The Inventor of the Hole in the Doughnut
"We have built our civilization with Archimedes’ lever, Newton’s law of gravitation, Franklin’s electricity; yet what would it be without Gregory’s doughnut?"
From: 1847 C.E. To: 1916 C.E.
Location: Camden, Maine; Hough's Neck, Massachusetts
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
Among the names of the great, engrave that of Capt. Hanson Gregory, once master mariner and now in retirement at Sailors’ Snug Harbor, Hough’s Neck, Massachusetts. We have built our civilization with Archimedes’ lever, Newton’s law of gravitation, Franklin’s electricity; yet what would it be without Gregory’s doughnut?
The hole in the doughnut has been for many years a subject of vain and aimless speculation. Though many inquired, none seemed to know why it was that a portion of the atmosphere of just this shape and size should be surrounded by a circle of dough of just such satisfying thickness.
Now that the answer has been found, there is still some doubt as to whether the old captain discovered the hole or invented it. He claims to have done both. He discovered the hole in the first place, and then he invented the proper method of enclosing such a hole in an adequate doughnut.
His story, as quoted by Carl Wilmore in the Boston Post, runs as follows:
“It was way back—oh, I don’t know just what year—let me see— born in ‘31, shipped when I was 13—well, I guess it was about ‘47, when I was 16, that I was aboard ship and discovered the hole which was later to revolutionize the doughnut industry.
“I first shipped aboard the Isaac Achorn, three-masted schooner, Captain Rhodes, in the lime-trade. Later I joined other crews and other captains, and it was on one of these cruises that I was making doughnuts.
“Now in them days we used to cut the doughnuts into diamond shapes, and also into long strips, bent in half, and then twisted. I don’t think we called them doughnuts then—they was just ‘fried cakes’ and ‘twisters.’
“Well, sir they used to fry all right around the edges, but when you had the edges done the insides was all raw dough. And the twisters used to sop up all the grease just where they bent, and they were tough on the digestion.”
“Pretty d—d tough, too?” profanely agreed one of the dozen old pipe-smoking fellows who were all eyes and ears, taking in their comrade’s interview by the Post reporter.
With a glance at the perfervid interrupter, the discoverer continued:
“Well, I says to myself, ‘Why wouldn’t a space inside solve the difficulty?’ I thought at first I’d take one of the strips and roll it round, then I got an inspiration, a great inspiration—”
“Yes—yes—”
“I took the cover off the ship’s tin pepper-box, and—I cut into the the middle of that doughnut the first hole ever seen by mortal eyes!”
“Were you pleased?”
“Was Columbus pleased? Well, sir, them doughnuts was the finest I ever tasted. No more indigestion—no more greasy sinkers—but just well-done, fried-through doughnuts.
“That cruise over, I went home to my old mother and father in Camden, Maine, where I was born. My father, Hanson Gregor, Sr., lived to be 93, and my mother lived to be 79. She was a pretty old lady then. I saw her making doughnuts in the kitchen—I can see her now, and as fine a woman as ever lived was my mother.
“I says to her, ‘Let me make some doughnuts for you.’ She says all right, so I made her one or two and then showed her how. She then made several panfuls and sent them down to Rockland, just outside Camden. Everybody was delighted, and they never made doughnuts, and they never made doughnuts and other way except the way I showed my mother.
“Well, I never took out a patent on it: I don’t suppose anyone can patent anything he discovers; I don’t suppose Peary could patent the north pole or Columbus patent America. But I thought I’d get out a doughnut-cutter—but somebody got in ahead of me.
“Of course, a hole ain’t so much; but it’s the best part of the doughnut—you’d think so if you had ever tasted the doughnuts we used to eat in ‘31.”
“The Inventor of the Hole in the Donut.” Our Paper. Vol. 32. Massachusetts Reformatory. 1916.
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