James and Sarah (Carey) Hudson

Sarah Carey was a younger sister of my great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Clark Carey. The following biographical sketch of Sarah and her husband, James Hudson, is from pages 203-206 of Our Hudson Family History (OHFH), by Eberhardt and Hudson...

[20] James7 Hudson (1802-1873)
of Defiance, Ohio

JAMES71 HUDSON (Shadrach6, Abraham5, Samuel4, Samuel3, Robert2, Robert1) was born in Miami County, Ohio, 2 March 1802, and died in Defiance Township, Defiance County, Ohio, on 22 January 1873.1

He married in Miami County, Ohio, 14 November 1822, SARAH CAREY2 (sister of Isaac Carey who married Abigail Hudson, the sister of James Hudson), who was born in New Jersey, 13 March 1805, and died in Defiance Township, Defiance County, Ohio, 17 May 1863.3

Sarah Carey was the daughter of George Carey, a native of Essex County, N.J., and of English extraction. She moved with her parents from New Jersey to Kentucky when she was an infant, and afterward settled with them in Miami County, Ohio.4

James Hudson married a second time in Defiance Township, Ohio, 25 February 1864, to ANGELINE MILLER,52 who was born in Pennsylvania in 181363 and died in Defiance County, Ohio, on 31 July 1889.7

On 13 March 1827, land was purchased for $30 in Defiance Township for the Methodist Episcopal Church. James Hudson was one of those who contributed toward the purchase.8

James Hudson and his first wife lived on a farm on the Auglaize River (the French gave the River its name in the 1600's; it means river at or of the clay and loam banks) about two miles south of Defiance, Ohio. In 1828, they held a day-long public sale of all their personal property, preparatory to moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana;9 it was there that James Hudson worked at the brick mason trade until 1833 when they returned to Defiance County, Ohio.

In 1831, Peter Lumbar, a farmer and French-Canadian trader, purchased 40 acres of "bottom land" for $100, located just north of Newburg or Delaware Town, about seven miles west of Defiance, Ohio, on the south bank of the Maumee River. Peter Lumbar, Jr., sold his father's 40 acres on 13 May 1836 to James Hudson who held it for 20 years and then sold the land to Horace Sessions and William Holgate.10

James Hudson and his family and other settlers along the Auglaize River suffered extreme hardships when the "Great Flood of 1834" swept away all crops. It took the farmers from 2 to 3 years to recover from this loss.11

The winter of 1837-1838 was also a time of trial for the settlers. Snow fell on the first day of November and stayed well into April. Much of their livestock perished from lack of food and from exposure to the cold."

Then in 1838 the settlers experienced the worst drought ever recorded in the area. No rain fell from 3 July 1838 to 15 October 1838. The smaller streams ran dry, their beds became dusty. Wells failed and the marsh lands became dry. Many animals, seeking water, collected along the banks of the Auglaize River. Malaria was widespread; nearly all business stopped; those who were healthy cared for the sick. Crops were nearly a total 1oss.11

With his brother Abram Hudson, and his brother-in-law, Elias Shirley, James Hudson was listed among the voters of October 1845 in Defiance Township, Defiance County, Ohio.12

In 1866, James Hudson owned 232 acres of land between the southeast side of the Wabash & Erie Canal and the northwest banks of the Auglaize River in Sections 27 and 34 of Defiance County, about one mile south of the town of Defiance, Ohio, and across the River from his brother Abram's land in Section 3.13 (See Map 20-A)

In 1876, James Hudson's estate still owned the same land.14 Later, William C. Holgate purchased the acreage from the James Hudson estate. Some of the land owned by James Hudson is now the Riverside Cemetery.

James Hudson was a member of the Free and Accepted Masons, according to the insignia on his tombstone.1 He joined Lodge #195 in Defiance, Ohio, in 1860 and became a Master Mason.15 This Lodge was named "Tuendawie" which, in the Wyandot language, means "meeting of two waters."

James Hudson and his two wives were buried in Riverside Cemetery, Defiance, Ohio.

