Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/255

Peter Skene Ogden, Fur Trader. 233 nent lawyers in the state. Samuel Ogden, and his nephew David, became interested in land purchases along the St. Lawrence out of the tracts ceded by the Iroquois Nation, colonized those tracts and the city of Ogdensburg took its beginning and name from them. These facts and traditions concerning the antecedents of Peter Skene Ogden are related somewhat at length because of their inherent interest, and also because they indicate the kind of blood that ran in his veins and the opportunities and associations he was depriving himself of in undertaking and enduring the hardships common to the life of a fur trader. We can also understand why his father and mother gave him the family name Peter, after that of the uncle who had remained loyal to the crown, but who had died before 1794. The name Skene came to him from outside the family. Among other prominent U. E, Loyalists then residing in Quebec were the Skenes, formerly of Skenesboro (now Whitehall) on the shores of Lake Champlain in New York state. These two families, the Ogdens and the Skenes, had been possessed of large properties and accustomed to the luxuries of life and were living in Quebec in circumstances limited for people of their social station, and a common bond of sympathy existed between them. Andrew Skene was also a jurist, and became god-father to this, the youngest son of Judge Ogden. Hence the middle name which is properly spelled SKENE, but in later years was spelled indiscrim- inately Skeen and Skein by the man who bore it, because he said it looked better and he enjoyed a little variety in life. Judge Isaac Ogden was, very soon after 1794, by the recom- mendation of Lord Dorchester (then Governor General of Canada), appointed to be one of the Puisne Judges of the District of Montreal, and at once removed his family to that city, and it was there, persumably, that the boyhood and youth of his son Peter Skene were spent. There is no record as to those years, although the record as to a brother, Charles Richard, three years his senior, is that he, Charles, "was