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Six Fun Facts About the Doughnut

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What’s not to love about the doughnut? Well, except what it does to your waistline. But there’s a lot more to the tasty snack than you might think. Here are six fun facts about the doughnut and its many, many variations.

1. You say “doughnut,” I say “donut.”

The word “dough nut” first appeared in print in 1803 in a cookbook, “The frugal housewife,” by Susannah Carter. English cookbooks had previously included recipes for fried “nuts,” because that’s how the dough was shaped. Then in 1809, Washington Irving explained the origin of the dough-nut in his “A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty.”

Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple-pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast of an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called dough-nuts, or oly koeks: a delicious kind of cake, at present scarce known in this city, excepting in genuine Dutch families.

But in 20th-century United States, the ubiquity of fast food coffee-and-doughnut chains—Mister Donut and Dunkin’ Donuts—transformed “doughnut” to “donut.”

However, “doughnut” is considered the more highbrow spelling, and both the New York Times and Associated Press insist on it. The Oxford English Dictionary also likes “doughnut,” while the American Heritage Dictionary prefers “donut.”

2. It didn’t have a hole until a Maine ship captain put one in it.

Capt. Hansen Gregory in 1916 told a Washington Post reporter he discovered the doughnut hole when he worked as a 16-year-old crewman on a lime-trading schooner.

“Now in them days we used to cut the doughnuts into diamond shapes, and also into long strips, bent in half, and then twisted,” he said. “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.”

He decided a space inside the dough would solve the problem. So, he took the cover off the ship’s pepper box and cut a hole into the middle of the doughnut.

He shared his trick with his mother, who lived in Camden, Maine. She began making doughnuts with holes. Soon, claimed Gregory, everyone was doing it.

At least that’s the story, and no one seems to have disproved it.

3. The Dutch weren’t the only ones who brought doughnuts to New England.

Many immigrant groups brought their own version of the doughnut across the Atlantic.

For example, Italian-Americans throughout New England celebrate St. Joseph’s Day (March 19) by binging on the luscious pastry known as zeppole. The saintly snack is a baked or fried doughnut with fillings such as cream, custard or jelly and topped with sugar or fruit. You can find them in many Italian bakeries, especially in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Zeppole

Pączki (pronounced “poonch-kee”) are filled Polish pastries either glazed or dusted with sugar. Poles in Poland eat them on Fat Thursday, the Thursday before Ash Wednesday. But in the United States, Polish Americans tend to indulge in them on Fat Tuesday. Look for them in bakeries in heavily Polish communities like Chicopee, Mass., or Bridgeport, Conn.

In the southeastern Massachusetts cities of Fall River and New Bedford, Portuguese-Americans celebrate Fat Tuesday with—you guessed it—sugar-coated doughnuts. They call them malassadas.

The association of doughnuts with religious holidays has led some to refer to the “Christian Doughnut Season.” But Jews do it, too, on Hanukkah, with sufganiyot, fried dough rolled in sugar and injected with jelly.

Polish pączki

Loukoumades, the Greek version of the doughnut, consists of deep-fried dough balls soaked in honey, dusted with cinnamon and sprinkled with chopped nuts. You can buy them at LoukoMadness at the Mall of New Hampshire in Manchester, N.H., which has a sizeable Greek population.

In Hartford’s Jamaican bakeries, you’re likely to find Jamaican doughnuts, called festivals. And you used to be able to get berliners, a German favorite, at Karl’s Sausage Kitchen, a German grocery store in Peabody since 1958. It closed, regrettably, in 2025.

Sufganiyot

4. The Boston Cream Doughnut is the official doughnut of Massachusetts.

Somerville Middle School Student Emma Krane began her campaign for the doughnut’s officialdom as a grade-school student in 1997. She continued to lobby the Great and General Court  with her classmates until Acting Gov. Jane Swift made the Boston Cream Doughnut official with her signature on Jan. 1, 2003. Such campaigns–to name official state cookies and fruits and the like–generally aim to teach schoolchildren about civics. It usually teaches them how long it takes to get a law passed.

A month after the Boston Cream Doughnut achieved its elevated status, Dunkin’ Donuts came out with a press release celebrating the news. The company also took the opportunity to promote its “Boston Kreme,” which it then sold in about 800 shops in Massachusetts.

Boston Cream Doughnut

The Boston Cream Doughnut is actually a berliner filled with custard or crème pâtissière and topped with chocolate icing. (And no, JFK never said, “I am a jelly doughnut.”)

Only one other state, Louisiana, has an official state doughnut—the beignet.

5. The potato doughnut lives on in Maine.

In the 1940s, a chain of doughnut shops called Spudnuts created a craze for potato doughnuts. It died out, however, and most Spudnuts have closed. But in Portland, Maine, the Holy Donut shops keep the flame alive. Started by a single mom in 2012, Holy Donut has expanded to four shops in Greater Portland. They have a cult-like following and tourists seek them out. Lines for the light, cakey doughnut are often out the door.

Maine has a tradition of potato-infused sweets. The state’s signature candy, the needham, is also made with potato.

6. Two brothers-in-law founded Mister Donuts and Dunkin’ Donuts.

They partnered to sell doughnuts, and then they broke up in 1955. Harry Winokur founded Mister Donut in Boston and Bill Rosenberg founded Dunkin’ Donuts in Quincy, Mass.

Both companies expanded to hundreds of franchises, and eventually the company that bought Dunkin’ Donuts bought Mister Donut. Mister Donut shops had the option of converting to Dunkin’ Donuts.

Today, Mister Donut has all but disappeared from the United States. Only one domestic Mister Donut survives, in Godfrey, Ill.  But the franchise has a large footprint in Asia. Japan has adopted Mister Donut as its own. There’s even a Mister Donut Museum in Osaka, called the Dusken Museum after the company’s mascot, a cute white dog. The museum features busts of the founders, retro memorabilia, short films and two workshops: “The Donut-Making Experience” and  “The Donut Topping Experience.”

