HISTORY OF PASCO COUNTY

Hudson

Articles about schools in Hudson are
here and
here. Pictures of Hudson are
here.
This page was last revised on Aug. 27, 2019.

About 1868. “The first settlers that we have any record
of settled there in 1868, Mr. Worley, Jess Hay, William Hay, and
Joseph Hay. Later on W. D. Frierson, Bill Lang, William Bailey,
Bill Tillet and Crocket Whiden, Sam Stevenson, Bud Stevenson,
Allen Hill and Malcolm Hill, Hill House and J. W. Hudson made a
scattering settlement along the coast.”—J. A. Hendley.

May 25, 1869. According to a genealogy web site, Nancy
Jane Branch is born at Hudson. Web sites indicate she was a
daughter of John Laurence Branch and Eliza Wilder, and that she
married Reuben Y. Walden.

1874. The fishing industry is started by William Lang

1877-78. A list of Hernando County schools includes the
Lang school at Hudson. [A history of
schools in Pasco County is here.]

Late 1877 or 1878 or 1879. The Isaac W. Hudson family moves to
what is now the site of Hudson, building a home near a large spring. He
was advised by his doctor to move to the Gulf coast, hoping that the
salt air would help his bronchial ailment. (Isaac W. Hudson Jr., who was
born on Nov. 17, 1870, said he was a little over seven years old when
they arrived. In 1978, the Florida legislature proclaimed April 28,
1978, to be Hudson Pioneer Centennial Day, based on the approximate date
April 28, 1878, on which Isaac Hudson settled here. According to
Webb’s Historical, Industrial and Biographical Florida
(1885), the family settled there on Feb. 5, 1879. Mrs. Hudson’s
obituary says they arrived in 1878.) J. B. Hudson recalled that the
family settled on the Gulf in February 1878. A 1922 article in the
Dade City Banner reports that they arrived in 1878.

1878. The Hudson Cemetery is established with the first
burial that of Ida Melissa Hudson, the daughter of Isaac W. and
Amanda Hudson, according to Historic Places.

1882. A Baptist church is constructed of pitch pine at
the corner of Hudson Ave. and Main Street in Hudson.

May 16, 1882. The Hudson post office is established.

About 1883. Dr. James G. Guthrie begins a practice in
Hudson.

1885. Webb’s Historical, Industrial and Biographical
Florida reports: “H. W. Howse, J. W. Hudson, W. M. Lang,
A. M. Bellamy, W. G. Frierson, A. W. Blanks, H. C. Bush, W. W.
Chaney, W. J. Hilliard, James Worley, Jesse Hay, and M. D.
Tillman [perhaps should be Fillman] are the more prominent
residents and orange growers.” It identifies the postmaster as
John W. Hudson.

1886. The Florida State Gazetteer (1886-1887)
reports the population is 16. Hudson has Methodist and Baptist
churches. H. C. Bush is justice of the peace; Frank Hudson is a
carpenter; and J. B. Hudson is general merchandise. Farmers and
growers are A. J. Bevis [Rewis?], A. M. Bellamy, A. W. Blanks,
W. W. Chaney, J. H. Dicks, M. D. Filman, W. G. Frierson, J. T.
Hay, J. T. Hudson, I. W. Hudson, H. H. Howse, M. H. Hurst, W. H.
Jones, W. M. Lang, G. T. Lawler, L. E. Moseley, W. S.
Quartermous, C. W. Weaver, A. J. Rewis.

Feb. 19, 1886. William Stanton Quertermous (1829-1887)
writes, in a letter mailed from Hudson: “ …we have had nice
spring weather ever since with the exception of a few slight
frosts to taper off I have watermellons up about four acres
planted I have suckseeds in clearing about three acres more of
the stock for potatoes I will bud off the balance and part it in
corn and peas every thing is beginning to assume its natural
appearance the orange trees are not materially injured it is
thought the next crop of oranges will be a larger one the lemons
and guavers are beginning to put up they were killed to the
ground … we still hear that our Railroad is to be built
specialy the Florida Southern I understand will build that road
from Brooksville to point Penallas this summer it will run about
six miles east of me they have made the survey but I do not
think anyboddy Knows what they will do thats our railroad co
that never tells nothing They have got the money to do as they
please…”

Nov. 9, 1886. The Bee Tree post office is established,
near the intersection of Hudson Avenue and Hays Road. [It was
discontinued Nov. 19, 1888.]

1888. Dr. James Martin Posey begins a practice in
Hudson, according to the Directory of Deceased American
Physicians, 1804-1929.

1889. A cemetery is established in what became the town of
Vereen. [The cemetery is located on Hudson Avenue, one-half mile east of
Hicks Road. The historical marker reads: “…Stephen P. Douglas
who died in 1889 is the earliest marked burial. In 1890 Abraham and
Susanna Bellamy donated land to the Methodist Episcopal Church, in
memory of her parents Joseph and Susanna Vereen. A building completed in
1891, served as the community’s church and for some years, as a
public school, until it was destroyed by a forest fire in 1920.”
In 1906 a newspaper article mentioned Mrs. J. H. Davidson, of Vereen,
Fla., and a 1908 directory listed J. H. Davidson as a railroad
superintendent and purchasing agent.]

