Nebraska (1906–1910) In 1906 Wedge was admitted to the
University of Nebraska, and completed his first year in June 1907. where the Presbyterians had constructed a church building in 1889. However, by March 1908 Wedge had suffered a nervous breakdown. On February 22, 1909, Wedge preached a 17-minute sermon just prior to the Buckles-Hanson prize fight in Omaha, Nebraska. On Friday, September 3, 1909, Wedge preached a short sermon and sang a hymn before the fight between Dick Fitzpatrick of Chicago and Guy Buckles.
Omaha Presbyterian Theological Seminary (1908–1909) After completing three years at the University of Nebraska, for a year in order to complete the requirements for ordination in the Presbyterian Church. and elected pastor of the small Presbyterian Church in
Monroe, Nebraska, but later was forced to leave due to opposition to his pugilistic past, and the embarrassment caused by his fiancée canceling their wedding amid rumors of Wedge's immorality.
San Francisco (1910–1911) After his fiancée Prudence Tracy cancelled their planned wedding in 1909, Wedge left university in his junior year and moved to San Francisco. and lived in a boarding house at 633 Vallejo Street in San Francisco and served as a missionary to San Francisco's
Barbary Coast, described as the "most infamous blot on the underworld, where depravity reigned supreme, despite the officers of the law, and where booze and immoral women turned men to moral lepers".
Herbert Asbury described the Barbary Coast: "The slums of Singapore at their foulest, the dens of Shanghai at their dirtiest, the waterfront at
Port Said at its vicious worst – none of these backwaters of depravity and vice ... achieved the depths of corruption that typified the 'Barbary Coast'". When Wedge arrived there was "over six hundred dance halls and dives" in "a district little over half a mile square". Engaged by the City of San Francisco, during the next few months, Wedge "waged a campaign on vice and corruption in
Chinatown and the Barbary Coast". On December 1, 1910, Wedge was arrested and incarcerated in the city jail on charges of
battery for attempting to strike a
night watchman named Gus Miller and begging after being found on Fifth Street near Market Street at 4.30am. Wedge denied the allegations and explained his alcoholic odor as due to his incarceration with drunks and "wine bums", and that he possessed
port wine given to him by the
Hahnemann Hospital to prevent pneumonia. In 1917 Wedge explained its origin: "I was preaching on a
beer keg in a saloon on the Barbary coast in San Francisco when a couple of toughs went for me. I guess maybe I cleaned out the place then. A reporter on the San Francisco newspaper gave me the name. He said I was a fellow who, if he could not preach good into men, would knock h—l out of them. Those fellows got me, though, and put me in the hospital for a while". After being hospitalized after a vicious assault by several denizens of the Barbary Coast at the corner of Pacific and Montgomery avenues, by the end of 1910 Wedge decided to return to Omaha to recuperate and to attempt to reconcile with Prudence Tracy. After his return to Nebraska, Wedge re-enrolled at the University of Nebraska. Wedge's only child, Hugh T. Wedge (died January 20, 1991, in
Lake Havasu City, Arizona) was born on January 13, 1912, in Genoa. Wedge had a "fistic encounter" with a lawyer named Rose, whom Wedge whipped in the public street. In the subsequent hearing held by the Kearney Presbytery in July 1912, Wedge admitted conduct unbecoming a minister, and renounced his allegiance to the presbytery. which was published by November 1912. Wedge dedicated it to Prudence: "to the noble woman who saw good in me when others saw evil; who believed I would win despite every handicap." Wedge trained "Battling" Nelson at
St. Joe, Wisconsin, in early September as he was "run down and needed the exercise", where he also engaged in street preaching. On September 24, 1912, Wedge was found not guilty of all charges, after he explained that Rose had "attempted pugilistic tactics by insolent words and by puffing out his chest, ... he annoyed my wife when she was in poor health". About 1912 Wedge held a series of religious meetings at the Presbyterian church in
Table Rock, Nebraska. In December 1912 Wedge was tried but found not guilty in the "celebrated" trial of
State v. Fred Wedge in Nebraska. On June 5, 1913, Wedge announced his resignation from the ministry in
Eureka, California, as "the call of the blood was too strong". Wedge announced: "I am quitting the ministry for several sufficient reasons. My forehead is too low, my jaw is too square. I like the things of the world too well". A few hours later Wedge was arrested and incarcerated overnight in the city jail due to public intoxication after a charge by Rev. Arthur Hayes Sargent (Born May 18, 1879, in
Corinth, Vermont; died August 9, 1969, in
Portland, Maine), pastor of the Eureka
Universalist church, who with some other local ministers had tried to rescue him. By May 1914 Wedge was claimed to have fought and "never suffered defeat", and in 1922 his record was given as having "fought 70 fights and lost but three of them". In the Summer of 1914 Wedge gave lectures on his life at
Chautauquas at
Lodi, California, in May, and
Butte, Montana, in July. In December 1914
The Beatrice Daily Sun reported Wedge's "fall from grace".
