Captive! The Story of David Ogden and the Iroquois

This book recounts the amazing life story of a 16-year-old American Revolutionary-era soldier, including his captivity, adoption, and eventual flight to freedom from the Iroquois Six-Nation Indian tribes. The story is retold with historical accuracy and an even-handed treatment of the conflicting interests of the loyalists, Iroquois, and Patriots.

David Ogden was born into an unusually tumultuous time in America--the colonials were struggling to throw off the yoke of British rule while also battling the Iroquois tribes for control of their ancestral lands. The bibliography of anyone who survived a life in the late 1700s frontier days of New York would be a great tale, but David Ogden's story stands alone, even within historical context of his times.

Captive! The Story of David Ogden and the Iroquois is a compelling true adventure story of one young colonial soldier's bravery, choosing a daunting 126-mile race to freedom fraught with the risk of death over being assimilated into an alien society. This story is told with all the factual historical information that was missing from all the original captivity narratives, but accurately retains the flavor of the period and the voice of the 18th-century protagonist.


About the Author

Jack Harpster is the author of The Railroad Tycoon Who Built Chicago: A Biography of William B. Ogden; John Ogden "The Pilgrim" (1609 - 1672): A Man of More Than Ordinary Mark; as well as two institutional biographies.

Ken Stalter, MD, is a general surgeon in Franklin, NY, and is a fourth-generation descendant of the book's hero, David Ogden.