Cook County IL Archives Biographies.....Ogden, Hon William B 1805 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com April 29, 2006, 2:48 am Author: Chicago Magazine HON. WILLIAM B. OGDEN THE FIRST MAYOR OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO Mr. Ogden is a native of Delaware County, N. Y. He was born in the town of Walton, on the 15th of June, 1805. He is of the Eastern New Jersey Ogden family. His grandfather was engaged in the Revolutionary War. His father, Abraham Ogden, when eighteen years old, left Morristown, N. J., soon after the close of the war, intending to settle in the new City of Washington, the future Capitol of the United States. He had proceeded on his journey as far as Philadelphia, when he met a brother or relative of his friend the late Governor Mahlon Dickerson, of New Jersey, who gave bim such a glowing account of the Upper Delaware Country, and of the immense forests of pine timber upon the banks of the Delaware, promising great prospective wealth from its accessibility to the Philadelphia market, that he was induced to accompany Mr. Dickerson to that then wilderness country, where he finally settled, and passed a life of active usefulness, engaged in such employments as were best suited to develope and build up the home of his adoption. He was regarded as a man of sound judgment and good business tact. He was social and domestic, fond of reading, yet very hospitable in his disposition. His advice was sought and valued, especially by those younger than himself. His active usefulness was much impaired by a stroke of paralysis in 1820. He died in 1825. The mother of Mr. William B. Ogden, was a daughter of an officer of the Revolutionary War, Mr. James Weed, of New Canaan, Fairfield County, Connecticut. Mr. Weed seems to have been very patriotic, or somewhat warlike in his tastes, for we find him at the early age of fourteen years, volunteering in the "French War." At the termination of the Revolutionary struggle, like most of his brother officers, he was out of cash and out of business. Several of these officers, including Mr. Weed, determined to colonize and settle upon and around a "Patent" of land which one of their number held upon the Delaware river. This land was a primitive forest, west of the Catskill mountains, eighty miles (these were not railroad days) beyond the Hudson, and sixty miles beyond the then Western frontier, or any carriage road. It was a great undertaking; yet these brave men had the courage to seek an independent home with their families in the wilderness. In 1790-2, they took their families, upon pack- horses to their forest homes; established a settlement in that "Sequestered Section" of the State, as it was afterwards called by Governor Clinton, where, though neither remarkable for numbers or wealth, patriotism found a home, amid dignified courtesy and genuine hospitality. The society formed and developed through the influence of these pioneers, was distinguished throughout the surrounding country, no less for its general intelligence and intellectual cultivation, than for its moral and religious character. It was here that the parents of the subject of this sketch were married, and the earlier years of the latter here passed. Allusion has not been made to the ancestors of Mr. Ogden, from any fueling that worthy parentage can confer honor without regard to the character of the offspring. The writer holds that such ancestry only add to the dishonor of him who is not true to his inherited blood. But when worthy parentage is blessed and honored by corresponding qualities in the child, any biography of the latter is deficient, which does not acknowledge the indebtedness of its subject to its parent stock. Mr. Ogden, when a lad, was large for his years. When not more than ten or twelve-years old, he was very fond of athletic exercise, and the sports of robust boyhood. It was his delight to hunt, to swim, to skate, to wrestle and to ride. These were the sports suited to his "Sequestered" home; and if they trespassed too much upon his time, it was from no indisposition to study, or want of fondness of books. He must have been very fond of these sports in his early youth, for he recollects that his father was obliged to limit his hunting and fishing excursions to two days in the week. As he grew older the advice of his father awakened in him a consciousness of the necessity of greater application to books, and of the duty of preparing himself for the serious business of life. His father's counsels were not unheeded. Permitted by his indulgent father to choose his future occupation, he determined to acquire a liberal education, and devote himself to the practice of the law. No sooner had he made this determination, than, with the decision of character and earnestness which have marked all his subsequent life, he set to work to fit himself for his chosen profession. He had but little more than commenced his academic course, when the sudden prostration of his father's health, required him, although only sixteen years of age, to return home, to take his father's place in the management of the latter's business, and the care of the family. It was with no little regret that the young Ogden bade adieu to the Academic Halls; yet he could not hesitate between inclination and duty. The management of his father's business exacted great activity and energy from its youthful conductor. It took him much over the country, and frequently