Mineral County, West Virginia Biography of MILTON STANLEY HODGES This biography was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 547-548 Mineral MILTON STANLEY HODGES, city attorney of Franklin, is fortunate in the choice of his profession, for its employ- ments are congenial to him and he has followed them with unflagging interest and zest. To him the work of the law is not drudgery, but the source of keen, intellectual pleasure, and through it he has been able to render a much-appre- ciated service to his community. Nature equipped him generously for the profession, and he has supplemented her gifts by the conduct of his life. Possessing as he does a broad, clear and vigorous mind, everything he undertakes is carried out in an orderly and logical manner, and some of the large interests of this locality recognizing this, and his inherent honesty, are glad to secure his services in their behalf. Mr. Hodges was born at Piedmont, Mineral County, West Virginia, September 28, 1876, and is a son of Milton Hodges, a railroad engineer, in the service of the Balti- more & Ohio Railroad for thirty years. Milton Hodges a son of Joseph and Edith (Bennett) Hodges was born in Washington County, Maryland, in 1840, and spent his early life on a farm. When war broke out between the two sections of the country he enlisted in the Union Army, and belonged to Company K, Third Maryland Infantry. Follow- ing his honorable discharge at the close of the war, he went into railroad work, and continued in it until his useful life was terminated in an accident while passenger engineer for his road, April 26, 1892. He is buried at Keyser, West Vir- ginia. Milton Hodges married at Cumberland, Maryland, Mrs. Martha Ellen Sharf, who was the only child of Levi and Ellen (Paxton) Curtis, and who died at Keyser in 1909, where she had lived since 1877. She had one child by her first marriage, who is now Mrs. J. W. P. Welch, of Cumber- land, Maryland. Mr. and Mrs. Milton Hodges had the fol- lowing children: William L. who died at Keyser, West Vir- ginia in 1914, unmarried; Mrs. Oscar Spotts, who lives at Keyser; Mrs. A. M. Pugh, who is also a resident of Keyser; Charles R., who lives at Keyser; A. H., who lives at Keyser; Milton Stanley, whose name heads this review; Mrs. Edward Hall, who lives at Crafton, Pennsylvania; Mrs. B. E. Wells and Harry C., who are residents of Keyser, and Roy, who died at Keyser in 1895. When he was but three months old, Milton Stanley Hodges parents removed to Keyser, and here he was reared and at- tended school graduating from the high-school course in 1892. In 1899 he was graduated from the Ohio Wesleyan University with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. His legal training was secured in the law department of the Uni- versity of West Virginia, at Morgantown, from which he was graduated in 1901 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. Admitted to practice at the bar of his native state, Mr. Hodges established himself in a general practice at Keyser, but after a year left that city for Franklin, and since then has continued to be identified with this community. Here he became a member of the law firm of Forman and Hodges, his partner being Senator L. J. Forman of Petersburg. This firm, now twenty years old, still exists, and is the oldest law firm in Pendleton County. Mr. Hodges is identified with the courts in general practice. In 1904 and again in 1920 he was the candidate of the republican party for the office of county prosecutor, but his party is so decidedly in the minority in this region that there was no possibility of election. His first vote was cast for Governor Bushnell in Ohio in 1898, while a student of the Ohio Wesleyan University; his first presidential vote was cast for William McKinley in 1900, and he has .continued his affiliations with the republican party ever since, being very active in organization work. Until 1916 he was chair- man of the Pendleton County Republican Central Com- mittee, and since then has been a member of the party committee of the Second Congressional District, and on the state committee by proxy at times. Although fre- quently urged to make the race for state senatorship, he has declined to do so. His presence as a delegate to the state conventions of his party has been frequent and regular, and he was secretary of the last one held at Huntington. He was a member of the famous 1904 republi- can convention held at Wheeling, West Virginia, and the one in 1912, held at Huntington, in which the progressive wing of the party attempted to depose the regular re- publican committee. In 1901 Mr. Hodges was appointed assistant clerk of the House of Delegates, and served as such in the sessions of 1903 and 1905, and as chief assistant in 1907. In 1909 he was secretary to the president of the Senate; assistant clerk of the House in 1913, and was elected clerk of that body in 1921. Daring the Spanish-American