Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/393

 Peter Skene Ogden 365 Daughters of Oregon Pioneers, and of other Oregon pio- neers and their descendants. Oregon City is thus greatly favored and has become the Mecca of Oregon pioneers and their descendants, and this will continue until the end of time. Let me give you a brief summary of the life of Peter Skene Ogden. His father was Isaac Ogden, a distinguished lawyer, living in New Jersey at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. He was a loyalist and a man of sterling integrity and honor and of great moral worth. It was his right to adhere to the doctrine that the English king should rule over the American Colonies. It was a question of conscience with him. But his position was unpleasant, surrounded as he was by those who upheld the American Revolutionary War. Isaac Ogden's father was Judge David Ogden, a grad- uate of Yale College of the class of 1728. David Ogden was a prominent lawyer, living at Newark, New Jersey. In 1783 Isaac Ogden abandoned his property in New Jersey and went to England. In 1788 he was appointed by King George III Judge of Admiralty at Quebec, and he went there to live. In 1794 he was appointed one of the Puisne Judges of the District of Montreal. He, at once, removed with his family to Montreal, Canada. Peter Skene Ogden was born in Quebec, in 1794, the exact date apparently cannot be ascertained. He died at Oregon City, Oregon, September 27, 1854. His mother's maiden name was Sarah Hanson. She was a sister of John Wilkinson Hanson, a captain in the British Army. The name "Ogden" is of Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, and Old English origin. It is derived from the Saxon or Old English word "Oke," meaning "Oak," and the Anglo- Saxon word "Denn," meaning a sunken or wooded vale, glen, or dale. It was sometimes written "dean" or "dene." Its English equivalent is the word "den." When sur- names were adopted in England, undoubtedly Peter Skene