Los Angeles County CA Archives Biographies.....Hodgson, James O. 1838 - 
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Author: Luther A. Ingersoll (1908)

    JAMES O. HODGSON, retired, of Santa Monica, is of the many permanent
residents of the city, attracted to Sunny California to spend his declining
years in quietude after having spent the active years of his life in the East
and Middle West. He is a native of Onandaga County, N. Y., born in the township
of Manlus, August 14th, 1838. His father, James Hodgson, was a native of the
Empire State. Both paternal and maternal grandparents were from Manchester,
England and came to the United States and located in 1801 near Auburn, N. Y.

    James Hodgson, with his family, located upon the then western frontier in
the town of Elba, Lapeer County, Michigan, and took up government land when
Michigan was a territory. They had five sons of whom James O. is the only one
living. He attended school there and grew to manhood. It was a sparsely settled
country, principally inhabited by Indians, and he was one of four white pupils
who attended their district school, the others being Indian children, eighty in
number, belonging to the Nypsing tribe, that inhabited the Flint River Valley.

    Upon the breaking out of the Civil War, young Hodgson, on the 16th day of
October, 1862, responded to the first call for 300,000 men and joined the Tenth
Michigan Infantry, went to the front and participated in some of the hardest
fought battles of the war, notably those of Pittsburgh Landing, Shilo and
Corinth. He was an expert rifle shot and was at times detailed for duty as a
sharpshooter. He served the full time of his enlistment and was mustered out
August 19th, 1865, at Ross Ville, Ga., and immediately re-enlisted and joined
the Atlanta campaign, during which seige he was one hundred four days under
continuous fire. During his army career he participated in upwards of thirty
engagements and was continuously with his regiment. He was mustered out of
service at Louisville, Ky., the 19th of August, 1865, and returned to the
peaceful pursuits of farm life.

    He was married May 1st, 1866, to Miss Alma Campbell at the old home. She was
daughter of Chas. L. Campbell, a pioneer of Lapeer County, Michigan, town of
Hadley. She was born in the town of Davidson, Gennessee County, Michigan, where
her father engaged in farming, lumbering, kept a hotel and was an active and
successful man of local affairs.

    Mr. Hodgson located in Flint City and engaged in the lumber business from
1872 to 1879. In 1882 he filed a Soldier's Claim on a quarter section of land in
Esmond Township, Kingsbury County, Dakota, which he improved as a farm. He also
kept a hotel at Esmond Valley and finally retired to DeSmit City, South Dakota,
where they lived until finally coming to Santa Monica in April, 1907. They own
one of the many beautiful homes of the Crescent Bay City, No. 437 North Fourth
Street. They have an adopted son, W. K. Hodgson, a prosperous merchant of Del
Mar, Iowa.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Ingersoll's century history, Santa Monica Bay cities: prefaced with a brief
history of the state of California, a condensed history of Los Angeles County,
1542 to 1908: supplemented with an encyclopedia of local biography and
embellished with views of historic landmarks and portraits of representative
people.

Los Angeles: Luther A. Ingersoll (1908)


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