The original Dunkin’ Donuts in Quincy.

Quincy, Mass., has a Dunkin’ Donuts Museum. At least that’s what Quincy locals call it. Though not an actual museum, it’s the first Dunkin’ Donuts eatery, started by Bill Rosenberg. Inside, a plaque reads, “This is the site of the Original Dunkin’ Donuts.” It has pink and orange chairs and doughnut-shaped tables.  Call it a “living history museum.”

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Now available in paperback and as an ebook from the New England Historical Society! A collection of stories about the French people who came to America. Click here to order your copy today!

 

 

 

 

Images: Boston Cream Doughnut By Evan-Amos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18949241. Image: Zeppola by By News21 – National – Zeppole, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34876662. Mister Donut By Kuha455405 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4666574. Paczki By fir0002flagstaffotos [at] gmail.comCanon 20D + Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 – Own work, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=260421. Sufganiyot CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=816880. Doughnuts on display By WestportWiki – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24823025.

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Prince Mortimer, Out of the Shadows After a Century in Captivity

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In 18th-century Middletown, Conn., a tall, dark-skinned man named Prince Mortimer walked the same path each day, trudging to his master’s ropeworks where he spun hemp into yarn.

For over a century, he clung to the hope of freedom—first during the Revolution, then upon his master’s death and finally when his jailers urged him to flee. Yet he died at 110, having spent all but his first six years in captivity.

Today, the route he once walked as an enslaved man bears little resemblance to the path from his enslaver’s mansion to the ropeworks. It evolved into Rapallo Avenue, paved, lined with parking lots, small apartment buidings, a pharmacy and an Italian restaurant. In 2025, Middletown renamed Rapallo Avenue as Prince Mortimer Avenue, ensuring that the man who once walked in servitude is now remembered along the very route he traveled.

Prince Mortimer

Slavers captured him around 1730 at the age of 6 years old near his home in Guinea, West Africa. They shipped him in shackles across the Atlantic Ocean. Prince described the vessel as a “filthy slave ship.”

Prince disappears into the shadows again for the next 15 years. The slave ship may have taken him to a deep-water port engaged in slaving—Newport or Bristol, R.I., or perhaps New London, Conn., or even New York City. Or the ship took him to the Caribbean. There, a smaller vessel that brought horses, lumber or farm produce from Middletown could have carried Prince for sale back in Connecticut.

slave-trade-ship

In the slave trade, captured Africans were packed belowdecks in a transatlantic slave ship.

At 15, an Irish immigrant named Philip Mortimer bought Prince. Mortimer had married a well-to-do Connecticut woman in Boston, and in 1742 they moved to Middletown. Mortimer saw a business opportunity in the busy seaport: It had no ropeworks.

Ships then used tremendous amounts of rope, and Middletown had no ropeworks. So Philip Mortimer started one on the west bank of the Connecticut River.

Rope Spinner

Prince had grown quite tall and clever, and Mortimer had him trained to spin hemp into thousand-foot-long yarn.

Prince Mortimer on his way to the ropewalk

When the American Revolution broke out, Connecticut passed two laws that gave enslaved men hope for freedom. Under the first, men could avoid the draft by finding a substitute. Under the second, men could avoid conscription by freeing an enslaved person to serve in their place, which also released them from any future responsibility for that person’s welfare.

The colony didn’t guarantee freedom for enslaved soldiers, but many negotiated freedom as the price for their service. But some didn’t get such a promise, and others didn’t get it in writing.

Prince Mortimer may have negotiated for his freedom if he fought for freedom from Great Britain. He probably at least had hope of liberty.

Pvt. Mortimer was said to have been a servant to the Army’s top officers, carrying messages back and forth. He supposedly ran errands for George Washington. Mortimer himself said he “straddled many a cannon while fired by the Americans at the British troops.”

Watercolor of Continental Army soldiers, including a Black infantryman

When the war ended, Prince Mortimer returned to servitude. If Philip Mortimer promised him freedom for serving, he was far from the only slave owner who broke that promise.

Another Shot at Freedom

Philip Mortimer did promise in his will to set him free upon his death. But when he died in 1794, his son-in-law, George Starr, successfully challenged the will. And so at the age of 70, Prince Mortimer found himself enslaved to Starr, a successful local merchant who had served as Connecticut’s quartermaster during the Revolution.

According to Middletown’s Christ Church records, Prince married a woman named Ann. They had three children, Samuel, Zilpah and John. Ann and the three children were baptized in 1803 at the church.

Prince Mortimer remained enslaved for 17 years. At 87, his usefulness to George Starr neared an end. And Starr had an old man on his hands who he had to feed, clothe and shelter.

So George Starr accused Prince Mortimer of trying to kill him by putting arsenic in his breakfast chocolate. He said he noticed  particles in the drink, later identified as ratsbane or arsenic. A court found Prince Mortimer guilty and sent him to Newgate Prison — a place also known as hell.

Old Newgate Prison

It had started out as a colonial copper mine in Simsbury, Conn. (later East Granby). But it didn’t make the kind of money its owners dreamed of.

By 1773, Connecticut Colony decided to turn it into a prison. The colony’s officials thought that confining prisoners in a cold, dark, wet, filthy hole in the ground was less barbaric than the common punishments of branding, ear cropping and whipping.

A view of the guard-house and Simsbury-mines, now called Newgate (1781)

They named it “Newgate” after England’s notorious penitentiary.

Drains were closed, the main shaft, about 40 feet deep, was capped and a guardhouse was built over it. The mine had a second shaft, 80 feet deep, through which prisoners could escape if an accomplice threw them a long enough rope.

Prisoners had to climb down a ladder into the mine, a dark, cold cavern.  Bugs and five inches of slippery filthy covered the floor. During the day, prisoners worked above ground, making barrels, plows, shoes or baskets.

Prince Mortimer, Inmate

To his captors, Prince appeared a harmless, clever old man, according to one historian.

