by John Wilson
posted January 16, 2004
Daniel Hogan may have lived in a hovel, but the eccentric bachelor was one of the city's wealthiest men. During the Civil War, he suffered physical abuse for his outspoken Unionist sentiments. He was the main benefactor responsible for construction of the stately Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church on East Eighth Street.
Born in Kilkenny, Ireland, Hogan made his way to Chattanooga along with other Irish laborers when the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad was being built in the early 1850s. Many of these settled on “Irish Hill” on Gilmer (East Eighth) Street.
Dan Hogan was a talented rock mason, who was especially fascinated by the large limestone outcropping south of town that came to be known as the Stone Fort. He bought this stony eminence at East Eleventh Street as well as several lots on Market Street between Eighth and Ninth streets. Hogan paved the sidewalk in front of his business lots with flagstones that he quarried on Stone Fort and carried in his wheelbarrow, then laid with his own hands. He lived in a “shanty not much bigger than a good-sized dog kennel” and he “went shabbily dressed and unkempt in his person and would have been taken by strangers as a pauper.” His only personal property was described as “his wheelbarrow, hammer and chisel, with which he chiseled out and rolled up a fortune in real estate.” Chattanoogans often saw him dressed in an old blue army overcoat with trousers to match. Hogan worked alone and hoarded his stonework earnings. He had no relatives except back in his native land, as far as anyone knew.
He was a devout Catholic, attending when the congregation worshiped in a 20-by-50-foot frame building with a rock basement. Hogan and Father Henry V. Brown dreamed of a beautiful cathedral, and Hogan began quarrying the needed blocks. By the time the Civil War armies arrived, he had polished much of the marble and cut it to fit its particular place in the building. The ornamentally wrought stones for the doorways were
readied. Work actually began on the cathedral, but the completed portion was later taken down. Union forces confiscated Hogan's rock quarry and used the blocks that had been intended for the cathedral in constructing a fort on the hill's highest point.
Hogan, described as “an odd and original character,” also was “an uncompromising Union man, who, Irish-like, never failed to express himself upon the subject, often in places where it was not prudent to do so.” One day in the winter of 1861, Robert Cravens drove down from his Alta Vista home on the side of Lookout Mountain and found “Old Dan on the street, with his head, face and eyes terribly disfigured, as if he had been in some southern cyclone.” He related he had been beaten by some Confederate soldiers “on account of his Union proclivities.” Cravens instructed Hogan to go up on the mountain and “stay there until I come home and keep your mouth shut until meal time, then open it
only to receive food.” Cravens was also a Union man, but “like Alexander J. Stephens of Georgia, when he had to take sides he went with his people.” The following morning, Cravens “turned over a stout Negro to Old Dan and put him to building a stone dairy.” This was completed in about a year, along with other small stone jobs. During his time on Cravens Terrace, Hogan “never left the mountain except now and then he slipped downtown to get his jug refilled. He never got drunk, but took his dram every day.” When Union armies on Moccasin Bend shelled the Cravens home, the dairy Hogan built
served as a fort for the Cravens family. Someone posted on the front porch would watch for the smoke of the battery, then give the alarm in time for everyone to run to the safety of the fortress.
When Robert Cravens met Dan Hogan on the streets of Chattanooga in 1865 he said, “Dan, we never had a final settlement about the work you did on my stone dairy.” Hogan, in his Irish brogue, replied, “Well, Mr. Cravens, it's another case of ‘Cast your bread upon the waters and after many days it will return to you.’ You took me and you gave me a home to keep your soldiers from killing me, and while there I built you a fort to keep my soldiers from killing you and your family so if you are willing, I will suggest that we call it even.”
Dan Hogan died at 10 o’clock on the evening of Feb. 16, 1875. He had suffered a stroke several days earlier. He was 65. His obituary said he “had no family, but it is understood he leaves a brother and sister.”It was estimated his fortune was $80,000.
His dream of a Catholic cathedral in Chattanooga still was unrealized. But he left the church his wealth to help make it possible. In his will he left “to the Holy Catholic Church all the property, notes, and money which I possess in Tennessee for the benefit of said Church to use for charitable purpose.” The only clause was that if any of his nephews in Ireland decided to join the priesthood, they were to receive financial help. A stipulation was that the nephew would have to give his services within Tennessee “for some term of years.” Using the Hogan bequest, the Catholics erected an imposing brick and stone Gothic-style cathedral that was 165 feet long and 75 feet wide and could seat a thousand people. The front portion of the church was especially impressive with its twin towers surmounted by 100 pinnacles and turrets.
The early chronicler of Chattanooga history, Sam Divine, said, “The life of Dan Hogan demonstrates what a man can do by industrious and frugal habits combined with a will.” Dan Hogan's old Stone Fort was leveled in 1905-1906, opening up a significant new area for development south of town. Here were built the Patten Hotel, Pound Building and other business blocks.
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