Apr. 18, 1889. The Savannah Morning News reports, “The
store and postoffice at Hudson, Pasco county, was totally consumed by fire one night
last week. The mail and everything connected with the office were burned.”

Aug. 20, 1897. The Tampa Morning Tribune reports
that Tillman Ozlas of Hudson was in Tampa yesterday on a
business trip.

Dec. 18, 1898. Rev. J. M. Mitchell is appointed pastor
of the Hudson Methodist Episcopal Church, South, according to a
church register. [The register shows that subsequently Rev. M.
T. Bell served until Dec. 17, 1900, and Rev. Tom McMullon served
until Dec. 1901. Other pastors were Rev. W. F. Fletcher (1902),
Rev. R. H. Barnett (1903), Rev. W. H. F. Robarts (1904), Rev. K.
M. Albright (1905), Rev. K. D. Jones (1906),
Rev. J. M. Dieffenwierth (1907), Revs. Combs, Willis, and
Mitchell (sharing, Dec. 1908 to Dec. 1909), Rev. J. D. Frierson
(1909-1911).]

Oct. 5, 1899. The San Antonio Herald reports,
“Tanner’s turpentine still, near Hudson, burned to the ground
last Friday. The loss is between $1,000 and $2,000.”

May 10, 1900. The San Antonio Herald reports,
“Sheriff H. C. Griffin and County Judge Davis took the train
here Monday morning to go to Week’s turpentine camp near Hudson,
to investigate the murder of John D. Cleland, who was killed
Sunday afternoon by negroes. [On May 17, the newspaper reported,
“According to current statements, Sheriff Griffin found the
situation quite serious at Weeks’ turpentine camp, when he went
there last week to investigate the murder of J. D. Cleland, the
woodsman of Johnson’s camp. The negroes implicated defied arrest
successfully until he took the kopjes by storm, and captured
three out of the six defenders. The camp being outside of this
county, he turned the prisoners over to deputies to bring them
to the jail in Brooksville.” on May 17, 1900, the Blackshear
Times (Georgia) reported, “The shooting and instant
killing of Mr. J. Irwin Cleland last week near Hudson, Fla., was
a severe shock to his aged father (John Cleland) and relatives
in this (Pierce) county. He was shot from ambush by negroes, of
whom three has been lynched. Circumstances prevented the body
from being brought home for burial and today it sleeps in
Florida soil.”]

May 18, 1902. The Tampa Morning Tribune reports:
“The Brooksville and Hudson Railroad is nearing completion. It is
only a few miles from Hudson at this writing. The new railroad from
Brooksville to Hudson will open up one of the finest belts of timber in
the State. It will also give Brooksville direct water transportation
with the outside commercial world.”

May 30, 1903. A newspaper reports, “Friends of V. I.
Lewis, of Hudson, who is reputed to have the longest whiskers in Pasco
county, have asked to enter him in the Long Whiskers Contest. Sorry, but
the contest is limited to Hillsborough.”

July 18,
1903. The Tarpon Springs News reports: HUDSON. The sponge
fleet has been kept in by bad weather. H. C. Bush is doing surveying on
the Hudson & Brooksville railway. Rev. M. Smith is visiting in
Hudson this week. Squally weather with brisk rains prevails here. Our
picnic, of 25th inst, is the great topic of conversation hereabouts. A
complete programme of amusements is to be in evidence besides the picnic
feature. Our hearts are set on making this a success—which our
good people certainly deserve. May they enjoy good weather, a big crowd
and the time of their lives on that day, of all others!

May 24, 1904. The Tampa Morning Tribune reports that
the Brooksville and Hudson railroad has opened, with the residents of
Brooksville given a free trip to Hudson and back.

1905. The Ocala Evening Star calls Hudson “the
new town on the bay” and reports that “Hudson is booming and
the pay roll from the timber and turpentine camps amounts to $1200 a
week.”

1910. The Kentucky Inn of Hudson is completed.

1918. The 1918-1919 Florida State Gazetteer and
Business Directory reports Hudson has a population of 150.
It lists: H. C. Henderson, general store; G. M. Little &
Sons, fish; Moseley & Williams, general store; W. H. Nelson,
general store; Norman Dunn & Co., turpentine; J. H. Smith,
postmaster; Stubbs Bros. Co., naval stores.

July 11, 1918. John Olan Hay (b. Oct. 6, 1889) dies in
military service

Mar. 27, 1919. A deed conveys for $20 a lot at S28 T24
R16 from Mary S. Brady, widow of William Brady, Miss Sarah S.
Gomez, daughter, and Miss Mary E. Knowles, daughter, to W. S.
Knowles, T. W. Brady, and Thomas Pinder, trustees of the Church
of God at Hudson. [Info from Jeff Cannon]

Nov. 18, 1921. An article in the Dade City Banner
has: “Between Hudson and Port Richey is nine miles of absolutely
the worst road in the county. It is a narrow rock road, surfaced
with asphalt and worn out so that driving over it is a torture.”

