Capt. Hanson Gregory

and the doughnut hole

I never suspected a Saturday trip to the grocery store would remind me of Bishop Bonaventure Broderick but it did. Even more surprising, the memory was triggered by the cereal boxes above.

Tony the Tiger first appeared in 1952, and the good bishop died in 1943, so they never crossed paths. Tony may have invented glazed donut hole cereal, but I doubt the big cat execs at Kellogg’s ever asked who invented the hole itself. Bishop Broderick knew.

Not only did the bishop know, but he made the obscure person the subject of his first newspaper essay for the Millbrook Round Table—just one example of the wide-ranging knowledge—and pen— of America’s “gas-station bishop.”

His inaugural column February 5, 1937, covered several topics and concluded with this humorous profile:

The Hole in the Doughnut.

A mystery that long has vexed the natives of New England, and many more besides, has at last been solved. Not until the claim of that honor for Captain Hanson Gregory, of Camden, Maine, who died 14 years ago, was put forth by his friends was it definitely known who invented the hole in a doughnut.

There is no longer any doubt Captain Gregory did it while he was a cook on a sailing vessel off the coast of Maine forty or fifty years ago. According to the contention of his admirers he seems to have also invented the device, or “gadget,” in the vernacular of today—with which to make the hole. It will, probably, not be long now before the statue of Captain Gregory will be displayed in our halls of fame among those of that bright galaxy of inventive geniuses who have made Yankee ingenuity famous the world over! Let the incredulous of future generations enter any well-appointed hall of fame and read the description identifying the captain’s bronze bust: “Captain Hanson Gregory, inventor of the hole in the doughnut.” All that remains now to be determined is: Which is the doughnut, and which is the cruller.

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And now you know.