Prison guards let Prince leave Newgate, perhaps because of his age and temperament, or perhaps they considered him a burden and wanted him to escape. Prisoners gave him money to go across the road to buy spirits at the nearby tavern.

Prince once did what the prison guards wanted and escaped. He traveled back to Middletown, 35 miles away, and rambled about, looking for someone he once knew. But he couldn’t find anyone, so he returned to the prison and begged the guards to take him back.

Old Newgate today. Run by the State of Connecticut as Old New-Gate Prison & Copper Mine Archaeological Preserve., it is o National Historic Landmark and open to visitors seasonally.

Connecticut closed Newgate in 1827 and moved the inmates, including 97-year-old Prince Mortimer, to the new prison in Wethersfield.

Prison records show that in 1831 Prince suffered from ailments of the bowels caused by the prison food. Admitted to the prison hospital, physicians prescribed better food.

On March 11, 1834, Prince Mortimer died. The prison physician wrote that he died of old age, “no bodily disease at the time of his death sufficient to produce such a result.”

Recognition

in February 2025, Middletown renamed Rapallo Avenue, the old path to the ropewalk, Prince Mortimer Avenue.

John Mills is a software engineer and historian who has dedicated himself to uncovering and preserving stories of enslaved people in Connecticut, including Prince Mortimer.  Through the Alex Breanne Corporation, he has traced the roots of 50 families to date, sharing their histories to ensure that the past is not forgotten.

Most of the enslaved people in his family spent most of their lives enduring, Mills told WBUR in 2025. “But because they persisted, I exist. I see greatness in their endurance.”

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Now available in paperback and as an ebook from the New England Historical Society! A collection of stories about the French people who came to America. Click here to order your copy today!

 

 

 

 

Images: Drawing of Newgaate, A view of the guard-house and Simsbury-mines, now called Newgate – a prison for the confinement of loyalists in Connecticut. London: J. Bew, Pater-Noster-Row, Nov. 1st. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2004671519/>. Picture of Newgate ruins, Highsmith, Carol M, photographer. Old New-Gate Prison in East Granby, Connecticut. October. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2012630946/>. Illustration of Prince Mortimer by ChatGPT>

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8 Fun Facts About Beatrice Fox Auerbach, Who Guided G. Fox to Greatness

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During the golden age of department stores, Hartford’s G. Fox reigned as the grandest and most beloved of them all. Beatrice Fox Auerbach, granddaughter of the founder, made that happen.

People drove from all over New England to visit the 11-floor emporium on Main Street. It outshone the other stores in the district – Sage Allen & Co, Wise Smith & Company and Brown Thomson & Co. Passing through the revolving doors, customers were greeted by polite, neatly dressed staff. Beneath the soft glow of Art Deco light fixtures, high-fashion mannequins stood as silent sentinels amidst glittering merchandise, all showcased in polished glass and inlaid wood cases that rose from the vast marble floor.

In the springtime, flowers and caged songbirds adaorned the main floor. At Christmastime, G. Fox turned into a wonderland.  A Christmas village with historic scale-model Connecticut buildings rested atop its marquee, and for several years the store windows featured Christmas paintings from the Wadsworth Athenaeum.

Years after the store closed in 1993, the Connecticut Historical Society hosted talks about Hartford’s favorite department store. People came in clothes they’d bought at G. Fox. Elizabeth Abbe, who presented the talks, compared the G. Fox & Co. fans to the cult following of  The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

It was mostly because of Beatrice Fox Auerbach.

G. Fox flagship store, Hartford.

G. Fox Starts Small

Beatrice Fox Auerbach’s paternal grandfather, Gerson Fox, had immigrated from Germany and started out selling dry gods from a cart with his brother Isaac.

Gerson moved his peddler’s cart into a one-room storefront in Hartford in 1847. His brother sold his share of the business and Gerson renamed the store G. Fox & Co. From the beginning, the store offered free delivery – at first in a wheelbarrow, then by horse-drawn carriage.

Beatrice’s father, Moses, took over the store when Gerson died in 1880. and built it into a five-floor emporium. He developed a loyal following that would last throughout the store’s existence. When a fire in 1917 destroyed the building, the merchandise and all customer records, Moses immediately announced he would rebuild. According to lore, customers stepped up and paid 95 percent of all their debts.

G. Fox & Co. is on the far left. It burned in 1917.

Moses paid employees their salaries during construction of the new store, and Hartford merchants let G. Fox sell its goods in their storefronts.

Moses rebuilt an 11-story building designed by renowned architect Cass Gilbert. People called it “Fox’s Folly.” Under Beatrice leadership, the store would ultimately use all that space and more.

Beatrice Fox Auerbach

She was born in Hartford on July 17, 1887. In 1911 she married George Auerbach, a descendant of Salt Lake City’s Jewish pioneers. They moved to Salt Lake City, where George’s family owned a department store, and had a daughter, Georgette. They then moved to Hartford after the fire,  and George went to work helping his in-laws’ rebuild the business. Dorothy, their last child, arrived.

George died suddenly in 1927, and Beatrice Fox Auerbach worked as a sales clerk/alongside her father. She had no intention of taking over the business – not at first. But she grew fascinated with retailing. When her father died in 1938, she succeeded him as president of the company.

Fox already ranked as a top-shelf retailing giant. Beatrice Fox Auerbach took it to the next level.

Here are eight fun facts about the diminutive woman with the deep voice who turned G. Fox into something very, very special.

1. Beatrice Fox Auerbach did not believe in retail branches.

She thought they cheapened the allure of the flagship store. So, instead of branching out, she encouraged people to drive into the city. G. Fox built an enormous parking garage near the planned interchange of I-91 and I-84. An urban legend grew up that Beatrice Fox Auerbach had influenced the government to plan off-ramps that took customers’ cars to the garage.

For those who didn’t want to drive into Hartford, Beatrice Fox Auerbach began a telephone ordering service. She had direct lines installed to 100 Connecticut towns so customers could call in an order toll-free. The G. Fox delivery trucks would do the rest. also for free.

