by Jeanine Buettner
nammy@montanasky.com

Arthur Milton Hodgson (1859 – 1931) was born in Livingston County, Illinois on August 30, 1859 to Zimri and Martha Hodgson, who were successful farmers. Zimri Hodgson was a well-known breeder and raiser of pure-bred livestock. Arthur Hodgson was raised on the family farm and received his education in the local schools. For many years he remained associated with his father in business but finally engaged in farming and stock raising at Forrest, Illinois and later at Healey, Illinois. From boyhood on he had always been interested in the breeding of livestock, particularly the improvement of the breed and the maintenance of as high a standard as possible.  Arthur arrived in Montana in 1904 and immediately came to the Flathead Valley, where he was successful in his chosen vocation.  

Arthur remembered that at about the close of the Civil War, the Hodgsons were showing grade Norman colts at the state and county fairs in different parts of Illinois. In 1882 Arthur’s cousin Ed Hodgson of El Paso, Illinois, gifted Zimri with a three year old, 1800 pound dappled gray stallion imported from France at a cost of $900.00. A few years later Arthur’s cousin Ed bought Zimri and his sons on their Illinois farm two gray weanling stallions and four yearling fillies—two gray and two black—at $400.00 each. At this time their horses were called “Normans.” They learned that colts from their full blood mares were nearly always larger and of better disposition than colts from high-grade mares. At this time, stud books were being formed and were recorded first in the French draft and later the same animal in the Percheron book in the United States. The pure-bred mares matured at about 1,700 pounds.

Arthur moved from Healey, Illinois, to Kalispell with his wife and daughter in 1904, bringing two mares and a stallion that had come from the full blood stock from France some thirty years before. One mare proved a failure as a brood mare and was sold to a logger for $200.00. The other mare gave the Hodgsons five stallion colts, which sold locally in Montana and Idaho for $1,260.00 or $252.00 each. Also born on the farm were four pure bred fillies. At that time, at work horse prices the mares were valued at $200.00 each.  

Arthur Hodgson was married to Myrtle Kent from Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, on August 23, 1897. Her parents, Thomas and Elizabeth Kent, also came to Kalispell in 1904. The Hodgsons had a daughter, Jennie, who graduated from Flathead County High School in 1911 and then from the Kalispell Business College. Arthur passed away August 24, 1931 followed by Myrtle on September 26, 1941.

I was not able to find exactly where the Hodgson’s farmed.  But I did find that it was 1 1/2 mile northwest of Kalispell, so I am assuming the farm was somewhere along Three Mile Drive. Also the pall bearers at his funeral were all Stillwater drive and Three Mile Drive Neighbors.

I got my information from Ancestry and Successful Men of Montana.