William H. Hogg was a very successful businessman in Bloomington between 1862 and 1879. He came here with a large fortune and a young family. He had inherited a large amount of money from his father before leaving Ohio. He entered in to various mercantile concerns very successfully and speculated in real estate. His first wife died April 15, 1875, leaving him alone with a daughter and son. In September of 1875 his son, Harry C. Hogg (26), also died, perhaps of tuberculosis. This son was extremely accomplished and had become a lawyer, a journalist and then a Universalist minister.
William Hogg had managed to be a success all through the "Long Depression" following the Panic of 1873, but by 1879, he was no longer able to keep up payments on loans and mortgages.
William Hogg married Frances Taylor in 1879. She had been a widow for several years, having lost her first husband to illness a very short time after their marriage. She was living in the Town of McLean and running a millinery business there.
William brought Frances to his home at 308 Gridley Street, where she became stepmother to Mamie (26) and Willie (13). Sometime in 1879 William knew that his financial condition was ruined. He was losing his lovely home on Gridley Street, and his real estate investments in Kansas City were also lost. Frances related that he said to her several times: "It would be very pleasant for them if they all could die together." The family had been keeping William under a careful watch and had been hiding his gun from him for several months.
Due to the loss of the home on Gridley Street, William Hogg rented a home in Normal for the family in October of 1879. On October 20, 1879, Frances Hogg was busily arranging their belongings in their new residence. William's children were at their old home. Mamie was working and Willie was playing with his friends, Abraham Livingston, George Souther and Willie Dinsmore.
William Hogg was thought to be attending to business in Bloomington, but he stopped at the P.W. Bentley's gunsmith shop (basement of 211 N. Main) at 11:30 that morning. There he requested that Bentley clean his gun and load it. He waited while the work was done and left the store sometime around noon.
He walked to his home on Gridley Street and entered the house. His daughter, Mamie, was kneeling on the floor in the hall outside the library. Without a word, the father held the gun to his daughter's head, just below her ear and fired. She cried out for her brother as William Hogg left the house.
A neighbor boy was in the yard -- Willie Dinsmore -- the son of William Hogg's dear friend, Reverend Dinsmore. William asked the Dinsmore boy where Willie Hogg was, but seeing the gun, and having heard the shot just moments before, Willie Dinsmore was too frightened to say anything at all. In the same moment William saw his son with another friend. Hiding the gun from view behind his coat, William bent down to Willie and said, "I am going to shoot you now, Willie." He shot Willie as he had his daughter, just below the ear. Willie cried out to his friend Abraham Livingston and ran from the yard.
William Hobbs then stepped behind the summer kitchen and shot himself in the right temple. George Souther called for help for Willie and another neighbor helped Willie to the Alsop's house. There he was attended by a doctor. Mamie was also attended to in another neighbor's house.
Both of these young people made a good physical recovery from their wounds after a few days, but their father was dead within an hour of his wound. Mrs. Hogg was advised of the incident and became prostrated with shock and grief.
After this horrendous afternoon, the children continued to make their home with Mrs. Hogg in the house on Gridley Street (after a lawyer friend pointed out that the foreclosure was faulty). Willie was given a job as a clerk in an office (at age 13) and hoped to make good.
Mamie was very despondent about the suicide and attack. She went to Missouri the following year to visit her older sister, Ella, who was married to John Niccolls. But she was unable to overcome the sad thoughts of the afternoon of October 20, 1879. On January 10, 1881 Mamie committed suicide by jumping into a well at her sister's home.
Exactly one month later, Ella Hogg Nicolls committed suicide in the same well.
Thus, the actions of William Hogg resulted in his death and the death of both his daughters. Willie Hogg moved to Missouri, where he worked for a railroad. He married Frances Maude Shirk in Missouri and had eight children with her. They moved to New Jersey, where William died in 1927 at the age of 60. Frances Hogg died in 1893 at the home of her brother. She never remarried.
(The photo included with this post is merely illustrative and does not portray any member of the Hogg family.)