Perhaps one of our loyal readers can answer this one. Supposedly, in Camden, Maine, there is a 28ft. high statue honouring One Captain Hanson Gregory.
The Captain is claimed as the inventor of the hole in the doughnut - a boon to mankind he devised around 1847.
We found this handsome monument (a plaque to plaque?) but our steam-driven computers can't seem to deliver an image of the hero himself.
BOY WONDER
In The Washington Post of Mar. 26, 1916, Captain Hanson Gregory claimed to have had his brainstorm while aboard a lime-trading ship at the age of sixteen:
"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."
"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 around, then I got an inspiration, a great inspiration."
"I took the cover off the ship's tin pepper box, and I cut into 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."
SHE ALREADY KNEW HOW TO SUCK EGGS
On returning to Camden, Gregory taught his mother the trick. She sent several panfuls to Rockland, where they were an instant hit.
Today, a plaque near Clam Cove in the present town of Rockport marks Captain Gregory's birthplace, which is now the parsonage of the Nativity Lutheran Church. Captain Gregory lived his last years at Sailors' Snug Harbor in Quincy, Mass., and was buried there beneath a prominent headstone in 1921.
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