May 10, 1922. The Pentecostal (or Church of God)
building is destroyed by fire. A newspaper reported,
“The congregation had been holding their regular weekly
prayer-meeting and had very recently left the church, when
nearby, people heard the roar and cackle of flames which however
were so far
advanced that nothing could be done but to save the nearby
places; with only buckets and water from the marsh and quick
action this was done.”

1923.
The first community water system is installed, with a
one-pitcher pump, pump point and 15 feet of pipe

1924. Lucy Hudson deeds the cemetery property to three
trustees, A. L. Hudson, J. B. Hudson, and Michael Knowles Jr.

Aug. 4, 1924. The Tampa Morning News reports,
“Road work is progressing satisfactorily with the addition of a
new force of men from various sections. This, although hard and
hot work, is a boom to many at this time as their farm work this
season has been unprofitable. … Vacant houses are very few.
The colored section is crowded, a number of the road hands
living in tents.”

Nov. 9, 1924. The Tampa Morning Tribune reports,
“Cotton may be added to the list of valuable crops that are
grown in the Hudson vicinity. Mr. E. L. Baird, on his homestead
near Mr. Taylor Frierson’s farm, has grown this season a bale
weighing 581 pounds which sold for $1.05.83 [sic] net, besides
20 bushels of seed that brought $1.00 per bushel.”

Dec. 16, 1927. The Dade City Banner reports,
“Anent the advance of Hudson, remembering that it is a small
place, there has been within perhaps a year and a half just
past, the reconstruction of the old Mosely hotel into an
up-to-date and charming place—Gulf View Lodge, with its
beautiful grounds surrounding the spring which has been walled
in. The grounds have been filled in and planted with lawn grass.
There is also the town waterworks, also the work of Major Edgar
formerly of Montreal, Canada. The major is contemplating still
further improvements on his properties, both near the spring and
elsewhere.”

1929. At this time there are 2 churches, 3 stores, one
garage, one hotel, one fish house, and about 43 houses in
Hudson, according to the recollection of Eda Collum Hatcher, who
arrived then. [In another interview, she said there were 32
homes.]

Feb. 19, 1932. The Dade City Banner reports, “In
looking about we find only one vacant house in Hudson: by the way, a
very nice one belonging to Mr. I. W. Hudson, former sheriff and present
prospect. One new home, a cozy one, has been built on the south side by
Mr. Herry Hinkle. The A. L. Hudson place is now occupied by Mr. Manaheim
and family of Pennsylvania, who is a prospective buyer. We welcome
good people to Hudson and there is still much vacant land. The recent
marriages of Mr. Bartow Littell to Miss Esther DeHave of Lutz, and of
Mrs. Beatrice Littell Scroggs to Mr. Stanley of Wesley Chapel, have been
announced in the Banner, so we give them passing notice with best wishes.”

Feb. 18, 1938. The Methodist church, built just before
the turn of the century on East Hudson Avenue and Guava Street
is destroyed by fire. [The Baptists then offered the Methodist
congregation the use of an old church which was later moved to
the lot where their church had burned]

1940s. Hudson sends 54 men into military service during
World War II. The families of C. P. Littell and Frank Lysek had
six sons in service. Goree J. Equevilley, son of Mr. and Mrs.
Romain Equevilley, died in a German hospital on June 10, 1945.

Jan. 23, 1943. Gulf Springs Lodge is destroyed by fire.

Feb. 16, 1944. A group of local women form the Victory
Club to assist those serving in the war.

May 21, 1945. The Hudson School, which taught up to the
seventh grade, is destroyed by fire

June 13, 1949. The Hudson Community Club holds its first
meeting. [Officers elected were President, Mrs. A. J. Hatcher;
Vice-President, Mrs. Geneva Green; Secretary, Mrs. George Bliss;
Treasurer, Madeline Hatcher. In 1953 the club was incorporated
with 74 charter members.]

Sept. 18, 1949. The new Hudson Baptist Church is
dedicated.

Aug. 31, 1953. The Hudson post office is closed. [It was
re-established in 1957.]

Dec. 24, 1953. The New Port Richey Press
reports: “Street lights were installed this week in Hudson, on
the Gulf. Hudson now has street lighting, telephone service,
water system and other city conveniences. The purchase of the
light fixtures and automatic switches was made possible by a
fish fry and donations from the citizens of the community, with
the cooperation of the Withlacoochee Rier Electric Co-op, who
installed fixtures and switches. Seventeen lights were installed
at this time, with automatic switches to operate them, lights
will burn all night.”

1955. The “Welcome to Hudson-on-the-Gulf” sign is
painted on a sunken fishing boat that had been raised and placed
on a sturdy platform.

Aug. 24, 1955. The School Board votes to close Hudson
School because of low enrollment.

