Michael Hogan – the name’s sake of Hogansburg, New York.  He was involved in the founding of Hogansburg and Bombay New York, the “Jesmer” ancestral homeland. 

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Fourteen year-old Michael Hogan was among a crew of 350 men on board one of the…ships in the squadron, the 50-gun H.M.S. Jupiter…. The lad came from CountyClare in the western part of Ireland, one of the poorest areas of the country. Jet aircraft today land and take off on runways at ShannonAirport just a stone’s throw from property where there was once an area known as Stonehall. It was there on September 29, 1766, that the future midshipman was born.

Now that he was married, Michael Hogan had to decide whether to make the Royal Navy his career or pursue another gainful occupation. [He] had not taken the lieutenant examination and had all but decided to make his living in commerce when an unexpected offer came to him. Commodore William Cornwallis…, the younger brother of Lord Charles Cornwallis, had arrived at Calcutta on H.M.S. Crown…in command of a squadron of British naval vessels to survey the coasts and islands of the Bay of Bengal and, in the process, extend Britain’s presence in the area…. When [he] visited Bombay in early 1790, Hogan looked him up and was offered command of one of Cornwallis’s frigates. Forty-two years later, Hogan recounted…that “Admiral Cornwallis, old Billy Blue as we used to call him for he was a gruff, surly, old fellow, sent for me and offered to make me a post captain. ‘You shall have the [unnamed ship] now and in six weeks I will give you [another unnamed ship].’ I thanked him, but said that I could not be appointed as I had to serve six weeks of my rating as a midshipman. ‘Must not thank me,’ he gruffly said, ‘it is my brother [Lord Cornwallis, Governor General] orders, and you have been a rated midshipman two months in my books; so your time is out.’ I was always a favorite of Lord Cornwallis, but don’t know altogether why I was so, partly perhaps because he was very partial to General O’Hara, my grand uncle…. I again expressed my thanks but asked time to consider. ‘Certainly,’ said he, ‘take a fortnight and then let me know.’ I was then six weeks married and engaged in building, and part owner of, the Bombay Anna, a fine ship of 930 tons of which I was to have command, [so] I determined to decline the offer, flattering as it was. To tell the truth, I was perhaps a little afraid of the old Blue who had already sent home three of his captains under arrest and afterwards broke them, and at the end of the fortnight, I told him how I was situated and declined the offer. ‘You are right,’ said he, ‘if I [had a] son, I [would] rather make a cobbler of him than a sailor.'”

The early 1790s were fateful years. Europe was waking up to the fact that the revolution that had taken place in Paris in 1789 might presage more than just a domestic squabble. The Jacobins had seized power, King Louis XVI made a prisoner, the Republic declared and the Reign of Terror instituted within three months after the Hogans arrived in London. Possibly believing war would bring new territory and therefore sources for additional taxation and economic exploitation to relieve its crumbling treasury, partly the result of its aid to the Americans during its revolutionary war, France had already gone to war with Austria and Prussia and was demanding that the Netherlands stop favoring Britain in the all-important trade centered on the Scheldt River. Although Britain prided itself that it had already had its Glorious Revolution (in 1688), there was widespread belief among the upper classes that the French version, coming so soon after the disastrous American Revolution, endangered the established—and comfortable—order of government and society. Trials for treason had become a daily occurrence…. With the country in the midst of an economic recession, fearful of the impact of the Jacobins and of treasonous acts by its own citizens, weary of yet another war with France, and anxious to return to better times, Britain was in no mood for what was to become a titanic struggle lasting almost a quarter of a century.
In January 1793, Louis XVI was beheaded (Marie Antoinette lost hers the following October), and on February 1 France declared war on Great Britain and the Netherlands, the news reaching London eight days later. Unaware of the full significance of these events, Michael Hogan began the return voyage of the Netunno to India on the evening of February 16, passing Lands End three days later.