to the large cities, and in it he acquired that taste and inclination for diversified business pursuits, which have rendered his subsequent life one of untiring activity. Although his father's business required great attention, it did not absorb all his strength. He found opportunity to cultivate his mind by reading; and being a ready observer, and his mind of a strong practical turn, he did not fail to profit by every tour he made. Travel proved to him, as it always does to persons of thought and observation, an efficient educator. It enlarged his views, expanded his thoughts, and increased his powers. Yet at this time he had not seen very much of the world. He was only twenty one years of age when he was induced to engage as a partner in a mercantile firm, and enlarge his operations. These were moderately successful, but did not satisfy his ambition. After spending a few years more in his native county, his unwearied exertions being rewarded by only moderate gains, he determined, in 1835, to turn his attention westward. He arrived at Chicago in June, 1835, having then recently united with friends in the purchase of real estate in this city. He and they foresaw that Chicago was to be a good town, and they purchased largely, including Wolcott's addition, and nearly the half of Kinzie's Addition, and the block of land upon which the freight houses of the Galena and Chicago Union Rail Road now stand. Before leaving his native state, at eighteen, the age at which Military service was at that time required of young men in the State of New York, Mr. Ogden entered upon that service. He was elected a Commissioned officer, the first day of doing duty, and the second, was appointed Aid to his esteemed friend, Brigadier General Frederic P. Foote, a gallant and polished gentleman, long since deceased. The late Hon. Selah R. Hobbie, the distinguished Assistant Post Master General of the United States, for so many years, and from boyhood the intimate friend of Mr. Ogden, was a member of General Foote's Staff, at the same time, as Brigadier Inspector, with the rank of Major. Mr. Ogden succeeded his friend Major Hobbie, in the office of Brigadier Inspector, and did its duties for several years. In General Jackson's time, Mr. Ogden was made Post Master of his village (Walton), and so remained until after his removal to Chicago. The year before coming to Chicago (1834), Mr. Ogden was elected to the Legislature of the State of New York, especially to advocate the construction of the New York & Erie Rail Road, and to obtain the aid of the State for that great work, which then commanded, his hearty exertions and in which he has ever since felt a deep interest. He spent the winter of 1834-5 in the Assembly at Albany—but it was not until the following year that aid was granted by the State. Chicago was selected as his place of residence, because of its prominent position at the head of Lake Michigan, or rather, because of its being the Western terminus of Lake navigation. His attention had been more particularly drawn to it by his brother-in-law, Charles Butler, Esq., and his friend, Arthur Bronson, Esq., of New York, both of whom had visited Chicago, in 1833, and made purchases here. At first Mr. Ogden's principal business in Chicago was the management of the real estate which he and his friends had purchased; but gradually, and almost accidentally in the beginning, he established a Land and Trust Agency in Chicago, which he carried on in his own name from 1836 to 1843, when it had so increased that he associated with himself, the late Wm. E. Jones & Co. Since then the business has been carried on successively by Ogden, Jones & Co., and Ogden, Fleetwood & Co., in which last name it is still managed. The business has become so large, that it may be called one of the Institutions of Chicago. Mr. Ogden was very successful in his operations in 1835-6, but he became embarrassed in 1837-8, by assuming liabilities for friends, several of whom he endeavored to aid, with but partial success. He struggled on with these embarrassments for several years. Finally, in 1842-3, Mr. Ogden escaped from the last of them; and since, his career of pecuniary success has been unclouded. They were gloomy days for Chicago when the old Internal Improvement System went by the board, and the Canal drew its slow length along, and operations upon it were finally suspended, leaving the State comparatively nothing to show for the millions squandered in "Internal Improvements." His operations in real estate have been immense. He has sold real estate for himself and others, to an amount exceeding ten millions of dollars, requiring many thousand deeds and contracts which have been signed by him. The fact that the sales of his house have, for some years back, equalled nearly one million of dollars per annum, will give some idea of the extent of their business. He has literally made the rough places smooth, and the crooked ways straight, in Chicago. More than one hundred miles of streets, and hundreds of bridges at street corners, besides several other bridges, including two over the Chicago river, have been made by him, at the private expense of himself and clients, and at a cost of probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mr. Ogden's mind is of a very practical character. The first floating swing bridge over the Chicago River was built by him, for the city, (before he ever saw one elsewhere,) on Clark street, and answered well