Ogden Haggerty Hammond was born on the 13th October 1869 in Louisville, Kentucky, in the United States of America. He was the second eldest of six children born to General John Henry and Sophia Vernon Hammond (née Wolfe). His father had served in the American Civil War as Chief of Staff to General Tecumseh Sherman, before being promoted to the rank of General himself, and was also known as “The Father of Superior”, for his role in transforming the Wisconsin swamp in to the thriving city that Superior had become. His mother was the daughter of Nathaniel Wolfe, a former Attorney-General for the State of Kentucky.
In 1873, the Ogden family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where General Hammond became the president of a bank, a position which was short-lived when the bank closed due to the “Panic of 1873”. The then President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, then appointed him Inspector of Indian Agencies, and the family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where they took up residence in the former Forepaugh mansion.
Ogden and his brother, John, were educated at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, and then Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. In the spring of 1890, while Ogden was studying at Yale, his father fell ill and subsequently died at his home in St. Paul.
Following his graduation from Yale, he moved to Superior, where his widowed mother now lived, and like his father before him, became active in the local community. He became a lieutenant in the National Guard, and was twice elected alderman of the sixth district of Superior. With a friend, Paul Stratton, he started an insurance business.
While on a visit to Bernardsville, New Jersey, a friend introduced Ogden to his future wife, Mary Picton Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey. Her family had founded the city, and also the Stevens Institute of Technology.
On 8th April 1907, the couple married in the Episcopal Trinity Church, Hoboken, the groom being 38 years, and the bride being almost 22 years. For the first year of their marriage, they resided in Superior, but later moved to 30, East Street, New York City. They also purchased a country home in Bernardsville, New Jersey, a “summer cottage” comprising of 47 rooms, and moved in just prior to the birth of their first child, a daughter, in 1908. They had two further children, a girl and a boy.
In New York, Mr. Hammond continued as an insurance broker, before expanding in to real estate. His office was at 80, Malden Lane, New York and was also secretary and director of The Standard Plunger Elevator Company of 115, Broadway. He also became president of the Broadway Improvement Company, and vice-president of the Stevens’ family’s Hoboken Land and Improvement Company.
Ogden next entered politics where he served on the Bernardsville Borough Council from 1912 until 1914, before being elected as a republican candidate to a one-year term on the New Jersey Assembly in 1915.
In the spring of 1915, his wife became involved in the Red Cross and decided to go to Europe to establish a hospital in France to aid victims of the war raging in Europe. Unable to dissuade her from travelling, Ogden decided to accompany her. He booked saloon passage for himself and his wife on the May sailing of the Lusitania
from New York to Liverpool. The couple stayed at the East 70th Street address the night before, joining the liner at her berth at Pier 54 in New York, on the morning of 1st May 1915.
Having boarded with ticket number 46099, the Hammonds were allocated room D20, which was the personal responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward William S. Fletcher, who came from Liscard, Wallasey, Cheshire, on the opposite bank of the River Mersey from Liverpool.
The vessel’s departure was then delayed until the early afternoon as she had to embark passengers and some crew and load cargo from the Anchor Lines ship the S.S.
Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for use as a troop ship at the end of April. Then, six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May 1915, the
Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. At this point in her voyage, she was within sight of the southern Irish coast and only hours away from her Liverpool home port and destination. Although Mary Hammond was killed as a result of this action, Ogden Hammond survived. He was aged 45 years at the time.
He later told his experiences to representatives of the press and his account appeared in many newspapers across the world, including the
New York Times of 10th May 1915, which stated: -
When the torpedo struck us I was on the starboard side of the boat deck with my wife. An officer said “go back; there is no danger,” and I wanted to go to our stateroom to get some things together but my wife wouldn't let me go. Some stewards started to lower a boat and put my wife and the other women in sight in it and got in myself. The man at the bow let the rope slip through his hands while the man at the stern paid it out too slowly.
