CLARION CO., Pa. (EYT) — Ben Hogan was only 12 when he killed his first man.
(Pictured above: A drawing of Ben Hogan as he appeared in 1866.)
Ben Hogan, whose true name was Benedict Hagan, was born in Wurttemberg, Germany. In 1852, at the age of 11, he came to the United States with his family.
Though he would make his fame in the Oil Region of Pennsylvania during its early, wilder days, Hogan’s story before he came to northwestern Pennsylvania gives insight into the man’s character and sets the stage for what he would later accomplish.
Settling in Manhattan
As a German in the predominantly Irish Lower East Side of Manhattan, Hogan learned the hard way how it was to grow up. He understood you could not let others take advantage of you, and so when he saw his father being robbed of his money by a shopkeeper, also a German, named Jacob Shantz, Hogan acted.
According to The Wickedest Man published in 1954 by Joseph Millard, the elder Hagan came to America with his savings in the form of gold German Marks, which were no good stateside.
Shantz convinced the elder Hagan to give him all his savings, quite a significant amount for a recently-arrived immigrant, to exchange it for American currency.
Ben Hogan saw this take place but said nothing. As he and his father left Shantz’s store, he tried warning his father of Shantz’s treachery, but his father threatened to hit him for being out of line.
Two weeks later, when the exchange was to be completed, and the elder Hagan to be reunited with his savings in American money, Shantz said there had been a problem with his money exchanger and that all of the savings were lost.
Hogan’s father “turned and stumbled out into the night,” writes Millard. “shoulders sagging under the weight of the calamity that had befallen him.”
Ben Hogan, however, had different plans.
“The more he brooded,” writes Millard, “the closer his rage came to exploding. He had no personal interest in doing his father any favors, but so brazen a cheat hurt Ben’s pride … There was also a more practical consideration. The loss would make the elder Hagan meaner than ever at home.”
Hogan resolved to act, and the next day came to Shantz’s shop, telling Shantz that he knew his game, but that he “ain’t crying over how dumb my old man is.” Rather, Ben proposed to Shantz to let him into the business and said he had already found another victim for Shantz to rob.
He brought along one of his friends, who pretended to be a recently-arrived German immigrant, and Shantz was delighted by how easy the prey looked.
Hogan and Shantz made a deal to meet up later that night at the docks. When he arrived, he saw Hogan and his friend carrying a carpet bag which he believed was full of money.
When Shantz got close, Hogan’s friend swung the bag at Shantz’s head, and he found the bag was full of bricks, not coins, and he fell on his back on the dock.
Hogan started to kick Shantz while his friend beat him savagely with the bag full of bricks, killing him.
They searched his pockets and found a key to his store, then they threw his body into the river.
Back at the store, Hogan found what he was looking for. Under an unmade bed, another carpetbag filled with his dad’s money, as well as the money of Shantz’s other victims. Hogan returned his dad’s money but kept the rest.
Boxing
Soon after killing Shantz, Hogan and his family moved to Syracuse, New York, where he was kicked out of school, fired from the factory he worked at for threatening to kill the foreman and robbing wealthy houses.
He ran away from home at the age of 15 but went back to New York City and signed on as a cabin boy on a schooner, the Humboldt.
Hogan returned to New York and came upon a boxing gym, something he had never seen before.
“Ben stared with open mouth and his eyes glinting,” writes Millard. “He had never in his life encountered such a baffling scene, yet it had a strange and stirring effect on him … Nothing in his experience had ever seemed so exciting or so desirable.”
He ran over to join some weightlifters but was confused that he would have to pay to use the equipment. The owner of the gym, a man named Art White, noticed Hogan and came over to him and encouraged Hogan to try his hand at boxing.
Fitting him with a pair of boxing gloves, Hogan took the ring against White, slim and small-figured compared to Hogan’s tall and muscular physique, and lost badly.
However, after the fight, White came up to Hogan and told him to go to another gym owned by White’s friend Bob Woods, where Woods would train Hogan for free.
Hogan went to Woods’ gym and was taken in by him and another trainer named Billy Clark.
“He threw himself into the fight training with all the immense energy at his command,” writes Millard. “Nothing in his life had ever seemed so important to him. The memory of his disgrace at the hands of Art White still rankled. The bitter awakening was a spur that goaded him to fantastic efforts.”
Training for weeks, Hogan faced a succession of sparing partners until one day they stopped coming to the gym, afraid that Hogan would kill them.
Clark and Woods decided Hogan was ready and set him up for his first real bout with a local boxing champ, Gorilla Gavin.
Gavin was the favorite, but Hogan dispatched him easily. The crowd, many of whom had bet on Gavin, were angered by the loss and found another boxer, a real professional to fight Hogan.
Again Hogan fought, and the other boxer, driven by rage at Hogan’s impudence tried to kick him in the gut. Hogan dodged the kick, “bounded into the air and lashed out with both feet, full into his opponent’s battered face,” Millard writes.
Hogan knocked the professional boxer unconscious, and the crowd went berserk, believing he had died.
Calling for Hogan’s head, Woods and Clark tried to control the mob but there was mass confusion which Hogan used to his advantage to flee.
Civil War Activities and Coming to Pennsylvania
From New York, Hogan moved steadily, first to Albany, back to Syracuse, then across the Midwest from Cleveland to Cincinnati, and finally St. Louis. He then moved south to New Orleans and after a scuffle at a saloon there, fled to Mobile.
The Civil War had started by then, and Hogan took full advantage of the occasion.
“He was never idle,” writes Millard of Hogan during the war, “never honest, and he made and spent a score of fortunes while a divided nation bathed itself in blood.”
Millard states Hogan served as a spy for both sides of the war, sometimes collecting real and valuable intelligence and sometimes fabricating stories to serve his purposes. He sold quinine to the Confederate Army, and after that was a blockade runner.
His main focus was to ensure his freedom of movement. He would go from town to town, enlisting with whatever army happened to be there, collecting an enlistment bonus, and then deserting.
Hogan was in Louisville when the war ended in 1865. There, he swindled a regiment of black soldiers out of their pay. This money lasted him in Chicago, but as it ran out, Hogan made preparations to move back to Syracuse and plan his next move from there.
On the train from Chicago to Syracuse, Hogan heard about the wealth being created in northwestern Pennsylvania through the oil boom and found it unbelievable. More and more, however, he thought about it, and by the time he reached Syracuse, his mind was almost made up.
Hogan met Burke, an acquaintance of his from years past, and the men decided to make their way to Pennsylvania and arrived in Erie.
This article is the first part of an ongoing series into The Wickedest Man, Ben Hogan, an outlaw active in northwestern Pennsylvania during the Oil Boom of the late 1800s.
Clarion County Historical Series is brought to you by First United National Bank — The FUN Bank! Stop at one of their offices in Fryburg, Clarion, New Bethlehem, Oil City, Franklin, or Cranberry and allow First United National Bank make you one of their satisfied customers. For more information visit Fun-Bank.com.
Source:The Clarion County Historial Society provided the sources for this article, including the book, The Wickedest Man by Joseph Millard.