Michael Hogan’s offer to transport convicts to New South Wales was well-timed. The British zeal to purify their ranks extended to Ireland whose inhabitants were becoming increasingly rebellious. He was to be paid some £10,000 to transport poor Irish men and women convicted of one crime or another to New South Wales on the Marquis Cornwallis. On its return voyage, the ship would carry cargo from China or India under contract with the East India Company.
The vessel left Portsmouth on June 8, 1795, after taking on board thirty soldiers to act as guards of an expected 200 convicts…. The Marquis Cornwallis was already a little late, for the Transport Board had told the Admiralty on May 15 that, “It is…indispensably necessary, in order that this transport may secure her passage to China, from whence she is chartered to receive freight from the East India Company, that she should arrive by the 1st of June at Cork, and proceed thence as speedily as possible.” The secretary for colonial affairs, the Duke of Portland, had also requested the Admiralty to provide a convoy for the vessel from Cork to an area near the Canary Islands….
On arrival at Cove, the port for Cork in Ireland, Captain Hogan found that he was to take on board an additional twenty-four female convicts for whom he had to purchase supplies out of his own funds. This was not the end of his problems. While still in port, one of the soldiers, Bryan O’Donald, after “damning the King and saying he would not serve his Majesty,” refused to stand guard as sentry. He was tried at a general court martial on August 5, presided over by an British Army commander, found guilty and given a sentence of 800 lashes, “this sentence to be put into execution tomorrow morning before 10 o’clock and to receive such part of the punishment as M. Hogan, the owner of the Marquis Cornwallis, shall think proper, the remainder of the 800 lashes to be given to the said Bryan O’Donald should he behave bad on his passage, and if he acts like a good soldier, M. Hogan will please to remit the remainder after what he receives tomorrow.” Hogan remitted all but 150 of the lashes. Flogging was then standard practice on ships at sea.

After a month at sea on September 9, two of the convicts sent a note to Captain Hogan asking to see him in private. The ship was near the equator in the vicinity of the Cape VerdeIslands, its British Navy escort having just departed…. The prisoners “informed me,” Hogan later recorded, “that a conspiracy was formed by the convicts and soldiers to get possession of the arms and the ship and that I was the first person to be put to death, and that Sgt. Ellis and a few of the soldiers were at the head of this plot. They also informed me that the sergeant was to furnish the convicts with knives for the purpose of making saws to cut off their irons, and that the convicts were to send the sergeant money to purchase the knives, and that they and he corresponded regularly, and the notes which passed between them (after being read) were thrown overboard, and at daylight some morning they were to rush on deck in a body when the boys were let up to clear the buckets.”…. On September 22, the convicts strangled one of the informers and attempted to force their way upon deck. One of the ship’s officers later said that “Capt. Hogan rushed down the fore hatchway, followed by Mr. Richardson and three more of the officers and myself, armed with a pair of pistols and cutlass, where began a scene which was not by any means pleasant. We stuck together in the hatchway and discharged our pistols amongst them that were most desperate who, seeing their comrades drop in several places, soon felt a damp upon their spirits. Their courage failed them, and they called out for quarter. I broke my cutlass in the affray but met with no accident myself.”

On February 11, 1796, six months after sailing from Ireland, the Marquis Cornwallis arrived at Port Jackson, the port for Sydney, where the prisoners were put ashore and placed in the hands of the local authorities…. During his brief stay in New South Wales, Hogan acquired a plot of land previously known as Woodhay which he called Cornwallis Place (or Estate) after his favorite nobleman with the intention of raising livestock and growing grain. The plot consisted of 400 acres purchased from Lieutenant Abbott and 30 acres from Samuel Jackson, Abbott having bought a number of the 25 and 100-acre lots previously awarded to New South Wales Corps members to make up the 400-acre parcel. Later in April 1797, Hogan’s farm supervisor purchased an additional 30-acre lot called the Rowan Farm. Both were on the HawkesburyRiver slightly to the north of a settlement later named Windsor.