Wisconsin (1916–1917) First Baptist Church, Rhinelander (1916–1917) By May 1916 Wedge became the pastor of the First Baptist Church in
Rhinelander, Wisconsin. While pastoring the Rhineland church, Wedge complete courses at the
University of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Athletic Association approved their licensing on January 2, 1917. On January 10, 1917, Wedge was arrested on a charge of using slanderous language on January 1, 1917, to a former member of his congregation, whom Wedge had ousted from church membership for irregular conduct. On January 13, 1917, Wedge was jailed for a few hours in Rhinelander after being found guilty of using abusive language. After pleading not guilty, Wedge admitted the charge, but indicated he had been provoked, and refused to pay the fine of $5 and costs. Wedge was released after the fine was paid anonymously. On February 18, 1917, Wedge was admitted to St. Mary's Hospital after collapsing while preaching in the evening service at the Rhinelander First Baptist Church, and was unable to complete the service. On February 23, 1918, Wedge resigned from the First Baptist church due to his health and departed for
Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he planned to remain until he regained his health and then return to his pastorate. By July 1917 Wedge had moved to
St. Louis, Missouri. After the USA entered
World War I, Wedge attempted to enlist in the US Army in order to fight overseas, but was rejected despite being physically fit, because of his use of a
dental plate due to his "shortage of teeth, accounted for by the numerous pugilistic encounters he had before entering the ministry". After being rejected for military service, Wedge obtained a job working in a munitions factory in
St. Louis, Missouri. Later that month Wedge was involved in a street fight at the rear of a downtown saloon in
Antigo, Wisconsin, with a "ham and egger" named "Fighting Leach", that was broken up by the police. Wedge was charged with disorderly conduct, found guilty, and the sentence was suspended. Wedge discontinued his studies at the University of Nebraska in 1917 in his Senior year and the family moved to
Chicago, Illinois. While in Chicago, Wedge did a post-graduate course in Greek, Hebrew, and other subjects at the
McCormick Theological Seminary. where he also ministered to the men of the 341st Infantry, 35th Engineers, and the Quartermaster Corps. and formed an Ironsides Bible Class among the 86th Division, After being hospitalized after a severe bout of
influenza in the Winter of 1917–1918, Wedge was diagnosed as having "hasty consumption" (incurable
tuberculosis) and given only 2–3 months to live, with the recommendation that he move to a warmer climate. In April 1918 Wedge was discharged from his duties at Camp Grant.
Texas (1918–1919) In late April 1918 Wedge was transported to
El Paso, Texas, where after a few weeks he worked as a
street car motorman for the
El Paso and Southwestern Railroad. Needing funds to relocate from
El Paso, Texas, to
Tucson, Arizona, to enroll in the
University of Arizona, and after extensive training which he believed cured him of tuberculosis, on January 1, 1919, Hedge fought Sergeant Tommy Murphy, the
welterweight champion of the
Southwestern United States, who was serving with the
US 5th Cavalry at
Fort Bliss,. but was
knocked out early in the fight and lost the ten round fight on a
points decision. Wedge remained in his job in El Paso until July 1919. for eight hours each night from midnight. By January 1920 Wedge was employed as a clerk at the Southern Railroad, and lived in a boarding house on East 13th Street, Tucson with his wife and son. After twelve months at the university, Wedge completed his course requirements and graduated in June 1920 with a
Bachelor of Arts degree where he studied Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and the sciences. To earn sufficient funds to study at Harvard, Wedge accepted the position as the principal of the
Union High School in
Benson, Arizona.
