A Stately Home in Oxford
I was excited to obtain from eBay an outdoor carte-de-visite identified as the “Mark Hodgson residence, Oxford, PA.” Since the photo has a name and location, I have a good chance of finding where the house is and if it still is there today.
Mark Hodgson residence, Oxford, PA taken by an unidentified photographer on a winter’s day, between 1861 – 1865.
Outdoor cartes-de-visite are rare. Unfortunately, the back of the card was completely blank, so there was no photographer’s name to confirm that it was taken in Oxford. The CDV definitely had the look of having been taken in the early 1860s on a day with snow on the ground!
The house looks like it was owned by a prominent person, it stands two-story with tall gables, long shutters on all the windows and front porches on the first and second floors decorated with wrought iron work. It is typical of the gothic revival style popular between the 1840s and 1880s.
A group of people is posing on the second-floor porch. On the right a little child stands on a chair to see over the railing, a man standing behind him, and two other people beside the doorway. On the left are three women wearing bonnets and cloaks on this chilly day. Could this be Mark Hodgson and his family?!
Detail showing the Hodgson family on the porch.
So who was this Mark A. Hodgson, Sr. (1793-1868)? He was a prominent farmer, having spent most of his life in New London Township. He was known by all as a Justice of the Peace serving twenty years beginning in 1830. As a member of the New London Presbyterian Church, he served on the ruling board of elders.
Mark A. Hodgson as depicted in Futhey & Cope’s “History of Chester County, Pennsylvania”. Portraits such as these were frequently made from daguerreotypes.
He was married to Sophia Duffield and the couple had five children, four sons and a daughter. Three of the sons became civil engineers.
Hodgson was very concerned about education. Before the Act establishing the public school system was passed in the state assembly in 1834, Hodgson built a schoolhouse on his property for the education of the local children. He also served as a Trustee of the New London Academy, a private classical school.
Mark Hodgson served one term in the House of Representatives in the State Legislature in 1854. In 1861 he moved his family to Oxford to the lovely home pictured on this CDV. But the 1860s was not kind to his family. In 1865 Hodgson lost his wife, son George and daughter Mary to typhoid fever. The following year two sons Mark Jr. and Robert died from the same disease. Mark A. Hodgson Sr. also died of typhoid on July 16, 1868. Typhoid fever is a highly contagious disease spread through contaminated food and water. The last family member was son Henry D. Hodgson who survived to become a prominent businessman in Oxford.
So now we get back to our original question, where is this house in Oxford? There is a Hodgson Street in Oxford – could the house be there? I went on Google maps and used the feature to virtually stroll along Hodgson Street looking for a match. There it was – a house with an identical roofline at 344 Hodgson St. between 4th and Commerce Streets! The house has been altered; the wrought iron porch is gone and is now divided into apartments.
This looks like a match, but how can I confirm it? All it took was a trip to the Chester County Archives and Records Services in West Chester, PA to do a deed run. Kudos to Archivist Stacy Hutcheson who was able to connect this modern-day address with Mark A. Hodgson’s ownership. Mark’s son Henry occupied the house until ill fortune caused him to lose in in a Sherriff’s sale in 1887. But the house stayed in the family when Mark’s grandson, Robert, purchased it at the sale (Sheriff’s Deed Book 9, page 328).
The deeds also solved another mystery. The street where the house was built was formerly named Freight Street for the proximity to the railroad but was later changed to Hodgson Street in honor of its illustrious residents.
Pamela Powell, December 4, 2025.