But the commission was not interested only in [ex-Governor] Yonge’s duplicity or that of his henchmen, all of whom had long since left the Cape. It was the evidence collected and the conclusions drawn regarding Hogan’s involvement in the Collector incident that was the most astounding and certainly the most damning to Hogan personally. Among the evidence collected was that Captain Smart had told Port Captain Campbell, after the true logbook had been discovered, that “Hogan had basely and falsely traduced his character, [and] he was determined to prove to the Court of Justice and to the world the villainy and the falsehood of Hogan, as [he] had not only been privy to the whole transaction…but had formed and arranged the whole plan”; that Hogan had been seen “in a very humiliating situation entreating [Smart] to abscond, otherwise the ruin of himself and his family would ensue”; that Hogan had told Smart, “How often must I tell you Smart that a still tongue makes a wise head”; that Tennant, Hogan’s business partner, when asked by Smart what compensation he should demand from Hogan for absconding, suggested two thousand pounds, “which sum [Tennant] was further of opinion Hogan would not refuse him”; and, finally, that Hogan paid five or six thousand rix dollars to buy a small brig from the current owners of one of the two French prizes seized by the Collector on which Smart made his escape from the Cape. The commissioners ended with this unequivocal rebuke: “That Mr. Hogan was the person who planned and by means of his credit carried into execution through Smart the whole of the illegal transaction of his ship the Collector, the Commissioners cannot entertain a single doubt….”

Michael Hogan was a man of unquestioned wealth when he arrived at New York. He would have created hardly a ripple had he returned to England, but he took New York by storm. New Yorkers were acquainted with merchants who had come to the United States from England, Ireland, Holland, other places in Europe or even the West Indies, but no one of means had ever come from the Cape of Good Hope and before that India. His misdeeds at Cape Town were probably unknown, but even if there were rumors they would count for little in the United States because they had been inflicted by and on Englishmen, not Americans. He no doubt encouraged others to believe the most romantic and adventuresome stories about him, and the appearance that he and his family and entourage presented was ideal material for fanciful tales. He was reputed to be rich, to have a dark-skinned Indian princess as a wife, to have traveled to far and mysterious corners of the globe, and to have engaged in many daring and risky adventures.

[Hogan] wanted to find a place outside [New York City] to house himself and his family during the summers when it was not only the heat but sickness that drove those who could afford it to country homes. He found the ideal location in 1806 when he was the successful bidder at $13,000 under a mortgage foreclosure for an estate along the Hudson River between 121st and 127th Streets in what was then called Manhattanville and is now RiversidePark in the Upper West Side of New York…. The area was then very much in the country. A stagecoach trip from downtown New York along old Bloomingdale Road took from early morning to mid-afternoon. The grounds, on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River, were near the site of the Battle of Haarlem Heights during the Revolution and were once suggested by George Washington as a suitable site for the nation’s capitol. The area was becoming popular as a summer retreat; during 1807 more houses were built there than in any previous year. There were two portions of the estate, each with its own mansion, the southernmost named Monte Alto and the northernmost, near what was then Bloomingdale Road and 125th Street, Claremont. The original houses may have been built before Hogan’s tenure, but he added a second story to Claremont and improved Monte Alto. Architectural drawings show them both to be substantial edifices: Claremont, a two-story, 5,000 square foot Georgian-style mansion; Monte Alto somewhat smaller but still grand in appearance.

Hogan was interested in more than the Bombay [New York] property. On October 20, [1817], he leased 144 acres of land and water near what was once called Gray’s Mill from the subscribing Chiefs of the St. Regis Indians, for which he agreed to establish and maintain a ferry and to pay $305 annually for ten years. In February the following year, he traveled to Albany in company with John Pintard and Eleazer Williams, a half-breed Caughnawaga Indian…who later claimed to be the lost Dauphin of France, the rightful King Louis XVII, to lobby Governor Tompkins to confirm this agreement by treaty, which was done on February 20. He called the area Hogansburgh, a name it bears to this day, but without the final h.