The May Department Stores Company took over G. Fox in 1965. In 1969 it began expanding to 12 branches. But in 1992, the corporate owners folded G. Fox into its Filene’s subsidiary.

2. Her employees loved her.

They called her “Mrs. A.” She knew them by name and had lunch with them on their birthdays. During the holidays, she walked the sales floor and shook every worker’s hand. She worked in an unostentatious office and always left the door open.

But she gave her e mployees more than personal attention. She gave them a retirement fund, paid sick days and a 40-hour week. A special cafeteria sold food to employees at cost. Long-term employees got special treatment as members of the Moses Fox Club.

Because of the 40-hour week, G. Fox closed on Sundays and Mondays, except for the weeks from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Under Beatrice Fox Auerbach’s leadership, G. Fox offered training programs and promoted employees from within. Employees could achieve steady advancement and job security, and many worked at the store for decades.

One G. Fox employee told of his late mother who retired from G. Fox. She proudly won many customer service awards and was buried wearing her G. Fox name badge.

Beatrice Fox Auerbach

3. She guided the store to become the biggest in New England.

Fox was not only the biggest in the region, it was the biggest privately held department store in the United States.

By the time Beatric Fox Auerbach sold out to the May Department Stores Company, sales volume had increased to $60 million, 10 times what it was when she took the helm. By 1964, G. Fox had a fleet of 165 delivery trucks painted creamy white or robin’s egg blue. “G. Fox & Co.” The workforce ranged from 3,500 to 5,000 during the holiday season.

At its peak, G. Fox had 1,107,000 square feet of space in downtown Hartford, including a large hall where non profit organizations could hold meetings and events for free.

4. She had little formal education.

Beatrice Fox Auerbach not only didn’t graduate from college, she didn’t graduate from high school. But she received honorary degrees from three colleges and served on the boards of trustees for three others.  The Delta Phi Epsilon sorority named her Woman of the Year in 1951, and in 1955 she served as a delegate to the White House Conference on Education.

Despite her lack of education, she took a keen interest in education for women. In 1938 she started a retailing program at Connecticut College for Women (now  Connecticut College).

5. Beatrice Fox Auerbach hired the first Black employee in 1942.

But she didn’t just hire minorities, she promoted them to positions of responsibility on sales and executive tracks.

For her efforts, she won recognition from  the National Urban League and a certificate of lifetime membership in the NAACP in 1957.

6. She insisted on impeccable customer service.

Under Beatrice Fox Auerbach, G. Fox cultivated an almost mythical standard of customer care. The impeccably trained staff had a deep knowledge of the merchandise. After a customer bought something, a courteous salesperson would always ask, “Would you like that sent?”

Personal shoppers helped customers with disabilities, and interpreters could assist non-English speaking shoppers.

The store honored all returns.

One G. Fox employee recalled, “The policy was if a customer wanted to return a spool of thread, the great G. Fox fleet would pick up the thread.”

When a child tore her sneaker on the escalator, G. Fox replaced her shoes for free.

In 1947, G. Fox marked its 100th anniversary by delivering packages by a fleet of three helicopters.  On Christmas Eve, Beatrice Fox Auerbach always kept a small staff and drivers on standby until midnight for desperate parents who needed an emergency Christmas gift.

7. She wanted people to spend the entire day at G. Fox.

A trip to G. Fox was a full-day, curated experience. Before even browsing the merchandise, you could have your hair styled in the beauty salon, enjoy a complimentary makeover, or drop off a prescription—to be ready upon your departure. The mezzanine offered its own delights, from renting a book to purchasing rare coins. For lunch, the choice was between a quick bite at the lunch bar or the refined elegance of the Connecticut Room, where patrons still recall the signature chicken pot pie and date nut bread.

In-house tailors made sure even children’s clothes fit properly. And when fatigue set in,  a serene Ladies’ Lounge with plush curved sofas offered some quiet relaxation.

8, She had a strong commitment to philanthropy.

In the aftermath of the Hartford Circus Fire in 1944, Beatrice Fox Auerbach learned Municipal Hospital was overwhelmed with more than 100 casualties. She sent over 500 sandwiches and 25 gallons of coffee. Then, when she found out the hospital had a shortage of bedding and night clothes, she  sent over a truckload of sheets and pajamas with the G Fox price tags still attached.

During World War II, G. Fox set up a Red Cross unit in the store to make wound dressings. After the war,  Beatrice Fox Auerbach established the Service Bureau for Women’s Organizations to train women in charitable and civic activities.

Eventually she established the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation, which donated money to colleges, hospitals, the Hartford Symphony and the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art.

During her lifetime she received many honors, including the distinguished service award from the Connecticut Bar Association.

When she sold the company to the May Co. in 1965, she said, “One thing you can be certain of is that I won’t be spending [the profits from the sale] on yachts and horses, but for the benefit of the people.”

She remained as president for one year after May bought G. Fox, Beatrice Fox Auerbach then died two years later in 1968.

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Now available in paperback and as an ebook from the New England Historical Society! A collection of stories about the French people who came to America. Click here to order your copy today!

 

 

 

 

Images: Beatrice Fox Auerbach By Unknown – [1], Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77399910. Image of Beatrice Fox Auerbach colorized by ChatGPT.

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The Unlikely Duo Behind Subway: A Physicist, a Teenager and a $1,000 Check

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Peter Buck was a 35-year-old Yankee with a Ph.D. in physics. Fred Deluca was an Italian American teenager who grew up in a New York City housing project. They lived 40 miles apart. In 1965, they formed a business partnership that became Subway Restaurants.

The improbable pair started with a shop selling submarine sandwiches in Bridgeport, Conn., and ended up as billionaires. Subway became the world’s largest fast-food franchise. (Yes, Subway has more stores than McDonald’s.) From the outset, Fred DeLuca exhibited the traits that would define the company for decades: an unrelenting drive for growth and a fiercely insular, family-business style of management.

