Andrew Jackson Ogle

Andrew Jackson Ogle (March 25, 1822 – October 14, 1852) was a Pennsylvania lawyer, local official, and Whig member of the U.S. House of Representatives. A member of a prominent political family in western Pennsylvania, he was the son of Alexander Ogle Jr., the grandson of Alexander Ogle, and the nephew of Charles Ogle, all of whom were active in state and national politics. He was born in Somerset, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, on March 25, 1822, and grew up in an environment closely connected to public affairs and the law.

Ogle pursued his education at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, an institution that later became part of Washington & Jefferson College. After his collegiate studies, he read law and prepared for a legal career. He was admitted to the bar in 1843 and commenced the practice of law in Somerset, where he quickly established himself as a young attorney within the community.

In addition to his legal practice, Ogle entered public service at an early age. He was elected prothonotary of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in 1845, serving as the chief clerk of the county’s court system. This position placed him at the center of local judicial administration and enhanced his standing in county affairs, providing a foundation for his subsequent political career at the national level.

Ogle was elected as a Whig to the Thirty-first Congress and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania from March 4, 1849, to March 3, 1851. During his term in Congress, he represented the interests of his district at a time of growing sectional tensions in the United States and the realignment of national political parties. He sought reelection in 1850 but was an unsuccessful candidate, and his congressional service concluded at the end of his first term.

Following his departure from Congress, Ogle remained aligned with the Whig Party and continued to be recognized within national political circles. On January 22, 1852, he was appointed United States Chargé d’Affaires to Denmark, a diplomatic post that would have placed him in charge of American interests in that country. However, he did not assume his duties at that post, and his diplomatic career did not formally begin.

Ogle’s life and career were cut short later that same year. He died in Somerset, Pennsylvania, on October 14, 1852, at the age of thirty. He was interred in Union Cemetery in Somerset, where members of his politically influential family were also buried, marking the early end of a figure whose public service spanned local office, a term in Congress, and a brief appointment to the diplomatic corps.