1956. Victor M. (Bud) Clark begins digging a number of
canals from the Gulf so that each homeside in his Hudson Beach
Estates would front on the water

1956. The Hudson Community Water System is installed,
with 56 members. The system consisted of a four-inch well
pumping 60 gallons per minute, a 1,000-gallon pressure tank, and
distribution lines

1957. The cemetery, in disrepair, is deeded to the
Hudson Community Club

1957. Herschel Hudson begins work on Riviera Estates,
digging a wide canal from the site of Hudson Marina to Main
Street

Dec. 7, 1959. The U. S. 19 Volunteer Fire Department,
Inc., holds its organizational meeting at the old fire hall at
Hudson. The first elected officers were James Englhert, Richard
Olson, Ed Rumminger, W. Jackson, and H. Fredfield.

1960. The public beach opens

Apr. 9, 1960. The first issue of the Hudson News,
a mimeographed weekly newspaper, appears. [It was published by
Jerry Fitzgerald, a teenager, and sold several hundred copies
each week. Fitzgerald was called “Florida’s Youngest Editor.”
Publication ceased in July 1962.]

1962. The Community Club purchases the closed
schoolhouse for $2250.

May 24, 1962. Ground is broken for a new $495,000
General Telephone Co. building for the Hudson area.

Apr. 2, 1964. Sky Haven Airport, two miles north of
Hudson, officially opens.

July 28, 1964. The Hudson Volunteer Fire Department,
which replaced the U. S. 19 VFD, answers its first call. [More
information is here.]

1966. Hudson Elementary School opens. [Classes at first
were held in New Port Richey.]

July 11, 1968. The landmark green and red home of
Romaine F. Equevilley (who had died earlier in the year) burns
to the ground in an early morning fire.

1973. The Committee to Incorporate Hudson, chaired by
Paul Kullman, proposes a city charter.

1975. Hudson High School opens in its own facility at
Hudson. [The school actually began on July 9, 1973, with Hudson
students attending in the afternoons in the Gulf High School
building.]

August 1977. Pasco County absorbs the Hudson Volunteer
Fire Department

March 1981. Bayonet Point-Hudson Medical Center opens

Sept. 14-15, 1985. The first Hudson Seafest is held

1985. Outlet World opens on U. S. Highway 19. [The mall
was later renamed Bayonet Point Mall, but subsequently closed.]

1986. A new Hudson-Bayonet Point Post Office opens

1987. The landmark 130-foot water tower is taken down

Apr. 22, 1990. Hudson Regional Library opens

Mar. 25, 1998. The landmark Pete’s Corner Store is
destroyed by an early morning blaze. [The building dated to 1958
and was formerly Bill Peek’s Corner Store.]

July 1, 2003. The Pasco County Commission approves a
$2.1 million plan to dredge the Hudson Channel. [The work was
done in 2005.]

Mar. 7, 2008. A 24-hour Wal-Mart Supercenter opens at
12610 U.S. 19, just north of Beacon Woods Drive, featuring a
grocery store, Tire & Lube Express, a hair salon, SunTrust
Bank branch and a restaurant.

Dec. 14, 2009. The Mike Fasano Regional Hurricane
Shelter is dedicated. Gov. Charlie Crist attended.

June 24-26, 2012. Tropical Storm Debby causes extensive
flooding in western Pasco County.

Oct. 1, 2017. The Hudson K-Mart closes.

Village of Hudson First Settled by Alabama Family

By D. B. McKAY

This article apppeared in the Tampa Tribune on Oct. 18, 1953.

The village known as Hudson on the Gulf Coast of Pasco County
is one of the most picturesque and naturally beautiful on the
Gulf Coast Scenic Highway No. 19, and it also has an interesting
history—it was frequently the landing place of Confederate
blockade-runners when the Federal navy had all of the principal
ports on our coast closed during the Civil War, and it was
suspected that it was a rendezvous for rum-runners and smugglers
during the prohibition era.

Because access was difficult except by water there was little
interference with these illicit operations. Nearby Bayport,
however, was better known as a port used during the Civil War by
blockade-runners and subsequently by evaders of the law.

Among the earliest settlers were the pioneer Hudson family, who
left Alabama in 1868 in a caravan of covered wagons.

The only road in that section at the time was what was known as
the Old Salt Road, so called because during the Civil War people
from the interior came to the coast at that point to make salt,
as the Yankees had all other sources of supply closed. The
process of distilling salt from Gulf water was used at many
points along the coast. Some West Pasco residents obtained their
salt from Salt Springs behind Gulf View Mall.

In 1881, the people of the area got together and built a log
school house. In chilly weather the children would build a fire
in the schoolyard, as the cracks between the logs let plenty of
cold air into the little building.

There was no place to hold religious services, so a pulpit was
built in the old school house and that was used. The first
sermon was preached by old “Uncle” Alderman Wilson. Services
were held thereafter by circuit riders.

