What's in a name? | Hodges Ferry, Portsmouth

This should be an easy one, right?

Hodges Ferry Bridge spans the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River between the cities of Portsmouth and Chesapeake on Portsmouth Boulevard.

Hodges Ferry Road runs between Portsmouth Boulevard and Airline Boulevard, snaking alongside Elizabeth Manor Country Club and Hodges Manor Elementary School.

Hodges. Ferry.

Surely the name came from a man called Hodges who once ran a ferry across the river. Right?

The best answer is - probably.

A visit to the history room at the Portsmouth Public Library, a search of newspaper archives and conversations with local historians - and folks who have lived through a lot of Portsmouth history - failed to turn up a definitive answer.

There are clues, however.

An early parish map of Norfolk and Nansemond counties shows a man named Tho-mas Hodgis (spelling apparently didn't count for a lot in those days) owned 707 acres along what is now the Chesapeake side of the river as of Oct. 21, 1684. A later map, dubbed "Suffolk and Vicinity," shows that by 1862, a W. Hodges owned the land.

There are plenty of early references to the Hodges Ferry area, including news of a church built near there in 1762.

In 1878, a newspaper clipping mentions a survey of the area with the aim of building a bridge. The first bridge didn't go up there until 1928, and it was rebuilt in 1982.

Saunders Early, who moved to the Hodges Ferry area in 1954, remembers the bridge being so low that he had to wait for the tide to go out to get his boat home.

Before the bridge, Early said, farmers transported crops along the river because it was faster than taking the roads.

Edith Carmichael from the Wilson Memorial History Room at Portsmouth Public Library thinks that Hodges, the landowner, more than likely ran a ferry across the Western Branch and nearby Langley Creek, now called Drum Point Creek. They would have been the only way to get his goods to the buying public, she said.

So was there a Hodges ferry?

Probably.

Jim Washington, (757) 446-2536, jim.washington@pilotonline.com