Background
George Hogg was born on June 22, 1784 in Cramlington, England. He was the only son of John and Mary (Crisp) Hogg.
George Hogg was born on June 22, 1784 in Cramlington, England. He was the only son of John and Mary (Crisp) Hogg.
While a youth in England Hogg was apprenticed to an iron worker but later came to the United States with his parents and settled in Licking County, Ohio. Just what his activities were at this time is unknown, but in view of his remarkable career later, he must have received some business training during this period.
In 1804, at the suggestion of his uncle, William Hogg, a successful merchant who had begun his career as a peddler, Hogg went to Brownsville, Pennsylvania. In partnership with his brother-in-law, James E. Breading, he founded a large wholesale drygoods business in Pittsburgh under the name of Breading & Hogg, and a huge wholesale grocery known as Dalzell, Taylor & Company.
As his business grew he established a chain of fifteen merchandise and commission houses in Ohio, a forwarding house at Sandusky, Ohio, and sixty-one stores in Pennsylvania and New York. In conjunction with his depot at Sandusky he maintained a fleet of vessels on Lake Erie as well as a line of boats on the Ohio Canal with headquarters at Newark, Ohio.
In addition to his commercial interests he was engaged in the manufacture of glass, having built the Brownsville Glass Factory in 1828. With the exception of one year, 1829, he supervised its work until 1847. He aided in the building of a bridge over the Monongahela River at Brownsville and Bridgeport and was one of the founders and managers of the Monongahela Navigation Improvement Company, which carried coal to New Orleans. He also purchased coal mines and large tracts of land from the government.
In May of 1843 he moved to Allegheny City, which is now the Northside district of Pittsburgh, where in 1849 he died.
Although Hogg spent practically all his mature years in the United States, he never gave up the English customs which he remembered from his youth. His two outstanding characteristics seem to have been deep religious feeling and fair dealing.
On March 7, 1811 Hogg married Mary Ann, the oldest daughter of Judge Nathaniel Breading of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and became the father of six children.