A Subway restaurant in Forestdale, Mass.

Subway’s Founders

Nothing in his background prepared Peter Buck for a fast-food partnership with a kid half his age, except for the fact that he grew vegetables and loved to eat Italian sandwiches from a Portland deli called Amato’s.

He was born in 1930 to Ervin and Lillian Draper Buck, who owned a large farm in South Portland, Maine. He and his brother David planted and harvested crops such as lettuce, squash, and celery. His mother later went to work as a journalist for the Portland Press Herald.

Peter studied economics and science at Bowdoin College and then went on to earn a doctorate in physics at Columbia University. He married Haydee Piñero, the daughter of the first native-born governor of Puerto Rico, and they had three children. In 1957, General Electric hired him to work on atomic power plants for the Navy in Schenectady, N.Y.

The Start of Subway

Fred’s father, Sal DeLuca, was a high school dropout, who worked as a plant foreman for Empire Devices. He and his wife, Carmela, lived in public housing in the Bronx with Fred and his sister, Suzanne. When Empire moved its manufacturing operations to Schenectady, the DeLuca family moved to an apartment in nearby Amsterdam.

It was there that Pete Buck befriended Sal DeLuca. Fred explained the two men enjoyed bow hunting together.

But Empire moved again, this time to Bridgeport, Conn., and the DeLucas followed. Then, within a year, Pete Buck moved 40 miles away to Armonk, N.Y., working for United Nuclear Corporation in White Plains. One day, he invited the DeLuca family to a barbecue at his home.

The Buck home was a far cry from the DeLucas’ small apartment in Bridgeport. As Sal DeLuca drove up the driveway, Fred noticed the large white house, the wide lawn and the two garages with cars in them.

Fred DeLuca

Fred was 17 and had just graduated from high school. He wanted to study medicine at the University of Bridgeport, but his family couldn’t afford tuition. Maybe, he thought, Pete would lend him the money.

Fred waited for his chance att he barbecue. Finally he approached Pete and asked him if he had any ideas for how he could get the money to pay for college. Pete, to his surprise, suggested he open a submarine sandwich shop. He then wrote Fred a check for $1,000.

A few days later, Buck drove DeLuca to Portland to taste an Italian sandwich from Amato’s to give him an idea of what he thought would sell. The pair then set a goal of opening 32 shops in 10 years.

Subway Struggles Early On

DeLuca found a vacant storefront at 3851 Main St. in Bridgeport. His mother helped him buy bread, paper goods, meat, vegetables and cheese. A friend helped with carpentry, and Buck donated his kitchen table. Pete’s Super Submarine Sandwiches opened two weeks after Buck wrote the $1,000 check. On the first day, they sold 312 foot-long submarine sandwiches. The most expensive sandwich cost 69 cents.

But DeLuca had chosen a poor location, and sales didn’t repeat their inaugural success. But within a year, Buck and DeLuca opened another shop in Fairfield anyway— “to give the illusion of success.” Both stores lost money, though they did pay for DeLuca’s college tuition.

DeLuca opened a third shop in Stratford – without telling Buck, he later wrote. That one made money.

But it would take more than 10 years to open 32 shops, and it would take 15 years before the company turned a profit.

A Name Change

They began to advertise on radio in the New York area, pitching “Pete’s Submarine Sandwiches” as a healthy alternative to burgers and fries. But “Pete’s Submarine” sounded like “Pizza Marine.” So, they changed the name, eventually dropping “Pete” and morphing into Subway.

DeLuca took more and more control of the company. Subway never went public and has always kept information close to the vest, so it’s hard to tell exactly what happened. .

In the beginning, Buck and DeLuca met weekly in Sal and Carmela’s apartment to talk business over Carmela’s spaghetti and meatballs. In the early 1970s, they had only 16 stores and realized they wouldn’t reach 32 by 1975. So the decision was made to franchise. When DeLuca opened a corporate headquarters in Milford, a Bridgeport suburb, Buck asked DeLuca where his office was. DeLuca told him he didn’t have one. Buck never did get an office.

A Family Affair

By then, DeLuca had graduated from the University of Bridgeport and married his college sweetheart, Elisabeth, a nurse. In 1973, a friend of theirs bought the first franchise in Wallingford, Conn. Elisabeth became a company officer, and so did Carmela DeLuca. Fred hired his Aunt Lucy DeLuca as secretary. His sister Suzanne ran research and operations.

Then they expanded outside of Connecticut when Deluca’s brother-in-law opened a Subway franchise in Springfield, Mass. His aunt and uncle, Tony and Louise Scotti, opened one on Staten Island.

Franchising paid off, putting them on the path to explosive growth. By 1981, Subway had 5,000 restaurants; by 1997, it added 10,000 more.

DeLuca was everywhere, a hands-on manager involved in all aspects of the business. He drove around the country in an old Lincoln inspecting stores.

One former employee told Business Insider that workers “were swimming in a fountain of Fred.”

“He was very smart and hardworking, but one of the problems was that he ran the franchise when we had 30,000 stores as if we had a hundred stores,” the employee said.

By then, Peter Buck seemed to have faded into the background. He shunned the media, drove an old car, and started a new family. Buck had a passion for conservation, and he quietly bought up huge tracts of timberland in his native Maine. He did eat Subway sandwiches five days a week. But for years, people asked Buck about Subway and he’d simply say, “Talk to Fred.”

The Secret to Success

A key reason for Subway’s extraordinary growth was that its franchises were easy to open. They cost a fraction of a McDonald’s franchise, though Subway franchisees had to turn over a higher percentage of revenue to corporate. Most franchisees were first-generation Americans, and 30 to 50 percent were immigrants. Many had poor English and math skills, which led to criticism that Subway took advantage of its franchisees.

“Development agents,” usually franchisees, were responsible for opening new franchises and inspecting them regularly. That led to a potential conflict of interest—development agents could find fault with franchises they wanted to buy themselves.

Nevertheless, the number of Subway stores tripled from 1998 to 2011.

