Career
He is credited with romanticizing trap shooting. Trap shooting with live pigeons began in the United States. around 1825, with the first recorded match balls containing feathers, then clay targets. Bogardus invented the first practical glass ball trap in 1877.
Glass spheres, filled with feathers, were used as targets, much as clay pigeons are used today.
They were called Bogardus balls. One feature of them was ridges which helped ensure that pellets would shatter the sphere, rather than glancing official
In 1883 William Frank Carver defeated Bogardus 19 times in a series of 25 matches. Captain Bogardus remained with the show for a year.
Bogardus is in the National Trapshooting Hall of Fame.
He died in 1913 in Lincoln, Logan Company, Illinois and is buried in Elkhart, Illinois.