The children of James and Sarah (Carey) Hudson:16

  1. Jacob8 Hudson, b Defiance County, Ohio, 1824, m Ann _____, b 1830; a farmer in Defiance Township in 1850, later resided in Bryan, Ohio.
  2. Lewis T. Hudson, b Indiana, 7 May 1831, d 5 May 1861.
  3. James Austin Hudson, b Indiana, ca 1832, d 1915.
  4. John Wesley Hudson, b Defiance County, Ohio, 9 Jan 1840, d Defiance County, Ohio, 21 August 1916. In 1866, he was the proprietor of a Grocery and Provisions Store in Section 27 of Defiance County, probably located on his father's property. (See location on 1866 Map, identified as "Grocery")13

NOTES AND REFERENCES4

  1. Tombstone inscription, Riverside Cemetery, Defiance, Ohio. "Died 22 Jan 1873, aged 70 yrs 10 mo 20 da. Why should our hearts in sorrow flow when God recalls his own and bids them leave a world of woe for an immortal crown."
  2. Marriage Records, Miami County, Ohio, Vol. 1, 1807-1865.
  3. Tombstone inscription, Riverside Cemetery, Defiance, Ohio. "Sarah wife of James Hudson died 17 May 1863, aged 58 yrs 2 mo 4 da."
  4. Histoncal Atlas of Paulding County, Ohio, The Western Publishing Company, Madison, Wis., 1892, Reprinted in 1978 by Taylor Publishing Company, Dallas, Texas, p 46A.
  5. Marriage Records, Defiance County, Ohio, Vol. 2, p 40.
  6. 1870 U.S. Census, Defiance City, Defiance County, Ohio.
  7. Riverside Cemetery Vol. 1, 1883-1977, Defiance, Ohio.
  8. 19-65 Victoria (Allen9) Harper, unpublished manuscript history of the Allen, Carey, Shirley, and Hudson families of Ohio, December 1937, p 182.
  9. History of Defiance County, Ohio, W.H. Beers & Co., 1883, p 209.
  10. Louis A. Simonis, Maumee River 1835, The Defiance County Historical Society, Defiance, Ohio, 1979, p 161, 163, 165.
  11. Supra note 10, p 176, 177.
  12. Supra note 9, p 201.
  13. Map of Defiance, Ohio, 1866, published by William McClellan, on file at Defiance Public Library, Defiance, Ohio. Map shows 189 acres belonging to Nathan W Shirley, older brother of Robert Shirley, Jr., who married [22] Sarah Hudson, sister of [20] James Hudson.
  14. Map of Defiance Township, Historical Atlas of Defiance County, Ohio, 1876, Reprinted in August 1979 by the Defiance County Historical Society.
  15. Defiance Masonic Lodge Records, reviewed by Mr. Raymond Zedaker, a current member of the Lodge.
  16. 1850 U.S. Census, Defiance Township, Defiance County, Ohio. Also, Supra note 8, p 178.

The biography above doesn't specify the time of arrival of the Carey and Hudson families in northwestern Ohio. However, a search of the Bureau of Land Management's records may help us pinpoint this time. A land patent was issued 9 Aug 1824 at the Piqua land office to "James Hudson and Clark E. Stewart of Miami county... for the North East Fraction, of Section Thirty-four, in Township Four North of Range Four East, in the District of Piqua and State of Ohio containing 117.25 Acre..." Although the patent itself doesn't specify in which county the land was located, the BLM's index says it's in Defiance county. One bit of confusion here is that Defiance county didn't exist until 1845, when it was carved out of Paulding and two other counties. And we don't know whether James and Clark had already occupied their land when they obtained the patent.

This must have a busy day at the land office. The person in line ahead of James Hudson and Clark E. Stewart at Piqua that day was Abram Hudson, who obtained a patent for a tract described as 3.81 acres in "the Island of Section Three, Township Three North..." Could this have been James' brother? And a John Hudson was there too, being granted two pieces of land in Defiance and another in Paulding county, the latter in partnership with James G. Furrow, who just might be related through some common Winans family members.

1 The numbers appearing immediately after individuals' names refer to the generation numbering scheme of this book. James belongs to the seventh, of fourteen, generations of Hudsons documented.
2 An interesting aside -- the Hudson family's 1860 census entry lists Angeline Miller as a "domestic". Census takers usually listed the wife immediately after the husband in a household, but Sarah Hudson is listed last, with a notation in column 14 of "insane".
3 The birth date given here may be off by about ten years. In Angeline's 1860 entry, she's listed as 36 years old. Her 1870 entry, which Eberhardt and Hudson used for computing her birth date, says she is 57 years old. But in 1880, when she was enumerated living alone in Defiance, her age was given as 58.
4 These are Eberhardt and Hudson's footnotes, which are keyed to blue superscripts in the text. My own footnotes are keyed in red.
5 The codes which appear in green for various people were assigned by the OHFH authors for identification purposes.
This page was last updated 23 Mar 2008.