DuBois family

This collection documents the DuBois, Ogden, and McIlvaine families. Below are brief biographies of the prominent contributors to this collection.

Sarah Platt Ogden DuBois (1782-1836) was the fifth child of Sarah Platt and Robert Ogden (1746-1826), a lawyer who worked in New Jersey and New York, and served as quartermaster during the Revolutionary War. She had four siblings: Robert (1775-1857), Mary (1778-1852), Elizabeth, and Jeremiah. In 1803, Sarah married a prominent merchant and philanthropist named Cornelius DuBois (1771-1846). They had five children: Mary Elizabeth (b. 1805), Henry Augustus (1808-1884), Cornelius (1810-1882), Sarah Platt (1813-1897), and George Washington (1822-1910).

Robert Ogden (1775-1857), Sarah's brother, was born in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and practiced law in Charleston and New Orleans. In 1803, he married Eliza Spaight Nash, daughter of Abner Nash, governor of North Carolina.

Cornelius DuBois, Jr. (1810-1882), was born in New York City and graduated from Colombia in 1828. He studied law but worked for Cornelius DuBois and Company, a mercantile firm owned by his father. He married Mary Ann Delafield DuBois (1813-1888) in 1832, and they had 10 children.

George Washington DuBois (1821-1910), youngest son of Cornelius DuBois (1771-1846), attended Princeton and graduated from New York University in 1843. He attended the Episcopal Theological Seminary at Gambier, Ohio, and in 1846 became a deacon. In 1847, he was ordained a priest of the Episcopal Church, and later that year traveled extensively, ministering to parishes in Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New York. During the Civil War, DuBois served as chaplain to the 11th Ohio Infantry Regiment. DuBois married Maria “Mamy” Coxe McIlvaine; they had eight children, including daughter Mary Cornelia DuBois (1864-1920). In 1885, Reverend DuBois built a small chapel named Felsenheim in Keene, New York.

Charles Pettit McIlvaine (1799-1883) was born in Burlington, New Jersey, to Joseph McIlvaine, senator from New Jersey, and Maria Reed. He graduated from Princeton in 1816 and attended Princeton Theological Seminary a year later. The Episcopal Church ordained him deacon in 1820. That same year he moved to Washington D.C. to minister at Christ Church in Georgetown, and from 1822 to 1824, he served as chaplain to the United States Senate. McIlvaine was ordained a priest in Baltimore in 1824, and accepted an appointment as professor of ethics and as chaplain at West Point, where he taught many prominent future Civil War officers. Following a pastorate in Brooklyn (1827-1831), he was appointed the second bishop of Ohio, president of Kenyon College, and head of the theological seminary at Gambier. McIlvaine married Emily Coxe (1801-1877) in 1822; they had four children, including daughter Mamy, who married George W. DuBois. McIlvaine died in Florence, Italy, in 1873.

Frederick Nash Ogden (1807-1838) was born in Hillsboro, North Carolina. He studied medicine at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and after graduation, set up a practice in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He married Carmelite Lopez in 1831. They had two children, Alice E. Ogden and Confederate General Frederick Nash Ogden, Jr.

From the guide to the DuBois-Ogden-McIlvaine family papers, 1786-1983, 1801-1877, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)