Hodge's Bend

Alexander Hodge, a member of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred, the son of William Hodge, was born in Newton Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, in 1760. A preponderance of evidence indicates that his mother was Mary Elliott, daughter of James Elliott, also of Cumberland County. Before his eighteenth birthday Alexander and his brother, William, Jr., moved to Edgefield District, South Carolina, where they served with the "Swamp Fox" Francis Marion and his brigade during the American Revolution. After the war Hodge moved to Oglethorpe County, Georgia, where he read for the law and where his seven children were born. After 1806 he moved west through Kentucky, and in 1815 he was in Arkansas. He served as a magistrate in Spring River Township, Lawrence County. He met Stephen F. Austin, and in 1824 he and his family began the trip to Texas. On April 12, 1828, Austin granted the old judge one of the leagues of land he had reserved for himself on the Brazos River and Oyster Creek near Fort Bend. Hodge served his district as comisario and alcalde. His plantation, Hodge's Bend, was a favorite stopping place for William B. Travis, James B. Bonham, Erastus (Deaf) Smith, and other persons of prominence in Texas history, as well as unknown travelers. His wife, Ruth, died in 1831.

Hodge's sons and sons-in-law were active in the Texas Revolution. Hodge shepherded the women, children, and family slaves in their flight to safety. In her memoirs his granddaughter, Clarinda Pevehouse Kegans, described him as a tall, white-haired man who raised fine horses and was usually too preoccupied for his grandchildren. However, that changed during their escape. They traveled by night, and as they walked Hodge held some child's hand in his, and all through the dark night they could hear his voice-sometimes laughing, sometimes cajoling-even above the rain and thunder. They huddled in a thicket on April 21 and listened to the guns of San Jacinto. Hodge brought his family back to Oyster Creek, but he was ill and exhausted. He died on August 17, 1836, and is buried at Hodge's Bend Cemetery. In 1912 a stone in his honor was placed in Sam Houston Park, Houston.