Female

1779

1866

Litchfield, CT

Amelia Ogden is believed to have been the daughter of the unmarried Aaron Ogden and Eunice Edwards Pollock, a widow. Amelia was given her father's name and a financial legacy. Local lore indicates that she first lived with the family of an African American woman who helped her mother through childbirth in Philadelphia, and then on the farm of a German American family in Princeton. Around 1792, she was sent to Goshen, Connecticut to live with the reverend Asahel Hooker, whose wife was her double first cousin. In 1797, Amelia came to live with Sally Burr Reeve who was also her cousin. It is believed that she attended the Litchfield Female Academy while a resident of Litchfield. She went on to teach French at the school. It is thought that Amelia did not know of her familial connections to the ...families she lived with until very late in life.

During her time as a student Amelia was courted by several of the law students, but never married. She remained at the Reeve house after the death of Sally and Tapping Reeve and acted as a companion to Judge Reeve's second wife. Reeve had named Ogden as guardian for his grandson Tapping Burr Reeve if his widow were to die before the boy turned twenty-one.

At Elizabeth Reeve's death, Amelia inherited the Reeve house where she lived until her own death in 1866. She was financially supported by her Devereux nephews, who attended the Law School and lived in South Carolina, until the Civil War when correspondence between the north and south stopped.

Esther Thompson, a great-niece of Elizabeth Thompson Reeve, wrote at length about Ogden's background and much of this information is from her writing, as well as the Devereaux family papers at Duke University.
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"Another inmate of this family was Miss Amelia Ogden, an orphan, who held the place of a daughter in the household. She was a lady of cultivated tastes and great enthusiasm in all her feelings and pursuits. Her flower-beds were a marvel of beauty and splendor to my youthful eyes, and exceeded any thing of the kind in that vicinity." Catharine Beecher, Autobiography, correspondence, etc., of Lyman Beecher, D.D Beecher, Lyman, 1864 Accessed at https://archive.org/stream/autobiographyco03beecgoog/autobiographyco03beecgoog_djvu.txt May 12, 2023

"Here let me offer a tribute to the friendship of Amelia C. Ogden, a young lady, who forms a part of the family. To a mind uncommonly ...well cultivated, is added the most philanthropic disposition, placid temper, and lively conversation. The kindness she always manifested towards me and the interest apparently felt in my welfare, justly entitled her to the appelation of my most particular friend. A familiarity tempered by a proper degree of dignity and reserve, has existed between us, and it is with regret that I foresee it must so soon be broken off forever. But gratitude speaks loudly in her behalf, while her unaffected goodness has made an impression on my heart which nothing but the elapse of time can efface". William D. Martin, The Journal of William D. Martin, Charlotte, N.C.: Heritage House, 1959, p. 42.

Hon. Tapping Reeve, a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, and founder of The Litchfield Law School in 1784. Amelia B. Ogden, a resident of his family from her childhood, died in his house, Jan. 15, 1866, ae. 87. A genealogical register of the inhabitants of the town of Litchfield, Conn., from the settlement of the town, A. D. 1720, to the year 1800, whereby one knowing his father's name, may perhaps ascertain who were some of his antecedent progenitors Woodruff, George Catlin, 1903. Accessed at https://archive.org/details/genealogicalregi00woodiala/page/182/mode/2up?q=ogden May 12, 2023

Esther Thompson, the great-niece of Elizabeth Thompson Reeve, wrote that Amelia was, "the disowned illegitimate child of heartless, wealthy, aristocratic parentage."
She described her as, "A tall angular woman of commanding figure with homely protruding blue eyes, large mouth, enormous hooked nose, and light tawny-grey streaked hair under a trim white shirred sun bonnet. Surely her face, though plain then seemed kindly, and later the child realized that it showed marked intellectual strength and a sweet refinement of expression."
("Gardens of Old Litchfield," Thompson family papers).
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1797

She is listed as the French teacher on the 1830 Catalogue of the Litchfield Female Academy (Vanderpoel, Emily Noyes. More Chronicles of A Pioneer School From 1792 to 1833. Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1927).

"Aaron Burr, " Evening Post (ca. 1874) photocopy (Litchfield Historical Society - Reeve Collection).

"Yards and Gardens of Old Litchfield", circa 1923 April 22-Nov 16" Thompson family papers, Box 3 Folder 35