Harvard University (1922) Wedge left Arizona to enroll in the Graduate School of Education of
Harvard University on December 31, 1921, with only $10 and "rode the rails" in railroad
boxcars for 2,000 miles, arriving in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 16, 1922. Harvard officials rescinded their offer of admission, probably due to the publicity surrounding his pugilistic past, indicating that "despite his degree that he was not scholastically equipped to enter for the degree of
doctor of philosophy". On February 15, 1922, the Harvard authorities decided to admit Wedge for second semester. After an investigation by Harry W. Holmes, dean of the Graduate School of Education, Wedge was exonerated as it was discovered that he had been ill with
the grippe and that his intoxication was due to taking a prescribed dose of medicine that was a mixture of
quinine and
whiskey. After several weeks in hospital, Wedge left Harvard for Arizona after April 27, 1922. Despite claims by Harvard authorities that he had left Harvard due to a recurrence of tuberculosis, Later he acknowledged that lack of finances also compelled him to leave Harvard. Wedge planned to return to Harvard with his family in September 1922. In June 1922 Wedge announced plans to produce a film of his life story, in which he would star, with all profits to be used to finance his return to Harvard. Wedge preached to the
longshoremen each noon and on Sundays without any compensation. By 1923 Wedge had resigned as the pastor of the Congregational Church on Terminal Island. In July 1922 Wedge joined the Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union 510 in
San Pedro, California, and became a
longshoreman. While working as a longshoreman, Wedge joined the
Industrial Workers of the World. Wedge was one of 26 arrested when the police arrested San Pedro strikers on May 4, 1923, but was released from jail by May 14. Wedge, who was assaulted by a jail officer, became sympathetic to the cause of the IWW and its members. Wedge was eventually elected to the executive board of the IWW. Wedge later used his 15 months of experiences inside the IWW to fulfill his academic requirements and gather data for his
thesis, and later to lecture on the IWW. with its profits helping meet the cost of further post-graduate studies.
Harvard University (1923–1924) Later in 1923 Wedge returned to Harvard and spent twelve months in classes there. Wedge was commended by his Harvard professors for both his academic ability and application. While studying at UC Berkeley, Wedge and his family lived at the Kittredge Apartments in Berkeley. By August 1924 Wedge was a teaching fellow at UC Berkeley. Rather than accept the position of principal of a local high school, at the end of December 1924 Wedge announced his intention to become an
evangelist. However, he subsequently joined the faculty at
Redwood City High School. At the end of December 1924 Wedge announced that after he completed his post-graduate studies at the
University of California, that it was his intention to forgo his ambition to become a college professor to become an evangelist, On Sunday evening, May 2, 1926, Wedge preached on the subject "A Knock-out for the Devil" at the First Church of the Nazarene in Oakland, California.
Pasadena College (1926–1927) By 1926 Wedge had been awarded a
doctor of divinity degree and was recruited by
H. Orton Wiley to be the dean of the college of
liberal arts at the
Church of the Nazarene's Pasadena College, where he was also professor of sociology and psychology. Wedge resigned from Pasadena College in 1927 to enroll in a master's degree program at
Columbia University in
New York. having received 27 of 29 votes cast by the church members. Despite his son Hugh winning the
A.A.U. Midwest Lightweight title victory in a boxing bout in
Omaha, Nebraska, on January 31, 1928, Wedge filed charges with the A.A.U. against the referee who officiated, alleging he allowed the opponent to foul Hugh repeatedly. On Friday April 13, 1928, Wedge returned to the University of Nebraska and lectured on the
Industrial Workers of the World, drawing on his fifteen months experience as a member. As Prudence needed to move to California for her recovery, Wedge left Columbia University and traveled to California with his son to establish a home in preparation for her coming.
California (1928–1930) Wedge returned to Berkeley, worked part-time as an undercover
prohibition agent, In November 1928 Wedge led an unsuccessful campaign to repeal California's 10-round boxing law.
First Presbyterian Church, Oakland (1928–1929) By January 1929 Wedge was the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church at 2619 Broadway,
Oakland, California. On Friday, July 14, 1933, Hugh Wedge fought Jack Howard over three rounds in an exhibition bout at the Athens Athletic Club in Oakland, California. By September 1935 Hugh Wedge was a successful amateur boxer with aspirations to box as a
middleweight in the
1936 Summer Olympic Games in
Berlin, Germany, after winning the Diamond Belt titles for
simon-pures of Oregon, California, and Arizona. In February 1936 Hugh Wedge sparred with former heavyweight champion
Max Baer in Oakland, as part of Baer's efforts to reclaim his title. A third round
TKO defeat by Hugh McPhillips in the semi-finals of the Pacific 160-pound championship at the Dreamland auditorium in San Francisco, proved to be the end of Hugh Wedge's Olympic aspirations.
Nebraska (1945) By April 1945 Wedge was the pastor of the Union Church in Monroe, Nebraska, On April 24, 1945, Wedge and Guy Buckles fought for the fourth time in their careers, their first since 1913, a three-round exhibition bout in Monroe, Nebraska, in a boxing carnival organized by Wedge, who was then pastor of the Union Church. ==Personal life==