Thomas Hodgson - 1894

Baltimore, May 6 - Thomas Hodgsons, of Delmar, Md., aged 32 years, made two attempts to end his life last night, in the second of which he was successful.  He boarded the Maryland Steamboat Company steamer Enoch Pratt, and shortly after jumped into the dock.  He was fished out, but when the steamer was several miles from the city he again jumped overboard and was drowned.

above from the Philadelia Inquirer 7 May 1894


Thomas J. Hidgson, aged 32 years, of this city, was drowned in Anne Arundel county, Md., just outside of Baltimore, on Wednesday last.  His home is at No. 312 Lomard street.  The body was found on Saturday and was brought to this city yesterday.  He will be buried at the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery.
Above the Evening Journal Wilmington 15 May 1894


Thomas J. Hodgson (1863-1894) was the son of Richard and Elizabeth Keer Hodgson.  Richard Hodgson was an early hotel manager in Delmar.  In fact at the time (around 1870) he may have had the only hotel on the Delaware side of town.  By 1892 he and his wife and daughter had returned to Wilmington due to the great fire that destroyed Delmar and the hotel.   He would die in 1909 while on a trip to Philadelphia.  His daughter Florence (1867-1927) would remain single and die of heart disease in Wilmington.

Thomas Hodgson had married Ida Florence Bailey of Quantico.  By the time of his death he had fathered two children; Walter Bailey Hodgson (1884-1894)  and Richard Herman Hodgson (1886-1971).  The marriage may not have been a happy one as Ida and children lived with her father Levin E. Bailey.  Walter Hodgson had just died a few weeks before Thomas took his life and perhaps that was a factor in the suicide.   Richard went on to become a well known real estate person in Salisbury,  The Salvation Army gym is named after him due to the contribution his widow made in his name.  




AN ALLEGED FORGERYSeptember 23, 1875 The Daily Gazette, a Wilmington Paper

A West Chester man was robbed of a check on which his endorsement is Forged.

An alleged forgery has come to light in Maryland in which the First National Bank of West Chester is interested in the particulars of which the Local News relates as follows:

During the first day of the Agricultural Fair held in our borough, a man named Washington Eastbourne, residing at Russelville, this county, came to West Chester and negotiated a loan with Messrs. Pyle & Brown, bankers for the sum of $180, he receiving a check on the First National Bank for this amount. He did not draw the money, and while here it appears, he made the acquaintance of a very pleasant gentleman, who was endeavoring to operate among the people attending the exhibition in the way of selling some sort of a patient right. Eastbourne and this gentleman who was very childlike and bland, he became quite intimate, and on Tuesday, it is said they left our borough together and betook themselves to Wilmington Delaware. In that city they drank together and got more or less intoxicated and Eastbourne on Tuesday night took lodging in a wagon standing in one of the hotel yards. On the following morning he awoke to find his hat and traveling companion both missing and upon investigating the interior of his pocketbook, the check was also found to be missing and he at once suspected his newly found friend as being the thief.

It appears that the stranger after quitting Wilmington went to Delmar, a place near Maryland line and stopped at a hotel kept by a man named Hodgson and with whom he settled his hotel charges by passing over the check, after first endorsing it in the name of “Washington Eastbunn” – Subsequently the check was endorsed by Mr. Hodgson and given to Adams Express Company for collection, and by the company it was also endorsed and presented to the First national Bank of west Chester, and the money paid to the company.

On the day following Eastbourne advised Messrs Pyle & Brown, of this place of his loss and requested them to stop payment, and the being then in the Express Company’s hands they were forthwith advised by their agent at West Chester to return it or hold it until further orders.

The stranger, who gave his name as Washington Eastbunn, was afterwards arrested at Crisfield, Md. In regard to the check he said:
“I won the check in Wilmington from Washington “Eastbourne’ at a gambling table and brought it down to Delmar and there transferred it to Mr. Hodgson by putting my name on the back of it, which is Washington Eastbunn. I have a right to put my name on anything, the bank cashier should have noticed the spelling.” Eastbunn, as he calls himself but which is not his name, is a tremendous man in size, being greatly over six feet high, he says he was fifteen years a sailor and three years on the police force in the 8th ward in New York City.
He showed the magistrate how he wrote the name “Eastbourne” and his writing was an excellent specimen of beautiful pensmanship.

The bank cashier went down to Delmar, Tuesday in company with Washington Eastbourne to be present at the hearing.

The theft being committed in Delaware an effort will be made to have the trail take place at New Castle instead of in Maryland, that place being the choice of those interested.




Note: In 1859 Kendall B. Hearn built a Hotel in Delmar. After he died it changed hands a number of times with one of the owners being Richard Hodgson. The Hotel burn in the great Fire of 1892.