Josiah Ogden Hoffman was born on April 14, 1766, in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Nicholas Hoffman (1736–1800) and Sarah Ogden Hoffman (1742–1821). He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practiced in New York City, and entered politics as a Federalist.[1]
From 1810 to 1811, he was Recorder of New York City; again a member of the State Assembly in 1812–13; and again Recorder of New York City from 1813 to 1815.
In 1828, he was appointed as one of the first justices (with Samuel Jones and Thomas J. Oakley) of the then established New York City Superior Court, and remained on the bench until his death in 1837.[3]
Sarah Matilda Hoffman (1791–1809), who was engaged to Washington Irving (1783–1859), who studied law at Hoffman's office, but did not wed because of her death before the marriage took place.
Ogden Hoffman (1794–1856), a Congressman,[5] who married Emily Burrall and later Virginia Southard.
He was a member of the New York Society Library, which has records of some of the books he borrowed between 1790 and 1805.[6]
Following his first wife's death in 1797, on August 7, 1802, he married Maria Fenno (1781–1823), daughter of John Fenno (1751–1798), the Federalist editor of the Gazette of the United States. Maria's sister, Mary Eliza Fenno (d. 1817) married Gulian C. Verplanck. Together, Hoffman and Maria had three children, including:
^[1] National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser, July 20, 1804, p. 2.
^[2] History of the City Superior Court, in the New York Times on August 13, 1890
^ ab"Josiah Ogden Hoffman"(PDF). auburnhistoricproperties.org. Auburn Historic Properties. Archived from the original(PDF) on 19 September 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
William Wickham Hoffman, Eleven generations of Hoffmans in New York; descendants of Martin Hoffman, 1657-1957 (New York: American Historical Co., 1957).