its designed purpose. He was early engaged in introducing into extensive use in the West, McCormick's Reaping and Mowing Machines, and building up the first large factory for their manufacture—that now owned by the McCormicks. In this manufactory, during Mr. Ogden's connection with it, and at his suggestion, was built the first Reaper sent to England, and which at the great Exhibition of 1851, in London, did so much for the credit of American Manufactures there. He was a contractor upon the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and his efforts to prevent its suspension, and to resuscitate and complete it, were untiring. There is no brighter page in Mr. Ogden's history, than that which records his devotion to the preservation of the public credit. The first time that we recollect to have heard him address a public meeting, was in the fall of 1837, while he held the office of Mayor. Some frightened debtors, assisted by a few demagogues, had called a meeting to take measures to have the courts suspended, or some way devised by which the compulsory fulfilment of their engagements might be deferred beyond that period so tedious to creditors, known as the "Law's Delay." They sought by legislative action—or "Relief Laws," to virtually suspend, for a season, the collection of debts. An inflammatory and ad captandum speech had been made. The meeting, which was composed chiefly of debtors, seemed quite excited, and many were rendered almost desperate by the recital by designing men, of their sufferinga and pecuniary danger. During the excitement, the Mayor was called for. He stepped forward, and exhorted his fellow citizens not to commit the folly of proclaiming their own dishonor. He besought those of them who were embarrassed, to bear up against adverse circumstances with the courage of men, remembering that no misfortune was so great as one's own personal dishonor. That it were better for them to conceal their misfortune, than to proclaim them; reminding them that many a fortress had saved itself by the courage of its inmates, and their determination to conceal its weakened condition, when, if its real state had been made known, its destruction would have been inevitable and immediate. "Above all things," said he, "do not tarnish the honor of our infant city." To the credit of Chicago, be it said, that this first attempt at "Repudiating Relief," met, from a majority of that meeting, and from our citizens, a rebuff no less pointed than deserved; and those who attempted it received merited contempt. Since then has our State needed all the exertion of its truest and most faithful citizens to repel the insidious approaches of the Demon of Repudiation. When Mississippi repudiated, and Illinois could not pay, and with many sister States had failed to meet her interest, there were not wanting political Catalines to raise the standard of Repudiation in Illinois. The State seemed almost hopelessly in debt; and the money for this immense indebtedness, except so much as had been expended upon the Canal, had been wasted, chiefly in the partial construction of disconnected pieces of Rail Roads, which were of no value to the State or people. The State was bankrupt, and private insolvency was rather the rule than the exception: Many were discouraged by their misfortunes, some of the hopeless were leaving the State on account of its embarrassments, and emigration was repelled by fear of enormous taxation. Then it was that the wiley demagogue sought to "beguile" the simple and unsuspecting, and to preach the doctrine of repudiation as a right, because "no value had been received" for the money which our public creditors had loaned us, and on account of the hopelessness and utter impossibility of our ever paying our indebtedness. Mrs 0gden then, though his party in its State Convention, refused to adopt a resolution which he submitted, "Repudiating Repudiation,"- in common with the great mass of his Northern fellow citizens, did not hesitate to proclaim the inviolable nature of our public faith, and the necessity of doing our utmost to meet our obligations, and redeem the credit of our noble State. In politics, Mr. Ogden, though not much of a partizan, has always been a Democrat of the Madisonian School. He has not hesitated to oppose the nominations of his party, when, in his opinion, the public interest required it. He has often been in the City Council, and frequently solicited to be a candidate for official positions. He was nominated in 1840, by the canal party, for the Legislature, and in 1852 by the Free Democracy for Congress. This nomination he declined. In the recent struggle, he was found with Freedom's Hosts, in support of the nominees of the Republican Party, believing in common with the great mass of the North, that the encroachments of slavery upon territory dedicated to freedom by the plighted faith of the nation, must be resisted; and that the "principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, and embodied in the Federal Constitution, are essential to the preservation of our Republican Institutions." Mr. Ogden is a man of great public spirit, and in enterprise unsurpassed. To recapitulate the public undertakings which have commanded his attention, and received his countenance and support, would be to catalogue most of those in this section of the Northwest. He has been a leading man—President or Director, or a large stockholder, in so many that we shall not undertake