The situation was terrible. We were dropping perpendicularly when I caught the rope and tried to stop the boat from falling. My hands were torn to shreds, but the boat fell, and all in it were thrown into the water, a dense struggling mass.
I went down and down, with thirty people on top of me. I thought I never could come back and must have been partly unconscious, for I can only remember getting almost to the surface, sinking back again, and doing this three or four times. Then I was hauled into some boat, but no one else from the boat that fell, was ever seen again.
This included his wife Mary Hammond, whose body was never found and identified. As a result of trying to stop the lifeboat from falling, Ogden Hammond's right hand was badly injured.
One occupant of the lifeboat into which Ogden Hammond was hauled, was second cabin passenger Rose Lohden, who was travelling to Bristol in Gloucestershire with her daughter Elsie. Her experiences of the sinking, which included a light hearted story concerning Ogden Hammond, were published in the newspaper The Western Mail
on 10th May 1915: -
There was one little touch of subdued humour to relieve our gloom amid those terrible scenes. Mr. Hammond the New York magnate was picked up by us. A steward had lent him his coat and not knowing Mr. Hammond by sight, I remarked as we drew him on board “Well steward, I’m so glad you were saved.”
“Thank you Madam” he replied, and just then I caught sight of the fashionable yellow boots and spats he was wearing, and a man sitting in front of me gave a sad smile. “That’s the millionaire Hammond of New York,” he observed.
Soon after Ogden Hammond was landed at Queenstown, probably from the harbour tender
The Flying Fish, he cabled the sad news of his wife’s death to her aunt, Mrs. H. Otto Wittpen of Hoboken, New York. This may have caused unnecessary distress as the first Cunard list published in America stated that Mary Hammond had been saved. Ogden also learned of these reports and learned that Mrs. Hammond was being treated in a local hospital. On going to the hospital, he discovered that this woman was Mrs. Kathleen Hammond, a Canadian passenger who had also survived the sinking, but had lost her husband, Frederick. Despite his own distress at not finding his wife, he was moved by Kathleen Hammond’s plight and gave her money to purchase new clothing and aid in her return home.
Ogden Hammond made his way to Dublin, where he was hospitalized for three weeks, because, aside from the injury to his hand, which became badly infected, he also suffered a broken rib and a wrenched back and neck. Not surprisingly, he also suffered from severe shock.
Bedroom Steward Fletcher who had looked after the Hammonds in room D20, also survived the sinking, and eventually got back to his Wallasey home.
Ogden Hammond returned to his children in New York in June 1915, and some time later filed a claim for compensation for his wife’s death and the loss of their personal property with the U.S. State Department. He returned to his real estate and insurance businesses, and in 1916, was re-elected to the New Jersey Assembly.
Ogden became vice-chairman on the New Jersey State Board of Charities and Corrections, and also the Prison Inquiry Commission. In 1917, when the United States declared war on Germany, Ogden became chairman of the United States Food Administration for Somerset County. Also in 1917, Ogden declined an invitation to be nominated to run for the State Senate, as he personally knew a mayor and a judge who were lobbying for the nomination, and he did not want to engage in a bitter fight with either, and thus lose their friendship.
In December 1917, while attending a wedding, the parents of the bride announced the engagement of Ogden to an aunt of the bride, Mrs. Marguerite “Daisy” McClure Howland, a widow, whose husband had also died in 1915, leaving her with a son named McClure, who was commonly known as “Mac”. Their engagement was a short one, as they married later that month, on the 21st December. The wedding took place at the bride’s home – 22. West 49th Street, New York City.
“Daisy” and her son, “Mac”, moved in to the Hammond home, but did not endear themselves to the three Hammond children. For social reasons, Daisy decided that it was best for the Hammonds to spend their summers in Newport, Rhode Island, abandoning Bernardsville, and from the summer of 1919, the Hammonds rented a summer home which was only a few doors away from the Vanderbilt mansion – The Breakers.