The company attributed half to a third of that growth to a wildly successful advertising campaign. It featured a college graduate from Indiana named Jared Fogle, who claimed to have lost a massive amount of weight by eating Subway sandwiches.

Jared Fogle

Jared Fogle

Fogle had ballooned to 425 pounds in college. Then he went on the Subway diet. Every day he ate one small turkey sub, one large veggie sub, baked potato chips and diet soda– a 1,000-calorie-a-day diet. Between 1998 and 1999, he lost 245 pounds. A dormmate wrote a story about him in the Indiana Daily Student, and Men’s Health magazine picked up the story, calling it “Stupid Diets … that Work.” Subway franchises in Chicago then approached the company’s advertising agency about Jared.

From there, Jared Fogle appeared in 300 Subway commercials. South Park devoted an entire episode to him. He appeared in an Adam Sandler film, started the Jared Foundation and donated his old 62-inch pants to a museum.

At the end of 2010, Subway became the largest fast food chain worldwide — with 33,749 restaurants, 1,012 more than McDonald’s.

Then in 2015, the FBI and Indiana State Police raided Fogle’s home and arrested him for child pornography and abuse. Subway that day announced it had suspended its relationship with Jared. Fogle went to federal prison, where as of 2025 he was serving out a 15-and-a-half-year sentence.

Two years earlier, Fred DeLuca announced he had leukemia. He named his sister Suzanne CEO in January 2015 before he died that September.

Subway began to close hundreds of restaurants. Then in 2019, a non-family member took charge for the first time when John Chidsey became CEO. Four years later, Subway announced that private equity firm Roark Capital bought the company for $9.6 billion.

Peter Buck devoted his later years to charity. He formed the Peter and Carmen Lucia Foundation with his second wife and contributed millions to expand Danbury Hospital. When his wife died, he donated a 23.1-carat ruby named after her to the gem collection at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. When he died in 2021, he was worth an estimated $1.7 billion. The seventh-largest landowner in the United States, he owned a total of 1.2 million acres of timberland in Maine.

Fred DeLuca started a charitable foundation during his lifetime as well. When he died, his obituary read that he was survived by his wife, Elisabeth; his son, Jonathan; his granddaughter, nieces and nephews; and “the thousands of team members that make up the Subway brand all over the world.”

***

Now available in paperback and as an ebook from the New England Historical Society! A collection of stories about the French people who came to America. Click here to order your copy today!

 

 

 

 

Images: Jared Fogle By IlliniGradResearch – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7469795. Fred DeLuca By Subway – mynewsdesk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36859567

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Beyond Darwin: The Pioneering Voyage and Science of James Dwight Dana

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You’ve probably seen his name and glossed over it without a thought. But if you had been born in the 19 th Century, it was a name that was famous in scientific and
educational circles, and would become known worldwide: James Dwight Dana.

James Dwight Dana

He was born on Feb. 12, 1813, in Utica, N.Y., the son of James Dana and Harriet Dwight.

The Dwight family was well known in religious circles in New England as missionaries and educators. His uncle, Harrison Gray Otis Dwight, and Harrison’s son, Henry Otis Dwight, were long time Congregationalist missionaries to Istanbul, Turkeye, in the then-Ottoman Empire. Whatever James thought of his religious relatives, it was science that was in his blood.
Fostered by an interest in science while attending Charles Bartlett’s Academy in Utica, N.Y., he enrolled at Yale College, in New Haven, Conn., in 1830 as a sophomore. He graduated in 1833. At Yale he studied under the distinguished professor, Benjamin Silliman, Yale’s first science professor and the founder of the American Journal of Science. James would have further connections with Professor Silliman in later years.

James Dwight Dana, 1885

Upon his graduation from Yale, James Dana began teaching mathematics to U. S. Navy midshipman on a Mediterranean cruise. By 1836, he had returned to Yale as assistant in minerology and chemistry to his former teacher, Benjamin Silliman. Dana would hone his skills first in New England, when in the 1830s he completed a geological survey of Connecticut and New Haven.

U.S. Exploring Expedition

During this time he wrote “A System of Minerology.” a 580-page work still in publication through multiple editions. A year after its publication, in 1838, he joined the United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1842). It set out to explore and survey the Pacific and its islands. He acted as the expedition’s minerologist and geologist. James Dwight Dana was one of nine scientists enlisted for the expedition that included seven U.S. Navy ships under the command of Expedition leader Lt. Charles Wilkes, the Captain of the USS Vincennes, a sloop-of-war. In spite of the fact that Wilkes was a relatively new officer, he was used to doing survey work and working with scientists. That experience gained him command of the expedition.

Lt. Charles Wilkes

Wilkes was something of a martinet who commanded by threat and flogging. However, the expedition itself was a huge success exploring the Pacific. It far surpassed Darwin’s more famous 1831 voyage on the Beagle.

Not until the early winter months of 1839 did the expedition sail around Cape Horn and into the Pacific. During the next three years, it visited Tahiti, Samoa, New South Wales, Australia. Stopping in Sydney, some of the scientists, including Dana, remained behind to explore New South Wales while the remainder of the expedition went into the Antarctic Ocean. It then charted 1500 miles of the then-unknown Antarctic coastline.

Returning to Sydney, the expedition then visited various island, including Tonga, and Fiji. In Fiji, two Americans were killed, probably precipitated by the Americans holding local hostages. The killings resulted in an American landing in force that killed between 74 and 10 Fijians and their villages destroyed.

From Fiji, the expedition sailed to the Sandwich Islands (Hawai’i) and eventually home.

The USS Vincennes in Disappointment Bay

James Dwight Dana succeeds Benjamin Silliman

Dana made so many observations and notes that he would take the next 13 years to completely compile them. In 1849 he published a paper on the geology of the expedition that among other things contributed markedly to the understanding of the geology and paleontology of New South Wales. He would expand upon that later.

