Carolina Alumni Review - Winter 1986/87

Calling
by Lawrence Maddry
Calling all Hoggs!
I hear you snickering out there. That's the problem, you see. We're trying to get in touch
with the descendants of James Hogg
and his wife, McDowell Alves, for a
reunion.
It ain't easy. Word of mouth won't
do it. You try telling someone that
you'd like to reach some of your
Hogg kin and ask for suggestions.
The first thing the listener will do is
cup his or her hands to lips and yell
"sooeeee?"
James Hogg deserves better. As a
matter of fact, if it hadn't been for
James Hogg, the Old Well and
South Building might be in
Hillsborough, Fayetteville or -
someone open a window, I think
I'm gonna faint - Durham, N.C.
A native of East Lothian, Scot-
land, James Hogg (1729-1805) was
an early North Carolina patriot who
served on the Orange County
Committee of Safety and was a pio-
neer in education in North Carolina.
(Resident of Hillsborough he also
owned mercantile businesses in
Fayetteville, Wilmington and
Charleston.)
As a member of the University of
North Carolina's first board of trus-
tees, James Hogg was convinced that
(New Hope) Chapel Hill should be
the home of the first state univer-
sity. Through his donations of land
and money and similar contribu-
tions, which he raised from his
friends, he persuaded board
members that Chapel Hill was the
only proper site. And 50, it was.
But did he get any respect, to bor-
row a line from Rodney Danger-
field? Nooooo.
Did anyone care that his sons
served the university as trustees?
Nope. Or that one of his daughters,
Helen Hogg, married William
Hooper, the son of a signer of the
Declaration of Independence from
North Carolina and, later, upon
Hooper's death, married Joseph

Come out of the
woodwork, urges
clan of early
UNC trustee.

i.nwrerIce Mnddry '55 is n columnist for the
VirginiarJ-Piiot and the Ledger-Star in Norfolk.

All Hoggs endure the snickering and jokes associated with their name no longer.
James Hogg persuaded the
General Assembly to pass an act
changing the last names of both
sons to Alves, their mother's maiden
name. But that didn't help much.
Shortly after his name change a
catchy little rhyme was repeated
from Manteo to Murphy. It was:
"Hogg by name, hog by nature,
Changed by act of legislature."
After that, several members
of the family are reported to
have withdrawn to their homes
and shut the blinds, never to be
seen again.
Not all members of the Hogg fam-
ily have been so touchy about their
names. There was, for instance, Jim
Hogg, a governor of Texas. He
named his daughter Ima Hogg. She
bore the name proudly until her
death in 1975.
As a family, James Hogg's de-
scendants haven't anything to be
ashamed of. True, there have been
three felons, two mule thieves, a
peeping Tom and at least a dozen
Duke University graduates. But
that's not bad over a span of a cou-
ple of hundred years.
So, now that the University is
nearing its 200th anniversary, the
kin of James Hogg and his wife,
McDowell Alves, thought it would
be nice to hold a Hogg-Alves reun-
ion at Hillsborough on October 17-
18,1987.
And if you are related to any of
the following children of James
Hogg and his wife we'd like to hear
from you: ( 1) Walter Hogg, renamed
Walter Alves; ( 2) Gavin Hogg,
renamed Gavin Alves; ( 3) Elizabeth
Hogg, wife of John Huske; ( 4) Rob-
ina Hogg, wife of Judge William
Norwood; and ( 5) Helen Hogg, wife
of William Hooper and Joseph
Caldwell.
Interested relatives should write:
Hogg-Alves Reunion
c/o Anne Tillinghast ('44)
169 Pearson Drive
Asheville, NC 28801
Caldwell, the first president of the
University of North Carolina? Or
that another daughter, Elizabeth,
married John Huske, a patriot who
served as secretary to Governor
Thomas Burke.
No. The first thing a stranger
would do upon meeting James Hogg
was ask him to repeat his name.
Then they'd just go, er, Hogg-wild,
bending double, slapping their
thighs. Awful.
He, and his kin, suffered long and
hard. It didn't matter how many
times James Hogg or his relatives
explained that in Scotland the name
was pronounced "Hogire" and
meant a lamb. Nor did people seem
to care that both James Hogg and
his wife were cousins of Sir Walter
Scott. Nor did they give a hoot that
another relative - also named
James Hogg - was a prominent
Scottish poet known as "The Ettrick
Shepherd."
Not on your life. That name, you
know. Finally, James Hogg's sons
Walter (who served the university
as treasurer) and Gavin, could