John Hodgdon was born in Weare, New Hampshire in October of 1800 of Quaker parents.
Up until the time that he was nineteen years of age it appeared that he would follow in his father’s footsteps as a farmer, but in 1819 his paternal grandfather died and left him a large tract of land in northern Maine comprising what became the township of Hodgdon.
This inheritance appears to have changed his life including his pursuit of an education. From Phillips Exeter Academy he went on to graduate from Bowdoin College in the class of 1827.
Following graduation from Bowdoin he moved to Bangor to study law under a prominent Bangor lawyer, Allen Gilman, and one supposes to keep a better eye on his investments in the northern part of the State.
Hodgdon was admitted to the bar in 1830 and practiced law in Bangor for the next thirteen years.
He was a member of the Executive Council in 1833 and from 1834 to 1838 he served the State as Land Agent, a very crucial period for both the office and the lumber barons of Bangor.
In 1846 Hodgdon was elected to the Senate and served as its President in 1847. He was reelected the next year but resigned in an unsuccessful attempt to secure his party’s nomination for Governor.
In 1843 he moved from Bangor to Hodgdon and managed a large farm while practicing law in nearby Houlton. He was appointed a Bank Commissioner in 1849 and offered a Consulate in Rome by President Franklin Pierce in 1853 which he declined.
In that same year he left Maine and moved to Dubuque, Iowa where he opened his law practice and was elected Mayor of his adopted city just six years later.
Hodgdon was a shrewd man who succeeded in almost everything he attempted with the exception of becoming Governor. Being shrewd and well-connected made him a nineteenth century success story.