Joseph Anthony Hodge, M.D.
JOSEPH ANTHONY HODGE, M.D., was born in Salem, Livingston County, Kentucky, February 2d, 1829. His father, Edwin Hodge, a farmer, born in the same locality in the year 1805, was a son of Robert Hodge, who, some years previous, had emigrated from North Carolina to that county. The grandfather of Robert Hodge, with two brothers, Henry and Anthony, came from England to this country in colonial times, one of them settling in Virginia, one in Maryland, and the other in North Carolina. The family name was originally Hodges, and one of these brothers, Anthony, for whom the subject of this sketch was named, always bore the name of Hodges, as do his descendants to this day.
The maiden name of the mother of Joseph A. Hodge was Nancy Selissa Hughes, a daughter of Joseph Hughes. It maybe remarked, that the County of Livingston was divided in the year 1842 into two counties, Livingston and Crittenden. The Hughes family lived in the latter section of the old county, and it was in the latter also that the subject of this sketch was reared. After the death of his father, when he was eight years old, his mother married Doctor John S. Gilliam, a Virginian by birth, but at that time a resident of the same neighborhood with herself. In many respects he was quite a remarkable man, and proved to be a most kind and indulgent step father. It was through his instrumentality that his step-son began the study of medicine in his eighteenth year, graduating from the medical department of the Louisville University in 1850, when he was just twenty-one years old. From the time of graduation until the spring of 1863, he was engaged in practice in Marion, Crittenden County, Ky., removing from there to Henderson in April of that year. He arrived in the latter place on the twenty-eight of the month.
On December the fourth, 1851, he married Miss Susan A., daughter of Doctor Rufus Linthicum, of the County of Muhlenberg, Ky., having made her acquaintance four years previous, when she was a school girl at St. Vincent Academy, in Union County, Ky. This transaction has never caused a moment's regret, and has ever been regarded as the chief event of his life.
Dr. Hodge is a member of the Henderson Medical Club, McDowell Medical Society, Kentucky State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He is also a member of the Board of Medical Examiners of the Third Judicial District of Kentucky, and has been such from its establishment, over eight years ago. he was President of the Kentucky State Society from 1875 to 1876, and has acted in the same capacity for the Medical Club. He is a man of very strong character and eminently fitted for the arduous duties of his chosen profession.
Dr. and Mrs. Hodge, in their marital union, have been blessed by a family of seven children, two boys and five daughters, all of whom are yet living, and of whom it can be said, seven more promising children were never born. Of the five daughters it has frequently been asserted, by competent judges, that they possess a charm of personal beauty and brightness of life unsurpassed by any similar number reared in Kentucky.
The History of Henderson County, Kentucky by Starling 1887 page 721-22;