Aaron Ogden (3 December 1756 – 19 April 1839) was a US Senator from New Jersey from 28 February 1801 to 3 March 1803 (succeeding James Schureman and preceding John Condit) and Governor of New Jersey from 29 October 1812 to 29 October 1813 (succeeding Joseph Bloomfield and preceding William Sanford Pennington). He was a member of the Federalist Party.
Biography[]
Aaron Ogden was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1756, the uncle of future Governor Daniel Haines. He served as a Major in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and he was wounded at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781. Ogden was admitted to the bar in 1784 and opened a practice in Elizabeth, and he seved as clerk of Essex County from 1785 to 1803. Following the resignation of US Senator James Schureman, Ogden was appointed to finish his term, serving from 1801 to 1803. Ogden then served as Governor from 1812 to 1813, and he later opened a steamboat business. He was the defendant in Gibbons v. Ogden, which destroyed the monopoly power of steamboats on the Hudson River in 1824. In 1829, he moved to Jersey City and resumed the practice of law, but he fell into debt and was sent to debtors' prison; he was later released after the state legislature exempted Revolutionary War veterans from debt imprisonment. In 1830, he became Collector of Customs of Jersey City, and he died in office in 1839.