John Littlefield Hodsdon was born as John Littlefield on May 9, 1815, in Hallowell, Maine, to Jeremiah Littlefield. His father died of yellow fever in 1819. Isaac Hodsdon adopted him soon afterward, and the family changed John’s last name to Hodsdon in 1821. They eventually moved to Bangor, Maine, and Hodsdon attended school there before beginning work as a lawyer. He served in the Bangor Light Infantry and ultimately became a general in the state militia. He married Elizabeth True in Bangor on February 19, 1839, and they had at least four children: Henrietta, born around 1840; Sarah, born around 1843; Mary, born around 1846; and John, born around 1851. By 1850, the family was living in Exeter, Maine, and Hodsdon owned $700 of real estate. In January 1861, the state legislature elected Hodsdon as Maine’s adjutant general. The family was living in Augusta, Maine, in 1870, but they eventually returned to Bangor, and Hodsdon died there on March 2, 1895.

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