PETER SKENE OGDEN
 
The Oregonian Newspaper
Dec. 19, 1909, p 2

"Peter Skene Ogden, Astoria, 1818"
     The following biographical facts are drawn from the address delivered
before the Oregon Historical Society at its annual meeting yesterday afternoon,
by Mr. T. C. Elliott, of Walla Walla.
 
     Peter Skene Ogden was born in the City of Quebec in the year 1794, the
exact date not yet having been traced.  His father was then a Judge in the
Admiralty Court at Quebec and a leading U. E. Loyalist of Canada.  His mother
was Sarah Hanson Ogden from Livingston Manor near New York City, a sister of
Captain John Wilkinson Hanson, of the British army.  His grandfather was Judge
David Ogden, of Newark, N. J., a graduate from Yale College in the class of
1728.
     Judge Isaac Ogden, the father of Peter Skene, graduated from king's
College, now Columbia University, of New York City.  During the Revolution the
family split, Isaac and two other brothers becoming Royalists.  Isaac lost his
property by confiscation and fled to New York, and from there to England, in
1783, but in 1768 was by King George III appointed to the Judgeship in Canada.
Soon after the birth of Peter Skene he was promoted to be Puisne Judge at
Montreal and removed there.  Of the two brothers who spoused the side of the
colonies, Abraham became a close adviser to General Washington, and his house at
Morristown was the headquarters at one time.  he was a prominent attorney and
appointed District Attorney for New Jersey by President Washington.  The other,
Samuel, purchased land in Northern New York and colonized it and founded the
city of Ogdensburg.
     The name Skene came from outside the family.  Another prominent U. E.
Loyalist was Judge Skene, who acted as godfather to this, his associate's
youngest son.  The name is properly spelled Skene, but was often misspelled
Skeen.
     Peter Skene was undoubtedly educated in a private family, but early in life
began his career in the fur trade as a clerk in the office of John Jacob Astor,
at Montreal.  He also began the study of law and acquired some knowledge of
legal phrases, but in 1811, at the age of 17, obtained a position as clerk with
the Northwest Company, probably through his brother, who was a prominent
attorney for that company.  He was located until 1718 at Isle a La Crosse Fort
in Southern Athabasca.  This locality takes its name from the game of La Crosse,
which the Indians there were playing when first discovered.  He participated in
many exciting events in the region of Isle a La Crosse.  Ross Cox gives a very
interesting description of him there.
     In 1818 he was transferred to the Columbia and arrived at Fort George
(Astoria) in June.  On the way he had an encounter with the Indians at the Walla
Walla River and perhaps assisted in the building of the fort of that name that
Summer.  He spent two years with trapping parties in the Cowlitz and Chehalis
and Willapa neighborhoods, with headquarters at Fort George, and the next two
years at the interior forts of Spokane and Flathead.  In the Fall of 18XX, he
went to Canada and that Winter to London, called there by the ill health of his
father and the merger of the two fur companies.  In the Summer of 1823 he
returned to the Columbia in charge of the Fall Express from York Factory on
Hudson's Bay.  He had by this time acquired an interest in the company.
 
     In the Fall of 1824 he was at Spokane House when Governor Simpson and Dr.
McLoughlin arrived from across the mountains and was assigned to take charge of
the Snake Country Brigade, which started on the annual trading and trapping
expedition in December of that year.  They reached the Snake country by the
bitter Root Valley and Gibbon Pass, in the dead of Winter.  He remained in
charge of the Snake Brigade for five seasons and the sixth season, that of
1829-30, led the brigade along the eastern side of the Sierras to the Gulf of
California.  During this period he explored many localities not before known to
white men, especially central and Southern Oregon and Nevada and Western Utah,
and suffered many hardships and dangers.  His name has been permanently attached
to the river and city in Utah, and the Humboldt River was called Ogden's River
for many years.  He named Mount Shasta on one of his expeditions.  He had been
promoted to be Chief Trader in 1824.
     Returning from California in the Fall of 1830 he found himself named to
command the expedition to the Coast of British Columbia, where the Yankee
vessels were getting too much trade, but the sickness of the servants at Fort
Vancouver delayed the expedition until April, 1831.  That year he built the fort
at the Nass River, near to where Port Simpson is now located a post on Milbank
Sound and in 1834 attempted to enter the Stikine river to build a fort within
the 30-mile limit, but the Russian-American Fur Company officials objected, and
he thought best not to force a passage.  That Fall he returned to Fort
Vancouver.
     The following Spring he was promoted to a Chief Factorship, the second on
the Columbia, and placed in charge of the New Caledonia district, with six forts
under his charge with headquarters at Fort St. James on Lake Stuart.  There he
remained until the Spring of 1844, and was eminently successful in the
management of the district, bringing in furs to the value of $100,000 to Fort
Vancouver every Spring.  He was during this time made a member of the board of
management of the Columbia District, which met at Fort Vancouver every year.
 
