One of the things that’s fascinated me in this genealogical project is looking at what happens when a line departs from the disciplined Quaker faith or, in my case, the Brethren as well. How much of the culture and values are retained, and how much is rejected?
Michael Howard Hodgson has provided a family history that Gerald Nathan Hodgson compiled in May 1970 regarding a line that settled near Spokane, Washington.
Here’s how it starts:
“The wide plains and the mountains called to them. And the gray dawn saw their campfires in the rain.”
This is the order of my paternal descent:
Jonathan Hodgson
Nathan Hodgson
(William) Elias Hodgson — Born 1846
Delwin Wilburn Hodgson — Born 1871
Gerald Nathan Hodgson — Born March 1913
Elias Hodgson was born in Indiana before the Civil War. Was too young to serve. A kinsman, Joel, I think, joined the Union Army at fourteen years.
Nathan Hodson (spelled without the ‘g’) was married twice. His first wife, Elizabeth Ratcliffe, was the mother of Louis, Elias and Simpson.
Nathan married a second time to Lucinda Fullwider and they had two daughters — Sarah Huteburger and Ruth Hodgson who married Eben Shute and became the ancestress of the Shute family. After Nathan’s death (circa 1865) Lucinda married Thomas Moore and begot additional children who are half kin to the Shutes. To complicate things further — Simpson Hodgson married Isabel Moore, a daughter of Thomas Moore by an earlier marriage. Eva Ratliffe (Ratcliffe) was his daughter. (I think.) She and her family were living in the Puget Sound area before World War II. Lester visited them in the company of Harland Shute.
Orphan George 