He became counselor at law in New Jersey in 1796.[7] He was concerned in the negotiations as to whether Aaron Burr, also from Newark and an executor of his grandfather's will, or Thomas Jefferson became president after the election of 1800, and was widely thought to have tried to get Burr become president.[8]Alexander Hamilton was for a time a legal partner with Ogden and his brother, Thomas Ludlow Ogden (1773–1844), until Hamilton's death in 1804.[2][4]
Ogden, with his brothers Thomas Ludlow Ogden and Gouverneur Ogden (1778–1851), developed through the Ogden Land Company huge tracts of northern New York state.[9] Through their position as counsel to the Holland Land Company, David and Thomas Ogden influenced the settlement of Western New York,[10] the construction of the Erie Canal, the determination of property law in New York, even political competition in the Republican Party.[4] Their company succeeded in buying the majority of the Seneca Indians' reservation by the reported use of bribery and intimidation in August 1826.[11]
Public office
He served as associate judge of the court of common pleas from 1811 to 1815. He also was a member of the New York State Assembly in 1814–15.[2]
Ogden was elected as a Federalist to the Fifteenth Congress (March 4, 1817 – March 3, 1819).[12] He was First Judge of the St. Lawrence County Court from 1820 to 1824 and from 1825 to 1829, and he was one of the commissioners to settle the boundary between Canada and the United States.[2]
Personal life
Ogden moved to Hamilton (now Waddington), St. Lawrence County, New York, and built a large mansion on Ogden Island. On May 30, 1797, he married Rebecca Cornell Edwards, the daughter of Isaac Edwards and Mary Cornell.[13][3] They were the parents of:
Isaac Edwards Ogden (1798–),[14] who married Euphrosine Mericult, Letitia Hanna, and Elizabeth Chamberlain[3]
Sarah Ogden (1799–1844), who married Charles Russell Codman (1784–1852)[3]
William Ogden (1801–1838), who married Harriet Seton Ogden (1806–1884), in 1832.[3]