On the 21st February 1924, the Mixed Claims Commission decided on the various claims filed. They awarded Ogden Hammond the sum of $15,000.00, personally, for the loss of his wife, and a further $2,970.00 to compensate him for the loss of his personal belongings. In addition, the sum of $5,000.00 was awarded to each of the three Hammond children – Mary Stevens Hammond, born in 1907, Millicent Vernon Hammond, born in 1910, and Ogden “Oggie” Haggerty Hammond Jr., born in 1912. Ogden Hammond and John Henry Hammond, executors of the estate of Mary Picton Stevens Hammond were awarded the sum of $31,143.00 as compensation for the loss of her belongings in the sinking, the most expensive item being a pearl necklace, valued at $25,000.00, which had been a Stevens’ family heirloom.
In late 1925, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge offered Ogden an ambassadorship, giving him the choice of Argentina or Spain. There had been rumours that Ogden was destined to become the ambassador to Germany, but perhaps of his
Lusitania connection, this did not materialise. The J.P. Morgan Bank wished Ogden to accept the Argentinean position, so that they could increase their business in that country, offering Ogden a partnership in the bank, but Ogden deferred to Daisy’s wishes, and accepted the Spanish appointment instead. Daisy preferred Spain because it had royalty, whereas Argentina did not!
In December 1925, Daisy withdrew Mary and Millicent from Foxcroft School, where all four children were pupils, and Ogden, Daisy, Mary, and Millicent set out for the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, leaving “Mac” and Oggie” to continue their studies. The Hammonds were popular in Spain, and Spanish-American relations improved under Ogden’s tenure as Ambassador. The family, in line with affluent Spaniards, and the Spanish royal family, spent their summers in the northern coastal resort of San Sebastian. It was here that Ogden secured a deal with the Spanish dictator, Miguel Primo de Riviera, to provide a national telephone system for Spain, a task which was completed by 1927.
When Herbert Hoover was elected U.S. President in 1928, appointees of the previous administration were obliged to resign their posts, in keeping with accepted protocol, and Ogden was obliged to resign as Ambassador to Spain. Shortly before his return to the United States, the Spanish Royal Court presented Ogden with the Gold Cross of Isabella for his public service.
On returning to New York, Ogden became the president of the First National Bank of New Jersey, and in 1948, sold his Bernardsville mansion. At a later date, it would be purchased by his daughter, Millicent.
Ogden Hammond died on 29th October 1956, at his home at 18. East 82nd Street, New York City, not long after his 87th birthday, and was buried next to his father at Oakland Cemetery in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Of Ogden’s three children, Mary married Count Ghino Roberti, an Italian diplomat, on 8th August 1931. They had no children, and Mary died in Italy in 1958 from a radiation overdose associated with cancer therapy she was receiving at that time. Her husband later re-married.
Millicent married Hugh McLeod Fenwick on 11th June 1932, much against Daisy’s wishes, as Hugh had divorced his first wife in 1931 to marry her. They had two children before they separated in 1938, finally divorcing in 1945. She became a writer for
Vogue magazine, and on hearing of her sister’s illness, she went to Italy and nursed her until her death. Later, like her father, she became active in politics and served as ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. In the 1960’s, she was active in civil rights movements and local and state politics in New Jersey. In 1975, then aged 64 years, she was elected to the U.S. Congress, but later failed in her bid to be elected to the U.S. Senate. She died on 16th September 1992.
Ogden Hammond Jr. died in 1976, having married on three occasions.
New York Marriage License Indexes 1907 – 2018, New York Death Index 1949 – 1965, 1870 U.S. Federal Census, 1880 U.S. Federal Census, 1885 Minnesota Territorial and State Census, 1900 U.S. Federal Census, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, 1920 U.S. Federal Census, 1930 U.S. Federal Census, U.S. Passport Applications 1795 – 1925, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 290 & 292, The Last Voyage of the Lusitania, New York Times, Newark Evening Star, Orange Advertiser, Western Mail, PRO 22/71, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.