war, Mr. Hodges volunteered as a member of Company K, Fourth Ohio Volunteer In- fantry, while he was a student in the Ohio Wesleyan University. The company mobilized at Camp Bushnell, Columbus, Ohio, was ordered to Chickamauga Park, Ten- nessee, and went from there into active service in Porto Rico. The regiment sailed from Newport News in August, 1898, on the auxiliary cruiser Saint Paul in the command of Captain Chadwick, who commanded the ill-fated Maine at the time it was blown up in Havana Harbor. The troops landed at Arroyo, Porto Rico, and the day following ad- vanced and captured, after a short engagement, Guayama. On August 8, they fought the battle of Las Palmas, and on August 13, the day after the terms of peace were signed at Paris, the command was engaged in making a general attack upon the Spanish blockhouse in the mountains around Guay- ama, and was stopped by a messenger from headquarters an- nouncing the close of the war. The troops were returned to the United States early in November, and proceeded from New York City, where they were landed, to Washington, and there they were received by President and Mrs. McKinley at the White House. They were honorably discharged, at Columbus, Ohio, in January, 1899. Mr. Hodges was neither wounded nor was he confined in the hospital, as were so many of his comrades, and after his discharge returned to his studies in the university at Delaware, Ohio. During the World war he also rendered a loyal service, and was chairman of the Pendleton County War Board, was a member of the County Council of Defense, and chairman of the drives for the Salvation Army and the Young Men's Christian Association. He participated in all of the drives for the sale of Liberty Bonds and those of the Red Cross, canvassing the county in their behalf and making many eloquent speeches at different gatherings. He was also secretary of the Home Service section of the Red Cross. Mr. Hodges is a member of the Franklin Presbyterian Church, manager of benevolences for the congregation and teaches the Men's Bible Class in the Sunday school. His religious work is not confined to the local con- gregation, however, for he is president of the Franklin Dis- trict State Sunday School Association, and was a delegate to the last state convention of this association held at Charleston. Made a member of Beta Theta Pi at the Ohio Wesleyan University, he was one of the founders of the present chapter in the University of West Virginia. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, and past counsel of the local camp. He has been advanced through Ancient Arabic Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and Wheel- ing Consistory, No. 1 Scottish Rite. He has been Wheeling Consistory, No. 1 Scottish Rite. He has been worshipful master of Pendleton Lodge, A. F. and A. M. for eleven years, except two, and is serving his third ap- pointment as district deputy grand master for the Four- teenth Masonic District of West Virginia. On December 13, 1905, Mr. Hodges married at Franklin, Miss Carrie McCoy Campbell, a daughter of the late W. A. and Mary V. (McCoy) Campbell. Mrs. Hodges was born in Highland County, Virginia, was educated in the Franklin schools, and is the younger child in her parents' family, consisting of her and her brother, Roy L. Campbell, of Franklin. On her mother's side of the house Mrs. Hodges is closely related to Gen. William McCoy, for twenty years Congressman from Virginia, chairman of the ways and means committee of the House of Representatives, and a man so prominent that he was offered, but refused, a place in the cabinet of President Andrew Jackson. Through her father,. Mrs. Hodges is descended from the famous Lewis family of Augusta County, Virginia, which had representa- tives in the battle of Point Pleasant with old Chief Corn- stalk, one of whom was General Lewis of Revolutionary fame. Mr. and Mrs. Hodges have one daughter, Mary Virginia, who was born September 13, 1908, and is now a high-school student. As before stated, Mr. Hodges is city attorney of the City of Franklin and has devoted much of his time and energy to the betterment of the city. He is attorney for the Farm- ers Bank of Franklin, and for the Stephen B. Elkins estate in Pendleton County. Mr. Hodges and two of his brothers own and operate the Hodges Orchard at Keyser, a noted fruit-growing section of the state. For years he has been a persistent agitator for permanent roads, and is now seeing the fruition of his hopes and labors in the present construction of hard-surface roads through his own and adjacent counties of the state. In all of his service, public and private, in war and peace, Mr. Hodges has shown a flawless integrity above question or criticism. All who know him intimately recog- nize his honesty, and a careful inspection of his record fails to reveal a single act properly subject to the smallest criti- cism, judged by the highest standards of honor.