John Paul was running a schooner from Bayport to Cedar Keys,
and he was induced to make Hudson a port of call. The settlers
sold their produce and bought their supplies in Cedar Keys, as
that was the only port on the Gulf then having a railroad.

A few years after the arrival of the earliest families a small
fish business was established by Bush, Lang, Frierson, Knowles,
Stevenson and Brady families. Fish were abundant in the adjacent
waters, and the catches were large. The average price of roe
mullet was one cent each. People would come from as far as fifty
miles to buy fish which they would split, salt and pack in
barrels. The average family would haul home five barrels. With
the improvement of transportation and facilities for ice storage
in the early 1900s, the fishing industry became the main
interest by the Carl Hatchers and Knowles families.

I. W. Hudson, Sr., profited by the sale of produce in Cedar
Keys to the extent that he was able to buy 200 acres of land
from the state at $1.25 an acre, and he employed H. C. Bush to
survey and plat the town site. About 1890 J. B. and William
Hudson established the first general mercantile business in
Hudson. Their building extended from the river bank to the great
spring, the anchorage of the freight boats.

At the turn of the century, the Weeks brothers from Norman
Park, Georgia, went into the turpentine business in the vicinity
of Hudson. A tram road was built from Brooksville to Hudson to
move turpentine and rosin to Hudson, whence it was moved to
Tampa by boat. In 1905 the Brooksville and Hudson Railroad
replaced the tram and regular service for passengers and freight
was established. A spur was built to Fivay, three miles
southeast of Hudson, where a small sawmill was operating. A
short time later a group of Atlanta capitalists bought the small
mill and replaced it with one of the largest mills in the state.
This mill operated night and day for several years, until the
timber supply was exhausted. This big industry had brought a lot
of business to Hudson, and the town suffered a severe shock when
the mill ceased operating. And when the railroad suspended
service the businessmen of Hudson were greatly discouraged.

Between the First and Second World Wars Hudson had an important
sponge fishing industry, using several boats and employing quite
a number of men. Some of the boats and crews were from Key West,
others locally owned and manned; they made Hudson their home
port, as they worked on the sponge beds on the West Coast. The
catch was sold at the sponge exchange in Tarpon Springs, and at
the peak fifteen boats and sixty men were employed, with Hudson
as their home port.

Then a blight struck the sponge beds, greatly reducing the
catch; also, after the Second World War the importation of
sponges from Greece upset the sale of sponges from waters in
this vicinity.

The Gulf Coast Scenic Highway (Old 19) passes through Hudson.
The highway is within sight of the Gulf at Hudson and is
probably the most scenic and beautiful highway in the state.
This highway and fine state road to the great springs have
brought prosperity to Hudson.

The town is fast becoming a tourist resort and quite a number of
houses have been built recently by retired people from harsher climes,
who enjoy fishing, boating and sea bathing.

A recent acquisition is a large general store, owned by Mr. and Mrs.
Albert Hatcher, and an attractive eating place has been oopened by Herb
and Sally Ruland.

The old residents feel that Hudson is now launched on a substantial
and permanent wave of prosperity.

(The data for this article was supplied by Mr. and Mrs. Hershell Hudson.)

The Beach and Canals

The following is excerpted from The Story of Hudson, Florida
(1973), by Harry G. Miller.

Fifty or sixty years ago, there were very few recreational
facilities in small towns and rural areas. Sometimes the kids
would lay out a rough baseball diamond in a vacant field, but
one other means of diversion was to be found in almost every
community – the old swimming hole. This might be an abandoned
quarry, which had filled up with water, or a creek or other
running stream. Here the youngsters, mostly boys, gathered in
warm weather for a dip.

Soon after the first retirees moved into Hudson, some of them
began to talk about the need for a beach. This was probably
prompted by their recollection of the swimming holes of their
youth and by the inevitable pictures used to promote Florida
which always show sunny beaches crowded with beautiful girls.

And the agitation for a beach was supported by many old-time
residents of Hudson as the real estate developers were tearing
up and filling in their bathing spots along the coast and in the
rivers and inlets. Among the first to go was the Hudson Springs
area and after that the island across from the docks which was
popular with bathers and picnickers. Both had been used for many
years.

Hudson Springs was located in the heart of the original
settlement and was the source of a small river named after the
Hudson family. For many years the townspeople had gone there
either to swim or for other recreational purposes. It was often
the scene of family picnics, and many of the town’s civic
functions such as fish fries and barbecues were held at the
Springs.

Before Hudson Beach was developed, there was a small island
which lay a few hundred yards south of the railroad terminus.
The Hudson River flowed between the two places, although it was
not as wide as the canal that is there now. To reach the
swimming and picnic area it was necessary to row a boat the
short distance across the river. As far as can be determined,
the island was located in that section where Harbor Drive makes
its last bend toward the west.

As more and more people built homes in Hudson, there was no
place available for them to paddle around in the water or lie in
the sand in all of Pasco County. As a matter of fact this
condition still exists except for the public facilities which
were finally built in Hudson.

