Hogan Pioneer Cabin

By Mandi Payne

Dedicated by: Daughters of Utah Pioneers 1976

GPS location: 40*52’29” N 111*54’2” W

Plaque A

In 1848 Eric G. M. Hogan, a Norwegian immigrant and the first South Bountiful settler, built a cabin for his wife Halga and their children on the site located approximately 934 West and 1500 South. A second cabin, constructed in 1857 for his wife Ingeborg was located a block east of the first home. In 1862 Mr. Hogan married Hannah Nielson an expert carpet weaver. While she wove, Ingeborg cared for Hannah’s five children. This family of eight lived in the house for seventeen years. In 1934 Hyrum Hogan, eldest son of Eric and Hannah and his wife Margaret, presented this cabin to the Eutaw Camp of the D. U. P. who moved it to the grounds of the South Bountiful Church. Fire destroyed the Church in 1975 and the Cabin was moved to the City Park. Here it stands as a memorial to the Hogan Family and all the pioneers who came to this area.

Plaque B

In 1848 Eric G. M. Hogan and Family settled in South Bountiful. In 1858, he built this cabin of native logs for wife Ingeborg. The slab roof was fastened with wooden pegs a ladder in corner served an upper room. Hannah joined the family in 1882, whose five children were born here. After seventeen years a larger home was built and the Cabin became a granary. Given to D.U.P. by Hyrum and Margaret Hogan for a relic hall. Moved to this location in 1978.

The Story of the Cabin

In Woods Cross, Utah, at 1500 South just East of Main Street is a park. This park is not like all of the other parks in Utah. Like any other park it has two playgrounds for children to play on, swing sets for high flying adventures, courts for pickle ball and basketball and a baseball diamond in the back. Unlike most parks, however, there is a little log cabin that sits near the street on the North side of the park. This log cabin was built by Eric Gautesson Midtboen Hogan in 1857.

Erik Gautesen Midtboen Haugen, was born in Norway on June 23, 1802. After the death of his first wife, Kari Sondresen who died in childbirth, he married Helge Knudsen in 1829. Together they had five children and lived a good life, until Haugen heard people talking about America and the life that they could have there. Haugen felt the draw of a better living than he had in Norway. They weren’t poor but they weren’t wealthy. Hogan felt that the move would improve their status and wanted to move straight away. Helge took a few years to be swayed on moving, Hogan told her, “well, I am going; we will separate; I will take two of the children; you may take two and we will cast lots for the fifth one.”[1] This comment swayed Helge to agree and together with their five children the family left for America in 1837 where he changed the spelling of his name to Eric G. M. Hogan.

The Hogan family had many hardships on their journey to a new world. Their third child, four-year-old daughter Heige died at sea. When they arrived in America the pouch that held their money went overboard, and though they recovered some money they still lost $200. At first, they stayed in Chicago where they lost another child, three-year-old Margit. They then moved to Ottawa, Illinois where other Norwegian families lived. There, a sixth child was born who they named Harriet. It was also in Ottawa in 1843 that the family converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and moved to Nauvoo to be with the saints there. They had three more children named Elizabeth, Margaret, and Regena. On April 17, 1846 they moved West with the rest of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in September 1848 after one more child, their tenth was born and Helge, became seriously ill.

Erick Hogan found some land north of Salt Lake City and settled his family near a nice stream. Later this area would be known as South Bountiful and Woods Cross. In 1858 he became a polygamist when he married Ingeborg Maria Jensen. In 1862 he married a third living wife, Hannah Nilsson. Ingeborg had no children and Hannah had five. Together the second and third wives lived in the cabin that Erick built in 1857 for Ingeborg. In 1878 during the diphtheria epidemic, three of Hannah’s children died.

