The information below provided courtesy of Joyce Hetrick.

The wife of DANIEL DILLON-2, accepted by Hinshaw and all known DILLON researchers, is LYDIA HODGSON. The author has not personally thoroughly researched this line further, but has some information condensed from the Hodson Family Genealogy Web Page that concerns ongoing research into this family. They note that several of the families dropped the “g” from Hodgson, which seems to coincide with the research that the author has done.

From the web page, the “oral history” is recounted as “a Hodson family emigrated from Ireland to America. All aboard ship except one boy, George, died.” Later research quoted says:

New information shows that George Hodson, we thought to have been the first Hodson in America, was actually the second generation born in America. Its data are from the records of St. Michael’s Parish, Yorkshire England and the wills of Robert [Hodgson I] and Robert [Hodgson II] in America that show their issue.

The line which is traced in the web page states that the first of this line was Robert Hodgson-I, who had been involved with Cromwell during the English Civil War. His wife and daughter died. After the war, he was put in prison for killing a fellow officer. While in prison, he met George Fox, also an inmate of Exter Prison. Robert Hodgson was converted to the Quaker faith by George Fox. Fox secured the release of Robert Hodgson. Robert Hodgson became a Quaker missionary and was imprisoned in the town of Reading for preaching his faith and for refusing to remove his hat for a Magistrate.

A Quaker named Robert Fowler of Bridlington had visions about this time of a ship taking the Quakers to the colonies. They sailed to London in March of 1657 and left for America in June of 1657.

Robert Hodgson-I stayed in New Amsterdam and was imprisoned there. A promise to leave the colony secured his release.

No further public records may be found for Robert Hodgson until in 1659, George Fox requested his return to Yorkshire for a meeting. He married again that same year, but where is not known for sure. In 1661, he returned to America and remained in Rhode Island until about 1682. At that time, he received a grant from William Penn for 10,000 acres on the Susquehanna River.

The children of Robert Hodgson I were: Robert Hodgson II, George Fox Hodgson, Henry Hodgson, Mark Hodgson, Mary Hodgson, Rachel Hodgson, Matilda Hodgson, Phineas Hodgson and Alexander Hodgson.

Robert Hodgson II and his wife, Sarah, resided in Chester and Delaware Counties in Pennsylvania and their children were: George Hodgson-III who married Mary Thatcher, Joseph Hodgson-III, John Hodgson-III, David Hodgson-III, Richard Hodgson-III, Rachel Hodgson-III, Sarah Hodgson-III, Jona Hodgson-III and Robert Hodgson III.

George Hodgson-III [Robert I, Robert II] was the eldest son of Robert Hodgson II and was born January 6, 1701 in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He died in 1774 in Guilford County, North Carolina. He and Mary Thatcher were married February 21, 1729, in Wilmington, Delaware. She was born in 1712 and died in 1752. Another researcher identifies the wife as Mary Dix Thatcher. Apparently, they were disowned for eloping without the Meeting’s approval, but later their certificates were sent from Chester Meeting to New Garden Meeting in North Carolina.

George and Mary Hodgson lived in Pennsylvania until about 1750 when they moved with their family of seven children to Guilford County, North Carolina. This is about the same time that the DILLONS were moving to North Carolina.

The children of George Hodgson-III and Mary Thatcher Hodgson were: John Hodgson-IV, born August 4, 1731; Sarah Hodgson, born about 1733; Susannah Hodgson, born about 1735; Robert Hodgson, born March 11, 1738/9; Joseph Hodgson, born about 1740; and George Hodgson, Jr., born about 1744. He and Mary were received in the Deep River Monthly Meeting in 1789 [Hinshaw, pg 546]

John Hodgson-IV, who married Mary Mills, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Harold Mills, was born December 4, 1731, and died September 10, 1793, in North Carolina. Their marriage records are among those found in the New Garden Monthly Meeting, page 44, Volume I. They became members of the meeting shortly after it was formed and remained in North Carolina the rest of their lives.

Whereas John Hodson, son of George Hodson of the County of Roan [sic] in North Carolina and Mary Mills, daughtr of Thos Mills of the same place having declar’d their intention of marriage with each other before several monthly meeting of the people called Quakers of New Garden in the county afsd and having consent of parents and parties concerned their sd proposeals was alowd by the sd Meeting and they left to their liberty to accomplish sd marriage according to good order the which they did on the 7 day of the 5 month 1754 in the presents of many witnesses 12 of whose names are incerted.

The children of John Hodgson-IV and Mary Mills Hodgson were: Thomas Hodgson-V, who married Patience Dillon, Sarah Hodgson-V, John Hodgson-V, Ruth Hodgson-V, George Hodgson-V Jonathon Hodgson-V, Hur Hodgson-V, whose second wife was Achsah Dillon [granddaughter of DANIEL and LYDIA], Mary Hodgson-V, Solomon Hodgson-V, and Joseph Hodgson-V.

Patience Dillon and Thomas Hodgson were married at the New Garden Meeting on November 5, 1777. Patience Dillon was the daughter of DANIEL and LYDIA HODGSON DILLON. After Thomas’ death, Patience married Nathaniel Hines on February 28, 1799. Their children moved to Miami Monthly meeting in Ohio with the Quaker migration in 1803/4

The above information, even if correct, still does not clarify which of the descendants of Robert Hodgson I was the father of LYDIA HODGSON who married DANIEL DILLON. In the late 1700s, the name Lydia became quite common in her descendants, who married into the Hodgson line, however. Our LYDIA HODGSON would have been born circa 1720, so might be a daughter of one of Robert I or Robert II’s sons. The fact that her daughters and granddaughters married “in unity” into the Hodgson family would indicate that she was not “too closely” related to the families in which her children accomplished marriages “in unity.” The Quakers prohibited first cousin marriages.

So many of these Hodgson and Dillon descendants moved to Ohio and Illinois in the early 1800s, that a town was named Dillon, Illinois.