Josiah Ogden Hoffman (politician, 1766)

Josiah Ogden Hoffman (born April 14, 1766 in Newark , Province of New Jersey , † January 24, 1837 in New York City ) was an American lawyer and politician .

Career

Josiah Ogden Hoffman, son of Sarah Ogden (1742-1821) and Nicholas Hoffmann (1736-1800), was during the reign of King George III. born in Essex County . His youth was overshadowed by the War of Independence . At one point he went to law school , got his bar license, and then began practicing in New York City. In the following years he joined the Federalist Party . On February 16, 1789, he married Mary Colden (1770–1797). The couple had four children, including Congressman Josiah Ogden Hoffman (politician, 1793) .

Hoffman sat in the New York State Assembly for New York County from 1791, 1792, 1792 to 1793, 1794, and 1795 . In 1795 he became Attorney General of New York - a post he held until 1802. During this time he was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1796 to 1797. On August 7, 1802, he married his second wife Maria Fenno (1781-1823), daughter of John Fenno. The couple had three children, including the poet Charles Fenno Hoffman (1806-1884).

From 1810 to 1811 and from 1813 to 1815 he was a recorder from New York City. He was again a member of the New York State Assembly from 1812 to 1813. In 1828 he was appointed first judge, along with Samuel Jones and Thomas J. Oakley , of the then-established New York City Superior Court - a post he held until his death in 1837.

Trivia

Washington Irving studied law at Hoffman's law firm and became engaged to his daughter Matilda Hoffman (1792-1809), who died before the marriage.

Gulian C. Verplanck also studied law at Hoffman's office and married Mary Eliza Fenno († 1817), the sister of Hoffman's second wife.

literature

• Eugene Augustus Hoffman: Genealogy of the Hoffman Family , Dodd, Mead & Company, pp. 204ff
• To Do Away With A Court , The New York Times, August 13, 1890