Aaron Ogden was an American soldier, lawyer, United States Senator and the fifthGovernor of New Jersey. Ogden is perhaps best known today as the defendant in Gibbons v. Ogden which destroyed the monopoly power of steamboats on the Hudson River in 1824.
In the American Revolutionary War, Ogden was appointed a lieutenant in the 1st New Jersey Regiment; his older brother Matthias Ogden was the lieutenant colonel. Aaron Ogden served in various roles through the war, seeing action and rising to the rank of brigade major. In 1778, he visited the house also occupied by the family of diarist Sally Wister, who described him as "a genteel young fellow, with an aquiline nose." He was wounded at the siege of Yorktown in 1781. Ogden was an original member of the New Jersey Society of the Cincinnati. He served as the Society's President General from 1829 until his death in 1839.
Political career
After the war, Ogden studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1784. He commenced practice in Elizabeth and served as a presidential elector in the 1796 electoral college that elected John Adams. He was clerk of Essex County from 1785–1803, and was elected as a Federalist to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of James Schureman and served from February 28, 1801 to March 3, 1803. He lost his bid for reelection to the Senate in 1802. In 1803, Ogden was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly, where he served until 1812. Ogden was elected trustee of the College of New Jersey in 1803, a post in which he served until his death. In 1812, Ogden was elected as Governor of New Jersey in a wave of Federalist victories across the state due to opposition to the War of 1812. Ogden had been nominated by his Federalist colleagues as governor many times before, but the Republican majority who elected the governor held the majority from 1803 to 1812. During his term as Governor, "funds were secured for the military's use in the war against Britain." After running unsuccessfully for reelection, the Federalists were voted out of the majority and with them, Ogden retired from political life. Ogden was nominated by President James Madison as major general of the Army in 1813, but declined the appointment.
Steamboat operations
In 1811, he became engaged in steamboat navigation by building the steamboat Sea Horse to run between Elizabeth and New York City. In 1812, under Livingston v. Van Ingen, the courts chose to upheld a steamboat monopoly over the Hudson River. In 1813, the New York State Legislature further upheld the monopoly created by Chancellor Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton, who had designed the steamboat, so Ogden agreed to pay them for a ten-year monopoly to run his line. As a result of a feud with his neighbor and competing steamboat operator, Thomas Gibbons, Ogden was a defendant in the Gibbons v. Ogden case that denied New York State's attempted monopoly on steamboat operation between New York and New Jersey. In the case, which eventually was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1824, Ogden was represented by Samuel L. Southard and Joseph Hopkinson, Livingston by Thomas Addis Emmet, and Gibbons by Daniel Webster and U.S. Attorney GeneralWilliam Wirt.
Later life
Ogden moved to Jersey City in 1829 and resumed the practice of law. It was in Jersey City where he was arrested for debt and sent to debtors' prison. He was released several months later under an act of the Legislature that provided "that no Revolutionary officer or soldier should be imprisoned for debt. The law was so framed as to cover the case of Col. Ogden, and he was released." In 1830, he was appointed as Collector of Customs of Jersey City, an office created specifically for him by an act of Congress, and served until his death in Jersey City.
Personal life
Ogden was married to Elizabeth Chetwood, the daughter of John Chetwood, an attorney, and Mary Chetwood. She was the older sister of U.S. Representative and Mayor of ElizabethWilliam Chetwood. Together, they were the parents of:
Mary Chetwood Ogden, who was married to George Clinton Barber.
Elias Bailey Dayton Ogden, who was named after his deceased brother. Elias, who married three times, served as an associate justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1842 until his death in 1865.