to make a list of them. Among the prominent places he has occupied, we recollect the following: In 1837, at the first election under the city charter, he was chosen Mayor. He was the first and only President of Rush Medical College. He was President of the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad Company from its resuscitation on its present basis, until its construction, in part, and earnings, had raised its stock to a premium, when he resigned. He was President of the National Pacific Railroad Convention of 1850, held in Philadelphia; of the Illinois and Wisconsin Railroad Company; of the Buffalo and Mississippi Rail Road Company, in Indiana, until merged in the Michigan Central; of the Chicago Branch of the State Bank of Illinois, at Chicago; and is President of the Board of Sewage Commissioners, for the City of Chicago. It was Mr. Ogden who first started the resuscitation and building of the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad. He negotiated for the purchase of the charter, and assets of the Company, of the proprietors in New York, in 1847, and was the first President of the Company. He was indefatigable in his exertions to commend the enterprise to public attention, and secure its commencement and energetic construction. But for the exertions of J. Y. SCAMMON, Esq., and himself, it could not have started when it did. It was their exertions, in the country, and in Chicago, that obtained the necessary subscriptions to justify the commencement of the undertaking. Without them, it would not have moved for years. In 1854-5, Mr. Ogden visited Europe, and was away from Chicago for about a year and a half. He was an accurate observer while abroad of men and things. The Institutions and great public works of Europe did not escape his attention, and some of them were carefully examined by him. It was the Canals of Holland, and especially the Great Ship Canal at Amsterdam, that first suggested to him the practicability, as well as importance and necessity of a channel for the free flow of the waters of Lake Michigan, through the Chicago and Des Plaines rivers, into the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, in aid of navigation in those rivers; and at the same time furnishing free, direct, and unbroken steamboat navigation between the Mississippi river and all its tributaries and Chicago. His letters from Europe were published in the Chicago Democratic Press at the time, and have attracted attention to this great subject, which has already many strong friends. While in Europe Mr. Ogden gave attention, also, to works of art and purchased quite a number of pictures and other matters of taste and art, most of them the productions of American artists of merit abroad, and which, not only adorn, the walls of his mansion, but do credit to their authors, and are valuable contributions to the improvement and gratification of the public taste in this new world. Mr. Ogden is a man of commanding person, and most agreeable manners—of extensive general information, and cultivated taste. We have never known a more amiable or gentlemanly man in his intercourse with others. His strong practical sense, and great presence of mind, make him at home almost everywhere. He is rarely at a loss. Although his education has not been such as to make him a belles lettres scholar, or an accomplished orator, he writes well, and is always listened to with attention when he addresses an audience; and few, if any men, exert more influence in a public body, upon any practical subject, than he does. As a traveling companion, we have never seen his equal. His prudence and foresight, and his love of doing the agreeable to others, relieves his compagnons de voyage of all care. It is natural for him to love to aid others. It affords him great satisfaction to be of service to his friends. Amidst the pressure of his enormous business, he finds time to relieve the distressed, and to aid the deserving; and many a family in Chicago, who are now basking in prosperity, owe their success to his kind assistance; many a poor widow and orphan have been preserved from want by his care and foresight. Mr. Ogden is now immensely rich; yet he retains the same fondness for enterprise, the same love for building roads, and developing the country, which have characterized his previous life. He is now President of the Chicago St. Paul and Fond du Lac R. R. Co., and of the Wisconsin and Superior Land Grant R. R. Co.; and under his auspices Chicago will, ere long, in all probability, be brought into direct communication with Lake Superior; and should he live long enough, we should not be surprised to see him building the Northwestern Railroad to the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Ogden has never married. In 1837 he built a delightful residence, in the center of a beautiful lot, thickly covered with fine native growth forest trees, and surrounded by four streets, in that part of the city called North Chicago; and there, when not absent from home, he indulges in that hospitality which is, at the same time, so cheering to his friends, and so agreeable to himself. Additional Comments: Source: Chicago Magazine, The West As It Is, Vol. 1, March 1857, No. 1 Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/cook/photos/bios/ogden657nbs.jpg File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/cook/bios/ogden657nbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/ File size: 22.1 Kb