[1] His father was a noted jurist and a member of the supreme court for the royal Province of New Jersey before the Revolutionary War.
Samuel's brother Abraham Ogden served as Commissioner to the Indians in Northern New York after the Revolutionary War, and became aware that the state was selling large portions of land that had been ceded by the Iroquois nations.
The brothers purchased a large tract of land in New York with Gouverneur Morris and others, south of the Saint Lawrence River.
The Mohawk and three other nations had been allies (highly decentralized in band actions) during the war with the British, who were defeated.
[1] In 1805, Samuel Ogden was working with Colonel William Stephens Smith, a prominent federal official in New York, to obtain soldiers, money, and war material for General Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan war hero who was waging revolution to liberate South America from oppressive Spanish rule.
On February 2, 1806, Miranda sailed from New York City for Venezuela on the Leander armored by Ogden, and carrying 180 men and weapons.
Put on trial in Puerto Cabello for piracy, ten of the mercenaries (mostly Americans) were sentenced to death by hanging.
When the expedition was publicized by the Spanish ambassador in Washington, Smith and Ogden were arrested in New York for violating the federal Neutrality Act of 1794.
Judge William Paterson of the US Supreme Court ruled that the President "cannot authorize a person to do what the law forbids."
On November 24, 1807, Col. Ogden moved to quash the indictment of Aaron Burr for the murder of General Alexander Hamilton after the Burr–Hamilton duel.