Who was John Ogden (1824-1910), the first Superintendent -- later Principal and President -- of Fisk School, today's Fisk Univ.? Was he Dr. Ogden? A Methodist minister? An educator from Pennsylvania? An ex-Army Captain? A veteran of the Civil War from the second Wisconsin Cavalry regiment? A moral threat to female students? A despiser of blacks? A man not interested in church building? No; all these terms of address and descriptions are incorrect -- but they provide hints about where and how Ogden did spend his life, what interested him, and how he was the subject of inaccurate, scurrilous gossip, and the subject of inaccurate, respectful addresses. This volume presents a study of Ogden, in his role as one of the early participants in Southern Negro educ.