Peter Paul Grogan Biography

Peter Paul Grogan was an Irish lad, born in Inishbofin, a little green island off the coast of County Galway. But it wasn't long after he landed in Baltimore until he was speaking fluent German.

It was part of his determination to make good in America. For during the Civil War he gave up the clerk's job he had gotten on Dugan's Wharf when he had arrived shortly before, and set himself up in business making picture frames and selling inexpensive paintings to fill them.

Most of his customers were Germans, and the young immigrant couldn't understand them when they came in to buy. So he learned their language—and his business boomed. Soon he was able to tell his parents, then living in England, to join him.

He bought a house in the 700 block East Lombard street and there opened up a furniture business. Competition was great, but he had an idea.

The Installment Plan The idea was the installment plan—and members of the family say that Peter Grogan was the first man in Baltimore to try it. That was in the 1870s, and before the decade was over he was well on his way to becoming a wealthy man. Then he moved to Washington and established another store and his fortune was made.

But Grogan, who maintained a fine house on E street for his wife and growing family, did not desert Baltimore. He spent his summers in the city—in a 33-room mansion at 2700 East Preston street.

"That was a wonderful house," recalls Miss Nell Grogan, today his only living child. "The doors were solid walnut, and the doorknobs were made of silver. The rooms were so big that we children—there were seven of us—could easily get ourselves lost."

And another member of the family, Mrs. Patrick J. Grogan, widow of one of the merchant's sons, recalls that the land around the mansion was a garden spot, surrounded by linden trees and so much lawn that Peter Grogan sold off yard after yard of turf to the cemeteries so he would not have to have the grass trimmed.

Real Estate and Legacy Indeed, Peter Grogan owned so much open land around the old house that he went into the real estate business, selling lots and building houses. Altogether, he put up more than 250 homes on Milton avenue, Biddle street, Luzerne and Grogan avenue. That latter street, which today runs from Milton to Lakewood, was named for him in the process.

Grogan, whom many people called a double for Governor Warfield, died in 1902 at the age of 61, but he was remembered long after his death for his disposition and his good works.

Almost every summer, dozens of orphans would come out to Preston street from the orphanage near St. Vincent's Church to spend the day, and the merchant would lavish presents upon them. And many remember that he gave the money to build St. Catherine's Church, at Preston and Luzerne, offering to do so when returning from Europe on the same ship with Cardinal Gibbons. The Cardinal asked him to name the church, and he did so in honor of his wife.

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