Ogden, Benjamin

Ogden, Benjamin, a pioneer preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born in New Jersey in 1764. In youth he served in the Revolutionary war, and had great influence over his fellow-soldiers. He afterwards moved to Kentucky, then a hunting-ground for Indian tribes, to engage in missionary labors, and for many years thereafter he penetrated the valley of the Mississippi in laborious toil, and in spite of many hardships gave the Gospel-tidings to the much-neglected Indians. He was greatly comforted and cheered in his work by the kindly assistance rendered him by Thomas Stevenson and his wife, those saintly pioneer workers in the Southern Methodist field, who organized the first Methodist Church in Kentucky. In 1788 Ogden located on account of poor health. He died in 1834. He was a man of talent, and was deeply imbued with the spirit of his vocation as a primitive Methodist preacher. See Stevens, Hist. of the M. E. Church, 2:360; Redford, Hist. of Methodism in Kentucky, 2:385; McFerrin, Hist. of Methodisnm in Tennessee, 1:36, 40, 44, 45.