When Bud Clark began to develop Hudson Beach Estates, he
promised the community that he would donate a section of Gulf
frontage for recreational purposes; but very little progress was
made toward constructing it. Then Tom Sawyer and the Community
Club became interested in the project. After this action a long
discouraging and frustrating fight was waged to do something
about the matter. Month after month it came up for discussion at
the meetings. There were alternating periods of good news and
bad. Many citizens became convinced that the beach would never
be built.

Finally because of some vague promises and partial commitments,
it was announced that the state of Florida would build a state
park on the site that would be made available by the developer.
The people of the community in their wildest dreams had never
hoped for anything as grand as this. But their elation was
short-lived.

For some months after this announcement, plans for the beach
were laid aside as an equally important problem was now
presenting itself Any facility, especially a state park, would
have to have a good road running to it. Sawyer began a pitch to
have Florida build a road from US 19 to the area that had been
designated for the park. At that time A. L. Rogero of Tampa was
a member of the State Road Board from his district. He seemed to
be sympathetic to the plan for a road and park, but, apparently,
he had trouble convincing the other members of the Board that
the Highway was needed.

Tom Sawyer worried Rogero by telephone and in person. There
were almost daily communications between them. At last it was
announced that 4200 feet of road would be built. According to
the engineers it would require 35,000 cubic yards of fill, and
the public was asked to contribute as much of this as possible.
A story appeared in one of the newspapers in which it was stated
that the residents of Hudson were so eager to assist “that they
went about the countryside offering to dredge out artificial
lakes for the landowners so that they could use the dirt which
would be taken to the road site.”

And then the question of the right of way came up. Those
persons who owned the land over which the road was to be
constructed readily donated the necessary footage. From highway
19 to Main Street the donors were: The Oakes, Leslie Knowles, L.
McKeehan and Ed Boore. From Main Street to the Gulf the land was
given by Bud Clark and Herschel Hudson. It would pass between
Hudson Beach Estates and Riviera Beach which were being
developed by these two men. The former by Clark and the latter
by Hudson. Soon after this work was started. The road ended at a
point near the Gulf Sunset Apartments or where Lonnie Lee Lane
branches off from Clark Street.

Those people now living in this area will never know how hard
the few persons then living here worked to have the highway
built. This project was another example of how Hudson became
known as the Do-It-Yourself town. In its way it was as important
to the community as the four-laning of U. S. 19 became in 1972.

And now Hudson had a road leading to a beach which did not
exist. For a time it appeared as if it was to be one of those
highways which leads to nowhere, especially after the state
announced that it would not build a park on a tract of land of
less than six acres. The developer agreed to donate only
one-third of that amount, although it had been previously
understood that more than six acres would be set aside for a
beach.

It was time for Tom Sawyer to put on his fighting clothes
again. On this occasion he arranged for the developer and the
Pasco County officials to get together. They haggled for months,
but the facility was completed in 1960. There was also
cooperation from local citizens, clubs, businessmen and the
water works. The latter ran a line to the beach and rest rooms
were put up by the Community Club. Three picnic shelters, 12 by
24 feet in size, were erected by local realtors – one by
Gulfside Realty Co. and two by Warrick’s Real Estate.

At the time the road was completed to the present junction of
Clark Street and Lonnie Lee Lane there was nothing beyond that
point except water and a few piles of rock and sand which had
been dredged from the Gulf. Newcomers may be surprised to learn
that west and south of that area there were only sawgrass swamps
which were inundated at high tide. This section was eventually
filled in as far south as Signal Cove.

It has been said that Tom Sawyer never got his feet wet at the
beach and that he thought that water was good only for drinking,
washing clothes, flushing toilets and a medium in which fish
swam. But he nagged the state until a road was built and then
the developer and county until a beach was constructed. He
dreamed of a small city springing up here and he felt that a
beach would be a valuable asset.

Hudson beach is not the best in Florida and it is far too
small. At the time it was built, people felt that it would serve
the community for years to come. As in so many other matters, no
one saw the tremendous growth which was in the offing.
Nonetheless, it has been an asset to the community, not only for
swimming and sunbathing but as a meeting place for small clubs
and groups. In addition to its other advantages, Hudson Beach is
a spot from which can be seen some of the most beautiful sunsets
in the country.

Canal-living, which is now so common in areas bordering on the
coasts of Florida, is surprising to those persons who are not
familiar with the system of waterways which bring the waters of
the ocean or the Gulf of Mexico inland for several miles in many
places. It is difficult for them to picture the network of
canals which bring salt water to the property of thousands of
homeowners unless they see it in person or in an aerial
photograph of a region in which this has taken place.

Water front living in Hudson has long been popular. The
original settlers built their homes on or close to the Gulf or
one of the many inlets which ran from it. It seems that running
water fascinates people and they like to live close to it. Even
on a dead-end canal the tides keep the water in motion. It also
permits residents to tie up boats in their own back yards. Also
it brings fishing and swimming closer to their homes, and canals
cool the air in the summer and warm it in extremely cold
weather.

