About Osborne Homestead Museum

The Osborne Homestead Museum was originally a simple farmhouse built around 1840. After serving with the Connecticut Artillery during the Civil War, Wilbur Fisk Osborne married Ellen Lucy Davis of Oxford and moved into the home around 1870. A native of Derby, Wilbur was the son of John White Osborne, the co-founder of the Osborne & Cheesman Manufacturing Company, a pioneering brass industry in the Naugatuck Valley during the Industrial Revolution.

The last of their four children (and the only one to survive childhood), Frances Eliza Osborne (1876-1956) inherited the family house and at age of 31, in 1907, decided to assume her father’s business responsibilities after his sudden death. In 1919, Frances married Waldo Stewart Kellogg, a New York architect with a degree from Cornell University.

An accomplished businesswoman and conservationist who was dedicated to preserving land for future generations, Mrs. Osborne Kellogg deeded her 350-acre property to Connecticut before her death in order to form a state park. The Museum’s grounds are landscaped with formal flower gardens, ornamental shrubs, and flowering trees, providing visitors with an endless pageant of color from spring through autumn.

For admission information and directions, visit https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Education/Kellogg/Kellogg-Environmental-Center-and-Osborne-Homestead-Museum