U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Woodford, Benjamin Holly (1843-1921) ------------------------------------------------------------------- The History of Barbour County, West Virginia, From its Earliest Exploration and Settlement to the Present Time by Hu Maxwell The Acme Publishing Company, Morgantown, W.Va., 1899 Pages 505-506 Benjamin Holly Woodford, son of Jacob and Mary (Robinson) Woodford, was born in 1843, five miles north of Philippi, where he now resides. On September 13, 1870, he was married at Winchester, Virginia, to Mary Elizabeth Scott Hodgson, daughter of Robert and Sally (Renner) Hodgson. Children, Robinson H., Benjamin Holly Scott, Blanche Maude, Tom Brown, Scotia Pearl. Mr. Woodford belongs to the order of A. F. and A. M., and is a Democrat, a farmer and stockdealer, owning 196 acres of highly productive land, largely devoted to graizing. In 1896 he was elected a member of the County Court, and was president of that body one year; and he held the office of member of the Pleasant District Board of Education sixteen years, and he has also served as statistical correspondent of Barbour County for the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Woodford was in the Confederate army from 1862 till the close of the war. He surrendered at Staunton to General Duval at the close of the war, after taking part in more than thirty battles. He brought home with him many relics and trophies of his campaigns. After the war he entered actively upon the pursuits of civil life, and has met success in all his undertakings. He was four years a merchant at the "Burnt Store" on Taylor's Drain. Mr. Woodford is a great grandson of Colonel Woodford who married Miss Howe, and a grandson of William Woodford, the first of the name in Barbour. The children of Jacob Woodford were, Hannah, Elizabeth, Robinson, William, James M., John and the subject of this sketch. Mrs. Woodford belongs to an old and respectable family of Virginia and Pennsylvania, the Hodgsons, English in origin, and now possessing many members in different States. Her ancestors can be traced in an unbroken line more than two hundred years to Robert Hodgson, an English Quaker who landed at New York in 1665, and who subsequently removed to Pennsylvania. It is believed that he finally lived in Maryland, and died in 1733 at the age of eighty- six, leaving a considerable fortune to his children. The line of descent from him to Mrs. Woodford is as follows: Robert had a son Phineas; Phineas had a son Robert, and Robert had a son Robert, who was Mrs. Woodford's father, she thus being of the fifth generation from the founder of the name in America. Through her mother's people she is of German descent, through the Renner family. ------------------------------------------------------------------- From Death Certificate, Barbour County, WV #21 FULL-NAME: Benjamin Holly Woodford BIRTH-DATE: May 2, 1843 BIRTH-PLACE: Virginia, now W.Va. DEATH-DATE: January 2, 1921 DEATH-PLACE: Philippi, R#2, Pleasant District, Barbour County, WV MARITAL-STATUS: Widowed OCCUPATION: Farming FATHER: Jacob Woodford (born in Virginia) MOTHER: Mary Robinson (born in Virginia, now W.Va.) CAUSE-OF-DEATH: Uraemic Convullsions / Brights Disease INFORMANT: Thomas Woodford (wife of Benjamin Holly Woodford) From Death Certificate, Barbour County, WV #96 FULL-NAME: Mary Elizabeth Scott Woodford DEATH-DATE: April 7, 1919 at age 76y-0m-27d DEATH-PLACE: near Mary Chapel, Pleasants District, Barbour County, WV MARITAL-STATUS: married OCCUPATION: House Wife CAUSE-OF-DEATH: Paralysis INFORMANT: B. F. Woodford (of Philippi, R.F.D.) BURIAL: Marys Chapel ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Barbour County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/barbour/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------