There has been no actual measurement of the canals in the
Hudson area, but a rough estimate places the total mileage from
Leisure Beach to Sea Pines inclusive at twenty-five miles. Since
practically all canals have building sites on both banks, there
must be at least fifty miles of shore line on which houses can
be built. It is estimated that there are more than 5000 building
lots of this kind in the Hudson area, and houses are being
erected on them at a rapid rate.

Chronology of the United Methodist Church of
Hudson

This article is taken from First United Methodist Church of
Hudson: The First 100 Years, 1898-1998.

• 1881 School house built in 1881 by the Hudson family. A
  movable pulpit was built in order that the building be used
  for Sunday services. Preacher assigned is unknown.
• 1898 Register of the Hudson Methodist Episcopal Church,
  South, states that Rev. J. M. Mitchell was appointed by the
  Conference on December 18, 1898, as pastor of the church. A
  Methodist church was constructed on about this date at East
  Hudson and Guava St.
• 1899 The Register states that Rev. M. T. Bell followed Rev.
  Mitchell and served until December 17, 1900.
• 1900 The Register states that Rev. Tom McMullon served until
  December 1901.
• 1902 Rev. W. F. Fletcher served for one year
• 1903 Rev. R. H. Barnett served for one year
• 1904 Rev. W. H. F. Roberts served for one year
• 1905 Rev. K. M. Albright served for one year
• 1906 Rev. K. D. Jones served for one year
• 1907 Rev. J. M. Dieffenwierth served for one year
• 1908 The Reverends Combs, Willis and Mitchell shared the
  preaching assignment from December 1908 until December 1909
• 1909 Rev. J. D. Frierson served from December 1909 – 1911.
  Here in the old Register, the record of pastors ends

The below information was taken from “Local Church History” form
filed by the First United Methodist Church of Hudson with the
Archives and History of Florida Conference July 1984.

• 1919 New Port Richey was removed from the Elfers Charge and
  placed in the Tarpon Springs Mission on December 1919
• 1922 New Port Richey, Elfers and Hudson comprised a charge
• 1922 The Ocala District included Elfers, New Port Richey and
  Hudson in one circuit
• 1922 Rev. C. C. Tyler was appointed to the circuit for this
  year and made his home in Elfers
• Sunday, November 9, 1923, the three churches in the circuit
  gathered at Elfers for a Rally Day Service. Rev. C. C. Tyler
  held his regular service Sunday morning after which “dinner on
  the ground” was served. In the afternoon, they were
  entertained by the orchestra of Clearwater Methodist Sunday
  School.
• 1923 Rev. W. R. Howell served the circuit and arrived on
  December 28, 1923. His schedule was Elfers the second and
  fourth Sundays at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.; Hudson on the first
  and third Sundays at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.; New Port Richey
  every Sunday at 3 p.m.
• 1924 Elfers was placed in the Odessa Circuit and New Port
  Richey and Hudson were put together in the New Port Richey
  Circuit.
• 1925 Elfers was added to the New Port Richey circuit which
  now included Hudson, Odessa, Lake Fern, Keystone, Elfers and
  New Port Richey churches. Rev. P. S. Anderson was appointed to
  this charge and chose to live in the New Port Richey
  parsonage. Rev. Leroy E. Roberts was sent to assist with the
  five churches in the circuit. Elfers was considered as supply
  church at this time. Following the crash of Wall Street in
  1929, the Elfers church struggled and this led to the closing
  of the church finally in 1940
• 1928 The Conference abolished the Elfers charge in June 1928
  and added Odessa, Lake Fern, Keystone to the New Port Richey
  Charge along with Hudson and Elfers.
• 1929 Rev. A. C. Riviere came to this circuit and served it
  for two and a half years ending in December 1931 when the
  Conference year was extended form June to December of that
  year. The New Port Richey circuit was removed from the Ocala
  District and placed in the Tampa District.

Notes on Gulf Springs Lodge

On Dec. 3, 1926, the Tampa Morning Tribune reported, “The
hotel property on the gulf here, known as the Moseley property,
has been sold and will be remodelled and opened for sportsmen. The
sale was made by Mrs. Genie Moseley, of Tampa, to Dr. Edgar, of
Montreal, through J. C. Mitcham, of Hudson. The property consists
of a large house and three-fourths of an acre.”

On Jan 14, 1927, the Dade City Banner reported that
work was progressing rapidly on the remodeling of the Gulf
Springs Lodge in Hudson and that Dr. C. J. Edgar, the new owner,
has announced that it will be opened Feb. 1 as a fisherman’s and
hunter’s lodge.

On Mar. 2, 1927, the Tarpon Springs Leader reported:

Sunday morning at Hudson was an eventful day for the
small town for it was the day that their first hotel opened its
doors. Several weeks ago the citizens were astonished to hear
that Dr. Edgar, who had come to Florida from Montreal, had
acquired possession of the old hotel property and much outlying
land. Many were the suggestions as to why he had come to this
little town to open a hunting lodge, ant he good Doctor’s
friends intimated to him that there were better ways of spending
money, but nothing daunted the new owner, who is a Florida
boater if there ever was one. Florida has given him health since
last September and here he is going to stay.

