Osborn, Sarah, 1714-1796

Sarah Osborn (February 22, 1714 – August 2, 1796) was an early American Protestant and Evangelical writer who experienced her type of "religious awakening" during the birth of American Evangelicalism and, through her memoirs, served as a preacher. Osborn wrote about her experience during the First Great Awakening, reviving aspects of religion and a spiritual pilgrimage. She advised everyone to seek spiritual rebirth and called for a personal salvation experience. 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. 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." Sarah Osborn died in Newport, Rhode Island, on August 2, 1796, at 82.