It is not clear exactly when, but at some time in his association with Professor Silliman he became enamored with his daughter, Henrietta Francia Silliman. In 1844, Dana moved permanently to New Haven and married Henrietta. They would eventually have three sons, Edward (1849-1935), James (1853-1861) and Arnold (1862-1947). They also had three daughters — Frances (1846-1924), Harriet (1857-1861) and Maria (1867-1961). His son Edward followed in his footsteps as a noted minerologist in his own right.

Benjamin Silliman

Six years later, he took over as Silliman’s successor as the Silliman Professor of Natural History and Geology at Yale. He then held the post for the next 32 years. From 1844 to 1854, he published over 7,000 pages of work, much of it centered on his work during the Wilkes’ Expedition. By this time, his name was known worldwide,. He stayed in continual contact with the noted international men of science in his day, including Charles Darwin. He often disagreed with Darwin, but he maintained a cordial and professional, if somewhat contentious, relationship with him. Unlike Darwin, who never wrote textbooks, Dana wrote several, mostly on minerology. One is currently in its 22nd edition. In 1854, Dana won election to the American Philosophical Society.

Groundbreaking Work

Dana’s hard work ethic and inner drive took its toll on his health. By 1859, he had a physical breakdown from which he never completely recovered. While his public persona became more muted, his work never really stopped. First and foremost, Dana was revered as a teacher and this continued for over 20 more years. In 1864 he published “A Text Book of Geology,” and in 1872 he published a groundbreaking study, “Corals and Coral Islands.”

Dana returned to Hawai’i in 1880 and 1881, and again in 1884 and 1890, to more closely study volcanism. His groundbreaking research became the first geological study of the Hawaiian volcanic chain. His conclusion that this chain was composed of two strands, “Loa” and “Kea”, was a breakthrough, Kilauea and Mauna Kea, and Mauna Loa being the best known today, along with 8 other extinct or dormant volcanoes that make up the Hawaiian Islands.

Lava fountains and a’a channel flow from Mauna Loa, 1984

James Dwight Dana was recognized throughout his lifetime with numerous honors. In 1850 he was the associate editor of the American Journal of Science and Arts and later became its editor. In 1872, the Geological Society of London awarded him the Wollaston Medal, and he was awarded the Copley Gold Medal from the Royal Society of London in 1877. From 1874 to 1882 he was the President of the National Academy of Sciences, of which he was an original member. He belonged to the Royal Society of London, the Royal Academy of the Lincei of Rome, the Institute of France, and the Royal Academies of St. Petersburg, Berlin and Vienna. In 1886, Harvard awarded him an LL.D. degree.

Mount Dana

Medals and Mountains

His monumental contributions to geology and minerology resulted in numerous geological and other features named after him. They include Mount Dana in the Sierra Nevada, California; the Dorsa Dana wrinkle-ridge system on the Moon; the Dana Passage in Puget Sound; the Dana crater on Mars; and the Dana Peak in Alaska.

James Dwight Dana House

James Dwight Dana died on April 14, 1895, in New Haven. He was buried in the Grove Street Cemetery in the same city. After his death, the Mineralogical Society of America created The Dana Medal, and named for him and his son Edward Salisbury Dana. The medal honors outstanding contribution in the mineralogical sciences. In 1865, the National Register of Historic Place added the James Dwight Dana House in New Haven.

James Dwight Dana is the author’s second cousin, four times removed.

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Now available in paperback and an ebook from the New England Historical Society! A collection of stories about the French people who came to America. Click here to order your copy today!
 

 

 

Images: James Dwight Dana house By ajay_suresh – James Dwight Dana House – Yale University, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=154689676. Mount Dana By Jim Bahn – File:Gaylor Peak panorama.jpg, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=117820675

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Seven Fun Facts About New England Schooners, the Forgotten Workhorses of the Sea

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When Andrew Robinson in 1713 sailed his new boat around Gloucester, Mass., someone watching exclaimed, “There she scoons!” It’s a Scottish word meaning to skip lightly across the water, as a pebble, and it gave the name to the iconic New England sailing vessel, the schooner.

Though Robinson’s schooner may not have been the first-ever schooner, it was the first of Gloucester’s famous fishing fleet. The light, sturdy vessels that moved like scalded cats originated in New England in the early part of the 1700s. They evolved from the large ketches used by the Dutch a century or two earlier. Shipbuilders  started adding topsails and making the aft mast taller — hence, the schooner.

Ships, Riding Low at Anchor, byt the Dutch painter Willem van de Velde the Younger, ca. 1670s

The schooner was that rare commodity that met the criteria “fast, cheap and good.” Schooners were seaworthy, durable and relatively cheap to build. They required only a dozen  or so crew and could be adapted to many uses. Offshore fishermen depended on schooners, as did West Indies traders, Civil War blockade runners, pirates of the Caribbean, lumber and coal merchants, slavers evading the law and the Continental Navy.

The Schooner as Workhorse

With their iconic silhouette — sweeping masts, graceful lines and billowing sails — schooners were masterpieces of shipbuilding. Sailors of the Age of Sail often called them ‘the most beautiful thing ever made by man,’ a testament to their marriage of form and function.

But above all, they worked. Schooners were the 18-wheelers of their age—the salt-freight carriers of global commerce. They hauled the raw materials of an industrializing world: coal from Pennsylvania, spruce and pine from Maine, guano from Peru.

Schooners carried granite for East Coast roads and bridges, coffee from Brazil, African mahogany for fine furniture. They brought molasses north for rum, ice south for tropical cocktails and even entire pre-cut houses to the West Indies.

Specialized schooners emerged like tradesmen — white-painted ‘fruit schooners’ racing bananas from the Caribbean, clipper ships moving prospectors and gold rush supplies to California, fishing schooners without bowsprits for the fishermen’s safety.

Most were made in New England. Their stories could fill volumes, but here is a taste — seven fun facts about the New England schooner.

1. The schooner Wyoming was the largest wooden ship ever built.

The Wyoming put paid to the notion that bigger is always better. She was a giant, a football field-and-a-quarter long with six masts.