The cabin as Hogan built it in 1857 was described as, ‘a house with one room downstairs and one up, with a slab roof and an adobe chimney.’ [2] It was built at a different location, on about 934 West and 1500 South. A second room was built off the main room for Hannah to do her weaving.[3] After it was no longer used as living quarters, the Hogan Family used it to hold hay or injured animals. In February 1934 in a Daughter’s of the Utah Pioneers meeting in Bountiful Utah, Hannah and Erick Hogan’s first born son Hyrum announced that he and his wife “would present the camp with their log cabin.”[4]

When the DUP received the cabin, they loaded it onto a tractor and took it to the East side of the Church grounds. [5] They relocated the cabin to the Latter-day Saint chapel about 15,000 feet away from where the meetings of the DUP’s Eutaw Camp were being held. It was chosen to ‘be preserved as a relic hall and as a memorial to the sturdy faithful pioneers of the community.’[6] The DUP also said that ‘it will be used as a meeting place for the members of the DUP camp and also to house pioneer relics.’ [7] There are now several artifacts that are housed in the cabin which were donated by members of the community and the DUP, however only three of those artifacts once belonged to the Hogan family.

The DUP used the building to hold meetings and socials. In March of 1975 a fire engulfed the Latter-day Saint Chapel but luckily left the cabin untouched. After the fire was extinguished, the cabin looked like “a tiny ghost house against the blackened ruins of the church.”[8] A group of people, including members of the DUP and community, decided then that the cabin needed a better home and so, the cabin was moved again by the DUP, this time across the street where the park is. They carefully moved the cabin and then renovation and restorations began. They filled in the missing and broken panels of wood with new ones, and someone was hired to build a new fireplace for the cabin, making it no longer the simple adobe style that was first there.[9]

The Hogan Cabin being put on a concrete slab at Hogan Park in Woods Cross.

On August 9, 1976 people in the community and members of the DUP gathered at Hogan Park to dedicate the cabin as a relic of the past. Members of the community and the DUP gathered in attendance. The DUP organized a program with musical numbers and speakers who talked about the history of the cabin and its inhabits along with its restoration and the journey the cabin had go take to get to this spot. A plaque by the cabin was unvalued for the bicentennial celebration of Eric Hogan arriving in the South Bountiful area. There were about 250 people present on the cool summer evening. All in attendances were invited to linger and view the cabin while the DUP served refreshments.

Photo of Helge Hogan and the flower neck piece she made and brought across the planes
The South facing wall and where the second room was attached .
East facing wall and the new fireplace.
North-West corner

Now visitors who which to see the interior of the cabin can do so by appointment only by calling the Woods Cross City Hall. Visitors will note that the floor of the second room has been removed, exposing the ceiling. There are horizontal beams placed where the ceiling would be to help with the integrity of the cabin. The DUP member in charge invites visitors inside the small cabin and then they are free to look around for a while at all of the artifacts. She talks about the Hogan family and some of the things that they endured to reach South Bountiful. Then she takes them on a short history of the development of Woods Cross. The DUP envisioned this cabin to “stand as a memorial to all our pioneer forefathers and may we appreciate our heritage and live so that they will be proud of us.” [10]

Notes:

[1] Eric’s Life Story” by Oria Haven Barlow

[2] “Eutaw Camp, DUP to Dedicate its Relic Cabin Sunday,” Davis County Clipper 1938

[3] Interview with Lenore Peterson of the DUP

[4] “Woods Cross,” Davis County Clipper, February 1934

[5] The Restoration of the Eric G.M. Hogan Log Cabin, by The Daughters of the Utah Pioneers 1976

[6] “Eutaw Camp, D.U.P. to Dedicate its Relic Cabin Sunday”, Davis County Clipper 1938.

[7] “Woods Cross,” Davis County Clipper, September 1934

[8] ”The Restoration of the Eric G.M. Hogan Log Cabin”, by The Daughters of the Utah Pioneers 1976

[9] Interview of Lenore Peterson of the DUP

[10] DUP “Dedication of the Eric G. M. Hogan Pioneer Cabin”

Primary Sources