Hogan recounted how a Captain Seth Stocking of a ship belonging to a New York merchant, after being accused of mistreating members of the crew, discharged the mate and stabbed him almost to death when he contested unpaid wages. When Hogan sent a note asking the captain to call at his office, Stocking initially refused, reportedly telling the men presenting the note that consuls were only sent abroad as spies. Stocking eventually did appear in Hogan’s office. According to an affidavit executed by a sympathetic American ship captain who witnessed the meeting, Stocking threatened to throw Hogan overboard if he came to the ship. Hogan is said to have replied: “There is the door, Sir. Go out! Never enter my office again. I shall represent your conduct to your government whom you have insulted and who I hope will forever prevent your commanding a ship again under the flag you disgrace.” Escalating the affair, Stocking threatened to throw Hogan through the office window, or so the witness thought. After more “foul language,” Stocking left, leaving Hogan “much mortified, who was at the time very weak and feeble, scarce able to move along with the assistance of a stick, after a severe fit of illness.” (The infirmity was probably a return of his persistent gout.)

On November 11, 1820, five months after returning to New York from Havana, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams certified that “Michael Hogan of New York has been appointed by the president of the United States as their agent for commerce and seamen at Valparaíso and all the ports on the coast of Chile in South America, with all the privileges and authorities of right appertaining to that appointment.” Hogan also received a letter from Secretary of the Navy Smith Thompson stating that “in the event of the United States Ships of War visiting the ports of Chile, you are authorized to act in behalf of this Department, as agent for furnishing such supplies as the Service may require, and for which your draughts upon this Department, in reimbursement, will be duly honored on presentation.”
[Hogan called] on Adams four times and President Monroe once. Adams recorded in his diary that Hogan “wishes…to obtain an appointment…with better prospects [than Havana] of life and health for a family, though also lucrative.” He asked for an appointment “at some port on the SouthSea, in Chile or Peru,” which he then narrowed down to Chile. Almost overnight, Hogan received confirmation in writing of his appointment to Valparaíso. Again, it was Monroe who made the decision. He may have learned this when he met with the president, apparently without Adams present. The only thing known about the meeting is Hogan’s later report that Monroe asked him to find a suitable government position for Jeremy Robinson in Chile. The president also asked that Hogan take with him as an assistant the teenage son of a Washingtonian naval surgeon and doctor named John Bullus. Both requests would later give Hogan anguish.

In the forenoon of March 27, 1824, the U.S.S. United States, a 1,576-ton 44-gun frigate, dropped anchor in Valparaíso harbor. Launched twenty-seven years earlier, it had seen service in the undeclared naval war with France, the War of 1812 and off the Barbary coast of North Africa; it was now fondly called the Old Waggon because of her sluggish sailing. She was the flagship of Commodore Isaac Hull, victor and hero in the famous sea battle between the U.S.S. Constitution and H.M.S. Guerrière in the War of 1812. The United States had been sent to take over command of the Pacific squadron. The next day, a Sunday, Hull and his entourage came ashore where they were met by Hogan…. In addition to Hull, the entourage consisted of Heman Allen, the new American minister, his first secretary, Samuel Larned, the wives of Hull and Allen and a sister of the wives. Hogan knew that Allen would be arriving and he may have heard that Larned was coming also, but he must have been not only surprised but confused by the presence of the three women, all sisters. They were Ann Hart Hull, Elizabeth Hart Allen and Harriet Augusta Hart, all from Saybrook, Connecticut, three of the seven beautiful daughters of Captain Elisha Hart. Ann had married Hull in 1813. Elizabeth had met and married Allen in a storybook romance a few months before sailing; she arrived seasick and pregnant. Augusta Hart had come along for the adventure. The Hogan family probably welcomed the Hull and Allen families in expectation of sharing their life and experiences in a foreign land with fellow Americans, but relations would not stay amiable, particularly between the Hogans and the Allens and between Michael Hogan and Commodore Hull.

In New YorkState, the towns of Hogansburg and Bombay are reminders of Michael Hogan. A plaque in Grace Church in New York City commemorates him, and in the TrinityChurch cemetery at 770 Riverside Drive, now in Harlem, overlooking the Hudson River are the graves and tombstones of Michael Hogan, his wife and 20 of his descendants. His portrait, remembered from the author’s childhood, now hangs in his home, but he no longer seems “dark and sullen.” There may even be a slight smile in his eyes—perhaps sardonic, as if he wants to say: I never hesitated to take the bold step—and I made my mark. How many of you can say the same?