Built in 1909, its massive size and wooden hull proved troublesome. But she was too long for her bones. The sea twisted her planks apart and sailors had to pump out the seawater that constantly leaked in.

The Wyoming met her tragic end in March, 1924, when she anchored off Chatham, Mass., to weather a nor’easter. The ship, loaded with coal, sank east of the Pollock Rip Lightship, and all 13 crew members lost their lives.

Schooner Wyoming, 1917

The wreck remained undiscovered until 2003, when the American Underwater Search and Survey Company of Cataumet, Mass., found her. The Wyoming had shattered amidship, leading investigators to believe she struck the seabed and broke apart. Out of respect for the sailors lost, the exact location of the wreck has not been publicly disclosed.

Today there is a sculpture representing the Wyoming at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine, site of the Percy & Small shipyard where the ship was built.

2. There were a lot of them.

No one seems to have come up with a count of how many schooners plied the seas in their heyday. But some random numbers provide a sense of their ubiquity:

  • Before the American Revolution, 500 schooners sailed from Connecticut to the West Indies. Most would have been built in Essex and the lower Connecticut River Valley — in Deep River, Chester, Old Saybrook, Lyme and Old Lyme. Stately old homes in those towns testifies to the wealth created by shipbuilding and trade.

Schooners crowded on a wharf in Boston Harbor

  • Between 1789 and 1936, over 4,000 schooners were registered in Connecticut Customs Districts.
  • Gloucester’s fishing fleet alone had more than 400 schooners by the 1880s. As  many as 500 schooners showed up in the harbor during that time. From 1830 to 1900, the golden age of the Gloucester schooner, 3,800 Gloucester fishermen and 670 schooners were lost at sea.

3. Essex, Mass., and Maine dominated New England’s schooner business.

Though shipyards produced wooden boats throughout New England, two places made most of them: Essex, Mass., and Maine.

Essex built more schooners than any other city or town – 4,000 of them. Located just west of Gloucester, its shipyards filled the fishing fleet’s insatiable need for schooners.

Up north in Maine, shipyards built more than 4,000 schooners. Of all the vessels built on the East Coast between 1870 and 1899, half of the three-masted schooners came from Maine. Maine shipyards made another 71 percent of the  four-masted schooners, 95 percent of the five-masted schooners and 90 percent of the six-mast schooners.

Today, shipbuilding in Maine happens at the Bath Iron Works.

4. The most famous American schooner was the America.

America defeated 15 British yachts in a race around the Isle of Wight on Aug. 22, 1851. That started the oldest international sailing competition, named after the winner.

She was very much an upstart. Rich New York yachtsmen built her to win races. Her revolutionary design influenced yacht racing for decades.

According to Sailing World, she was low to the water and widest far forward of other racing yachts. She had at most four sails, which let a small crew execute maneuvers quickly. Her masts were raked dramatically, her sails were made of tightly woven duck and her lead ballast was molded to the shape of the hull. For racing, her crew could fit her out with a tiller, more responsive than a wheel.

America

Her owners sold her immediately after winning the race. She changed hands several times until her owner abandoned her in a mudflat at Cowes, a seaport on the Isle of Wight. A shipwright restored her and sold her to a mystery buyer, who apparently gave it to the Confederate Navy during the Civil War. The Union captured her and used her in blockades. A controversial Massachusetts politicians named Benjamin Bulter then bought her in 1873 and restored her again. When Butler died in 1893, a group of Boston yachtsmen bought her and moved her to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.

Neglected, the once-proud America’s Cup winner ended up in the Annapolis city dump.

5. When steam eclipsed sail, schooners became windjammers.

In the 1930s, a man named Frank Swift of Bucksport, Maine, came up with an idea: Why not turn aging cargo schooners into dude schooners for tourists?

He began chartering schooners for summer sailing trips with campers. Then he chartered a small schooner called Mabel and took out ads for “Vacations under sail” in urban newspapers. By 1938 he had a fleet of three dude schooners, renamed windjammers. He sailed out of  Camden, Maine, giving the town bragging rights as “the Windjammer Capital of the World.”

Victory Chimes

In 1954, Maine investors bought the Edwin and Maude, a schooner that had hauled cargo in the Chesapeake Bay. They renamed her Victory Chimes and repurposed her as a windjammer.

In 1984, Thomas Monaghan of Domino’s Pizza bought her and called her Domino Effect. In 1988, he refitted – and saved – her, using original techniques. She returned to Maine in 1989 and got her old name back.

Today, Victory Chimes appears as the windjammer on the back of the Maine state quarter.

6. The best schooner sailors come from Deer Isle, Maine.

Fishermen on Deer Isle today learn boathandling skills at an early age, and it isn’t unusual for a 10-year-old to have a boat. Back in the day, it was said, anyone who showed up at the New York Yacht Club and said he was from Deer Isle had a job crewing on a yacht.

Deer Isle seamen  didn’t fish, though. The “Deer Isle Boys” went under sail to all parts of the world as professional mariners. Their reputation led to the New York Yacht Club recruiting crews from Deer Isle for America’s Cup races.

Lewis R. French

7. Many continued well into the 20th century.

Schooners hauled commodities like wood, coal, fertilizer and grain until World War II.

During the war, the U.S. Navy bought the schooner Metha Nelson from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which used it for filming. The Navy had her converted and placed her into service in  September 1943. Her job: to identify all ships trafficking in and out of Los Angeles.

In Gloucester, some fishermen still worked under sail power until 1960.

The Lewis R. French, launched in 1871 in Bristol Cove, Maine, hauled coal and lumber to her homeport of Vinalhaven, Maine. Then she hauled canning supplies to the sardine factories along coastal Maine – until 1972, still with no engine.

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Read about how New England’s wild weather affected the course of history in New England Weather by the New England Historical Society. Click here to order your copy today.
 

 

 

 

Image of Lewis R. French: By Raphodon – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7424995

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