About Lodi and the families of Hicks, Ford, Duncan and
Thompson
of Lodi, Marion County, Texas
You will find pages of lineage, history,
stories and many, many pictures of these families and offspring. We will be
posting pages of places, events and people that need identification. We hope
that you will contact either Jane
Johnson or Angela
Hartman if you can help.
One of
the historically larger families in Lodi was that of Edward Elias Hicks and
Birdie Alma Ford. They met and married in Lodi. E. E. was born in Greene
Co., IL, lived in Warren Co., MO, near his mother's family (Brown),
and then came to Lodi for his job. They met when he was boarding with her
parents. Birdie was born and lived her entire life in Lodi. She reportedly
got her name because of her petite stature.
Her
parents were Spencer Thigpen Ford of Lodi and Florence Chandler from
Arkansas.
Spencer's
father, William Thomas Ford, fought for the Confederacy and was captured at
the battle of Franklin, TN. He was transferred to Camp Douglas in Chicago,
IL, and died there of disease in 1/1865, just a few months before the Civil
War ended. His wife, Dorcas Thompson Ford, then raised her 5 boys in Lodi as
a single mother. She applied for a Confederate pension, as she became
indigent after the death of her husband.
William Thomas Ford is buried in a mass grave in Chicago, and his
name is on a memorial at the site of the former Camp Douglas. Dorcas is
buried in the
Old Foundry
Cemetery.
Florence
Chandler's parents, William Jones and Elvira Duncan Chandler, moved to Lodi,
from Ouachita Co., Arkansas. Several of their children died young and are
buried in the Old Foundry Cemetery. The Chandlers later moved with some
children to Kirkland to farm, leaving behind their daughter and her husband,
Florence and Spencer, who lived out their life in Lodi and are buried at Old
Foundry Cemetery.
William
Jones Chandler was from North Carolina, near the state line with Virginia,
and fought for the Confederacy for Arkansas. His wife, Elvira, also
applied for a widow's pension, after he died in Kirkland, Childress Co.,
TX. Elvira's brothers, Pierce and Newton Duncan, died fighting for Arkansas
during the war.
Elvira's parents, John and Hester Browne Duncan, from Greenville and
Anderson Counties, South Carolina, respectively, are buried
at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church Cemetery, Cass Co., not far from
Lodi. Hester Browne's family was Methodist. Her brother, Sidi Hamet
Browne, was a Methodist minister in South Carolina, who left traditional
church work and published a newspaper, the Christian Neighbor.
At the time of his death, he was reportedly the oldest Methodist
minister and newspaperman in the state. His second wife was Amanda
Bass. Clinkscale(s) and Bass families also moved from South Carolina to
the Marion and Cass County area.
James Thompson and Dorcas McCord married on 12/23/1812, in Mecklenburg
Co., North Carolina. The family left North Carolina, settled in Tipton
Co., TN, then some moved to Marion Co. Two of their children, Thomas
and Dorcas Adeline Thompson, settled in the Marion Co. region. Thomas
married a Dorcas Emaline Ford, and they had children who married into
the families of Brown, Sellers, Hicks (not the one mentioned above),
just to name a few families. His sister, Dorcas Adeline Thompson,
married Charles Hutchinson.
Some Cemeteries
Old Foundry Cemetery is the largest cemetery in Lodi. It was
reportedly named for a nearby foundry, that made cannonballs during the
Civil War. The Ford family paid for the chapel at the front of the
cemetery. Homecoming weekend has been observed there in early
September.
During the 1960s, FM 2683 was being paved, and some bones were discovered.
At that time, there was a missing female Texas college student, and it was
briefly thought that this discovery may have been her. Local residents
informed authorities that there was an unmarked African-American cemetery by
a tree line on the north side of FM 2683, near the construction site. This
brief story put Lodi on the state news.
A grave marker was found by a Lodi land owner with just the name "Leroy" on
it. It may have been erected for a mill worker, since it was close to the
creek bed that runs south and parallel to FM 2683. Maybe it was for a
favorite animal of a long ago resident. The mill and the marker have been
gone for decades.
Schools
An early
Lodi school was a wooden two story structure. The lower floor was for the
students, and the top floor was reportedly used as a meeting space. Lodi had
an active chapter of the Woodmen of the World organization. It is probable
that the members could have met there, since there is no known other public
meeting space.
E. E. Hicks furnished the land for a newer
Lodi school,
which was east of his home.
It was a wooden, one story structure that had a teacherage on the side of
it. Both were torn down and no longer needed as the responsibility
for public education was transferred to the county.
Churches
The
families mentioned above were mostly Methodist, and they worshiped at the
Lodi UMC, which was
demolished a few years ago. The bell of the church was given to a Methodist
camp in East Texas. According to a long-time resident, the bell once
belonged to the Presbyterian Church, which had been damaged during a storm
and never rebuilt. The Presbyterian church was remembered as being on the
opposite side of Highway 248, just north of the intersection with FM 2683.
Lodi once
had a lumber mill, schools, several churches, stores,
gas stations and
depot for railway service. It is a small community that has dwindled in
population and services over time. Oil, hunting and timber are still
important resources in the area.
