Bibb County AlArchives Obituaries.....Hodgens, John B. November 16, 1854
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Bill Parker mgbdude@aol.com February 15, 1999, 10:00 am

Attached is an obituary for John B. Hodgens d. 16 Nov. 1854, Bibb Co.,
Alabama  - buried in Cahawba Valley Church cemetary.  This obituary is
from the Tuskegee, Alabama - March 15, 1855 - South Western Baptist
Newspaper - This family moved to Bibb county sometime after 1830 but
before 1850. 

Carol MoodyJohn B. HODGENS - 
b. 1766 England

d. 16 Nov. 1854 Bibb Co., Alabama  - buried in Cahawba Valley  Church 
cemetery

Tuskegee, Alabama - March 15, 1855 - South Western Baptist Newspaper - 

"Died in the Mountains about the 16th of November last, John B. HODGENS in 
the eighty-eighth year of his age.  Brother HODGENS was born in England, 
and at the age of seven years he went to sea and lived a sea-faring life 
until he was nineteen years old.  Then he came to America and settled in 
South Carolina.  Then he married and raised a family and after he lost his 
wife emigrated with his son to Alabama and settled in Bibb County and 
professed religion, and was baptized into the fellowship of the Cahawba 
Valley Church in the eighty-fourth year of his age, four years before his 
death.  The circumstances of his death were about as follows:  He lived in 
a very thinly settled part of the county, but few were living nearer than 
from five to seven miles.  He being very old and childlike would frequently 
start a morning along some cow trail or trail made by hunters, and always 
come home at night, until the 16th of last November he walked his last.  
The night came on and he did not return.  The family became alarmed and 
spent the night in diligent search for him.  The people of the neighborhood 
being notified of it, were the next day and for two or three weeks perhaps, 
from twenty-five to fifty men in search of him, but without success.  At 
length after all hopes were gone, he was found by a company that was out on 
a camp hunt after he had been gone three weeks to the day, and what is a 
little singular is that some twelve or fifteen years ago there was another 
man about the same age that got lost and died on the same creek.  We hear 
Dr. Watts saying that - 'Jesus can make a dying bed feel soft as downy 
pillows are, While on his breast I lean my head and breath my life out 
sweetly there.'

Unbelief might ask, is it possible that Jesus could make the cold ground on 
a freezing night feel as soft as a bed of down?  We answer that he made a 
fiery furnace to the three Hebrew children, and a den of lions to Daniel, 
and a prison to Paul, Silas and Peter, and a cave to David, and a shower of 
stones to Stephen, all like so many places of paradise, and why not send 
angels to comfort one of his little ones while expiring on the cold ground 
in the mountains, where there was no mortal eye to pity nor hand to 
administer the least comfort.  Yes, if brother H. was the man we hope he 
was, no doubt the angel of God camped about him, waiting to convey his 
departed spirit into a world of bliss.  His remains now rest in the grave 
yard of Cahawba Valley Church, where it will remain until God shall bid it 
rise. N. Haggard.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/bibb/obits/h/hodgens431.txt