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William Hodgson (1765–1820)

Role

Bushrod Washington represented Hodgson in an 1805 land dispute.

Description

William Hodgson was born in 1765 in Maldon, Essex, England. As a young man he immigrated to Alexandria, Virginia, where he worked as a merchant. Hodgson was also a vestryman at Christ Church and a director of both the Marine Insurance Company of Alexandria and the Bank of Alexandria. He married Portia Lee (17771840) in 1799; they had eight children. Hodgson died in Alexandria on 7 November 1820.

Citations

Edmund Jennings Lee, ed., Lee of Virginia, 16421892: Biographical and Genealogical Sketches of the Descendants of Colonel Richard Lee (Heritage Books, 2008), 254.

A. Glenn Crothers, "Commercial Risk and Capital Formation in Early America: Virginia Merchants and the Rise of American Marine Insurance, 1750-1815," The Business History Review, Volume 78, Number 4 (Winter 2004), 622, 623.

Ludwell Lee Montague, "Cornelia Lee's Wedding. As Reported in a Letter from Ann Calvert Stuart to Mrs. Elizabeth Lee, October 19, 1806," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 80, Number 4 (October 1972), 45455.

"To George Washington from William Hodgson, 24 October 1797," Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/06-01-02-0377. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series, vol. 1, 4 March 1797 – 30 December 1797, ed. W. W. Abbot. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998, p. 423.]

A Guide to the William Hodgson Account Book, 17961810, Library of Virginia, Richmond (Archival Resources of the Virginias).

William Hodgson at Find a Grave.