     In 1844 he crossed the mountains on a year's leave of absence, and visited
Canada and Europe, and returned in the Summer of 1845, in charge of the
Warre-Vavasour party, to the Columbia, in behalf of the British government.
From that time he became the Factor closest to the confidence of Colonial
Governor Simpson, and in many ways succeeded Dr. McLoughlin, who retired from
Fort Vancouver in 1846.  After James Douglas moved to Victoria in 184X, Mr.
Ogden was in full charge on the Columbia up to the time of his death.  The year
1852 he spent in Canada and New York and vicinity, and visited Washington to
present claims of the company for advances during the Cayuse war and assisted
Governor Simpson in business matters there.  Returning by way of the Isthmus of
Panama in the Winter of 1853, he was a passenger on the Tennessee, which was
wrecked on the California coast, near Telegraph Rock, in March, and by some
exertion or exposure then contracted or aggravated some disease that caused his
death.  He died at the home of his favorite daughter, Mrs. Archibald McKinlay,
of Oregon City, in September, 1854, at the age of 60 years.  The Rev. St.
Michael Fackler officiated at his burial in the Mountain View Cemetery of that
city, where his grave may be seen, a wild rose bush its only adornment, and the
shining peak of Mount Hood his only monument.
     Peter Skene Ogden was twice married (according to Fur Company custom).  His
first wife was a Cree, and his second a Spokane woman.  The latter resided with
him for many years at Fort Vancouver, and afterward at Oregon City, where a
house was built for her on the McKinlay donation claim.  During his last
illness, Dr. McLoughlin visited Mr. Ogden, and urged him to have a legal
ceremony performed, but Mr. Ogden refused, saying that his open support of and
companionship with this wife for many years counted for more than any mere words
a clergyman might utter.  His oldest son was named Peter, and was educated at
the Presbyterian School on Red River, and became prominent in the Hudson's Bay
Company service, being twice in charge of the New Caledonia District, where his
father had been.  His descendants are scattered through British Columbia and
elsewhere in Canada, some of them still in the employ of the Hudson's Bay
Company.
 
     The service for which Peter Skene Ogden is best known in Oregon was his
ransom of the survivors of the Whitman massacre in December, 1847.  It is
probable that no other man, with the possible exception of Dr. Robert Newell, of
Champoeg, could have accomplished this rescue.  The Indians had known Mr. Ogden
for more than 30 years, and knew that he always kept his word, and they trusted
him.  But he was careful to make them no promises, and not to upbraid them for
what their Indian nature had made inevitable.  He himself was not so very fond
of the "missionarying," as he called it, but had great admiration for Mrs.
Whitman.  He was known to the Indians during his later years as the Old
Whitehead.  During his management at Fort Vancouver, he came to be generally
known by the whites as Governor Ogden.  He never became a citizen of the United
States, but described himself in his will as of Montreal, Canada.  In stature he
was below medium height, and in later life quite corpulent; his voice was not
squeaky, as so often stated, but harsh.
     Mr. Ogden was well known for his genial disposition.  Lieutenant Wilkes
wrote of him:  "Mr. Ogden is a general favorite; and there is so much hilarity,
and such a fund of amusement about him, that one is extremely fortunate to fall
into his company."  And Father DeSmet wrote:  "I shall never forget the kindness
and friendly manner with which the gentleman treated me throughout the journey,
nor the many agreeable hours I spent in his company.  I found his conversation
instructive, his anecdotes and bon mots entertaining and timely; it was with
great regret that I parted from him."  The estimate of one of his chief traders
of the Hudson's Bay Company is as follows:  "He was undoubtedly a wonderful man.
Whenever the Hudson's Bay Company had occasion to send any of its officers on a
dangerous expedition, Peter Skene Ogden was sure of the berth.  His even temper,
his great flow of good humor, and his wonderful patience, toll and perseverance,
his utter disregard of personal inconvenience and suffering, rendered him just
the man for any difficult or dangerous task.  He was greatly esteemed by his
brother officers, and nearly worshipped by his men and the Indians."
 
 
The Oregonian Newspaper
Aug. 29, 1923,  p 4

"Ogden Memorial Made"
     To the memory of Peter Skene Ogden, over whose grave in Mountain View
cemetery in Oregon City the grass has matted itself since 1854, the Oregon
Historical society is to erect a monument and tombstone in one.
     The stone, a great granite block six feet high, and on it a brief sketch of
the life of the old pioneer of the Oregon country whose services were next to
those of the famous Dr. John McLoughlin himself and whose name is perhaps best
remembered for his rescue of the survivors of the Whitman massacre, was
completed yesterday by the Bleasing Granite company.  Plans are yet to be
announced for placing it.
     Until three Portland men, Leslie M. Scott, Albert Hawkins and H. J.
Blaesing, took it upon themselves to find his grave a week or so ago, Ogden's
burial place in the oldest part of the pioneer Oregon City cemetery had been
forgotten.  They found it, however, located exactly by four moldering stakes
which still remained intact.  Their efforts were under the auspices of the
historical society.
     Peter Skene Ogden, the stone will tell visitors to the cemetery, was born
in Quebec in 1794 and died in Oregon City in 1854.  He was a fur trader and
explorer in all the area then known as Oregon.  After him Ogden, Utah, and the
Ogden river in Utah were named.  He arrived in the Columbia district in 1818 in
the service of the Northwest company.  He was later chief factor at Fort
Vancouver for the Hudson's Bay company, which absorbed and drove out the
Northwest company.  Fort George (Astoria) under his control produced furs to the
value of $100,000, which were brought into Vancouver each spring.
     In rescuing the 53 women and children, survivors of the Whitman massacre,
Ogden performed a service which it is believed could not have been accomplished
by anyone else.  Known to the Indians as a man of honesty, he used an amazing
frontier diplomacy supplemented by his knowledge of the red race to effect the
release of the half-hundred unfortunates.
     During his management of Fort Vancouver he was known to the whites as
Governor Ogden and filled a place second only to that occupied by McLoughlin.
He never became a citizen of the United States.  His two wives were Indian
women, as was the custom among Hudson's Bay men.  He died at the age of 60 at
Oregon City in the house he had built on the McKinlay donation claim.
   The ground around his plot has been cleared and prepared for the stone to
mark it.  It is considered probable that appropriate ceremonies will mark its
placing.


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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in November 2010 by Diana Smith.
Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned
above.