People and incidents
Joshua Ogden (1879)
Sources compared; probable burial record identified
Ogden’s body was identified in Ship Creek on February 17, 1879; investigators initially considered violence but thought a fall on a hazardous path could explain his injuries. A cemetery record consistent with the clipping’s details places the death in Chester, Pennsylvania.
Death
A report datelined February 17 says a body found in Ship Creek the previous afternoon was recognized as Joshua Ogden, a local resident. He had last been seen Saturday afternoon in a North Ward saloon and was thought to have taken a shortcut toward Upland through the Ship Creek woods. The path near the discovery site was steep or rough and slippery. Bruises first prompted suspicion of murder, but officials considered them consistent with a fall, particularly because the report believed Ogden had been drinking. A coroner’s inquest was scheduled for the following day; the available report does not give its result.
A probable match in the burial record
Both “Upland” and “North Ward” are real places in and around Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, not the New Jersey Pine Barrens proper, which raised the question of where this clipping actually belongs. A Find a Grave memorial for a Joshua Ogden, born May 22, 1815, in England, records his death on February 16, 1879, at about age 62–63, with burial at Chester Rural Cemetery in Chester, Pennsylvania; it lists a wife, Margaret Farraday Ogden, and several children. The death date (the day before the February 17 dateline, matching “the previous afternoon”) and the Chester/Upland place names together make this very likely the same man. The clipping gives no age, occupation or family detail against which the memorial could be tested further. The cemetery record itself does not reference the newspaper account or describe how he died, so the identification is treated here as probable rather than certain, and this entry’s Pine Barrens placement should be read with that Chester-area location in mind.
Sources
Newspaper brief headed “Accident,” datelined February 17, 1879. The dateline place, masthead, page, and the final word naming what Ogden fell into are illegible in the surviving copy.
Find a Grave memorial 162154944, Joshua Ogden (1815–1879), Chester Rural Cemetery, Chester, Pennsylvania — inspected September 11, 2026. Provides a death date, approximate age, burial place, and family names consistent with the clipping, but the match to this specific news item is inferential, not documented on the memorial itself.