originally to the north parish in Andover. David, the oldest of Captain Isaac Osgood's four sons, was born October, 1747. His mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Flint; and she was the daughter of a respectable farmer in the neighboring town of Reading. She was a great invalid; and no tradition remains of her having exercised any leading influence over the characters of her sons, all of whom were men of more than common intellectual endowments. David assiduously labored with his father on the farm until the age of nineteen, when he began to direct his studies with reference to a collegiate education. In these studies he was guided and helped by Rev. Mr. Emerson, of Holliston. Like most young men of that day, he taught a school as a means of support, and entered Harvard College, in 1767, at the age of twenty-one. His age gave him great advantage in mastering the more difficult studies, and he sustained a high rank in his class. His predilections for the ministry had always been dominant; and, immediately after his graduation, he commenced the study of divinity, residing part of his time in Cambridge, and part in Andover.

March 10, 1774: On this day, the town of Medford voted to hear Mr. David Osgood as a candidate for settlement. This proposal was accepted; and the consequence was (April 18, 1774) an invitation from the church and the town to settle as colleague pastor with Rev. Ebenezer Turell. There were sixty yeas, and six nays. The six gentlemen (Simon Tufts, Thomas Brooks, jun., Edward Brooks, Samuel Angier, Joshua Simonds,--the sixth not named) opposed the call because they differed from the candidate in their interpretation of Scripture; he adopting the Calvinistic doctrine of total depravity, and they taking the Arminian view of the subject.

The Arminian brethren began to use all lawful means to prevent the acceptance of the call. They addressed a letter to the pastor elect, May 4, 1774, detailing their reasons for opposing him. On the thirteenth of that month, he sends his refusal of the invitation, based, as he says, upon “the quality and rank of my present opposers, and the great ”