My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE HOGG, only son of John and Mary (Crisp) Hogg, was born June 22, 1784, in Cramlington, in the county of Northumberland, England. When twenty years of age (in 1804) he came to Brownsville, Pa., at the request of his uncle, William Hogg, where he established his home, and as a merchant created a very large and lucrative business. On March 7, 1811, he married Mary A., eldest daughter of Judge Nathaniel Breading, of Tower Hill farm, Luzerne township, Fayette county, Pa. To this marriage were born the following children: Mary, William, George Ewing, Nathaniel Breading, John Thomas, Mary Ann (who married Felix R. Brunot), Elizabeth Ewing (Mrs. William S. Bissell), and James Breading (lost Sept. 27, 1854, near Cape Race, by the foundering of the steamer Arctic, which collided with a French vessel).

By the integrity of his character and strict attention to business, George Hogg was eminently successful, and secured, the esteem of the communities in which he lived. Though a great lover of his adopted country, he did not cease to be an Englishman, and always looked back with pleasure to the good old laws and institutions of his native land.

In April, 1843, he removed to Allegheny City, Pa., and died there Dec. 5, 1849, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, on the property and in the house which he had purchased in an unfinished state of Alexander Brackenridge, Esq., which he completed, and wherein he spent the remainder of his years.

During his business career he, with his uncle, William Hogg, of Brownsville, Pa., established large business-houses in Pittsburgh as Breading & Hogg, in wholesale dry goods, and Dalzell, Taylor & Co., in wholesale groceries, and fifteen different establishments of merchandise and commission-houses in Ohio, together with a forwarding-house at Sandusky City, that state, with which was connected a number of vessels running on Lake Erie, and also a line of boats on the Ohio canal connected with their business houses at Newark, Ohio. Mr. Hogg, with the cooperation of others, aided materially in the building of the bridge over the Monongahela river at Brownsville and Bridgeport, and was one of the original stockholders and managers of the Monongahela Navigation company (slackwater), through whose enterprise the great body of the coal which is mined along the Monongahela river and exported finds its way to the southern cities, New Orleans in particular. In 1828 he erected the Brownsville Glassworks, and supervised their operations for some years, ultimately disposing of them.

He was one of the original corporators establishing the Allegheny Cemetery company, and a director in the Bank of Pittsburgh, an institution in which his uncle, William Hogg, was one of the original movers, established in 1810-14. Mr. Hogg was confirmed in his youth according to the usage of the Established Church of England, and through life was a consistent, devout and liberal member of that communion. By the record of Christ Church, Brownsville, we find the following:

In the year 1813 Rev. Mr. Clay succeeded Rev. Mr. Kemper, afterward Bishop Kemper, as missionary of the Advancement society in Western Pennsylvania. He assisted to build a church upon the lot of ground which they already had in possession. July 27, 1813 twelve trustees were appointed: Jacob Bowman, William Hogg, George Hogg, Robert Clarke, Charles Wheeler,John Wise, Basil Brasher, Basil Brown, Charles Ford Henry Stump, Thomas Brown and Henry B. Goe. The secretary chosen upon this occasion was George Hogg In 1823 the church building was completed, In 1825 was consecrated by Bishop White; soon after this a parsonage was erected. Mr. Hogg was warden of this church until he left Brownsville, in 1843. When he came to Pittsburgh he and his family were connected with St. Andrew’s Church, where he was warden until his death. He was one of the Incorporators of the Western Pennsylvania hospital, and his portrait, with that of his colleagues, hangs in the entrance-hall at Dixmont.

A monument to his memory, executed jointly by the sculptor Henry K. Brown, of New York city, and the sculptor Piatti, a lofty plinth, mounted by a life-size figure of the Angel of the Resurrection, was erected in 1851 by his family in Allegheny cemetery, now in the city of Pittsburgh. Located nearby is a cenotaph by Piatti, memorial of James B. Hogg, the son of George Hogg, who was lost on the ocean steamer Arctic.

Mr. Hogg, together with his uncle, and their successors, were instrumental in establishing seventy-six business-houses in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York city.

The successful business side of Mr. Hogg’s character was not what impressed all who came in daily contact with him, but his beautiful, consistent Christian walk and conversation. He seemed always to realize the omniscience and omnipresence of his God, and every action of his life indicated how gladly he chose to acknowledge the Lord in all his ways, and to give cheerfully back to him of that over which the Lord had made him the overseer.

The poor were sure to find in him a ready helper. At his death the universal feeling was, a holy and good man has been called from us to enter into a heavenly inheritance.