He went ahead with his plans and a crew of workmen
transformed the abandoned building into a most attractive
lodge, a water system in which the town folks participated was
installed and now has a light system; so he has made possible
all city conveniences, and Sunday when he opened his new hotel
more than a hundred hungry folks were clamoring for dinner.
The dinner was all they could expect and the day was spent on
the gulf, or in the delightful walks about the hotel. It only
proves the old adage if you can supply what the people want
they will beat a track to your door.

On March 4, 1927, the Dade City Banner reported:

A start has been made to provide hotel accommodations with the purchase by Major Edgar, a retired British army medical officer, of the old boarding house erected when Hudson was a shipping port, and which for years has been standing abandoned. This building has been remodeled and made over into a most attractive little hotel, comfortably furnished with modern conveniences, bath rooms and toilets between every two rooms, electric lights, running water, and so forth.

A cuisine, of which Lucullus himself might be proud to partake, and in which fresh fish from the neighboring waters is a feature, is provided for the sustenance of his guests. Gulf Springs Lodge, as the hotel is called, is small, and to care for the overflow Major Edgar is remodeling another old building as an annex and tea room. Boats for navigating the nearby waters are provided, and arrangements have been made with fishermen of the community to furnish launches and act as guides for those who wish to try their skill with the denizens of the outside waters.

Major Edgar is not content, however, with simply developing his own property, and has extended his operations to providing needed conveniences for the community as a whole. Good water is more or less difficult to find close to the coast, and Hudson has faced this handicap along with many much larger cities. One of Major Edgar’s first acts, after deciding to locate in Hudson, was to secure a franchise for a waterworks and electric light plant. He sunk two wells on a high point some distance inland, installed a Kohler automatic generator and Duro pumps capable of lifting 900 gallons of water a minute, laid mains, and now not only has an abundance of clear, pure, sweet tasting water for his own use, but supplies it for all the other residents of the community who desire to avail themselves of the convenience at a most reasonable rate.

On April 26, 1927 the Banner reported that the lodge had been leased for the summer by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Keene.

On Dec. 16, 1927, the Banner reported,
“Anent the advance of Hudson, remembering that it is a small
place, there has been within perhaps a year and a half just
past, the reconstruction of the old Mosely hotel into an
up-to-date and charming place—Gulf View Lodge, with its
beautiful grounds surrounding the spring which has been walled
in. The grounds have been filled in and planted with lawn grass.”

On Apr. 13, 1928, the New Port Richey Press reported
that Gulf Springs Lodge was under the management of the new
lessees, Mr. and Mrs. Alf Kuhlman, formerly of Brooksville. It
also reported that a new tennis court will be completed in a few
days, as will also a splendid bathing beach and a wharf for the
convenience of the guests of the lodge.

On Apr. 26, 1929, the New Port Richey Press reported
that Louisiana Governor Huey P. Long recently stayed at Gulf
Springs Lodge.

On Jan. 31, 1930, the New Port Richey Press reported
that S. A. Glass was manager of the Lodge.

On Apr. 27, 1934, the New Port Richey Press reported
that J. M. Glass was manager of the Lodge.

The lodge was destroyed by fire on January 23, 1943.

Hudson Beach Area Turns 50 Years Old

This article appeared
in the Suncoast News on July 29, 2006.

BY CARL ORTH

HUDSON – Life’s a beach – or at least it has been over five
decades of history for the Hudson area’s first waterfront
subdivision.

Frances Mallett, a treasure trove of trivia as the unofficial
historian for the Port Richey area and West Pasco in general,
knows a good deal about Hudson Beach, celebrating its 50th
anniversary this year.

That’s not too surprising, since seven generations of her
family were born here and Mallett’s relatives were influential
in creating the first waterfront subdivision along the Hudson
coast, Hudson Beach Estates.

The concept blossomed from a rough sketch on the back of a
piece of paper by V. M. “Bud” Clark Jr., Frances’ brother.

Walter Mallett, Frances’ husband, and Clark’s wife, Celida, a
registered real estate broker, were there from the beginning as
well.

A free fish fry in the spring of 1956 introduced Hudson Beach
Estates to the public, “Pasco County’s first gulf front
subdivision,” the development’s sales brochure trumpeted at the
time.

The beach itself would come a bit later, by 1959. After
building most of a road to the gulf-front site, the state
decided the area was too small to become a state park.

Pasco County inherited the project and finished the public
beach. It is now part of what is known as Robert J. Strickland
Memorial Park. The park was renamed in honor of Bob Strickland,
for a number of years the Hudson-area manager of Withlacoochee
River Electric Cooperative and a local community booster who
died in 1997.

The claim to fame for the Hudson Beach development was that all
850 homesites lined the water, either along the gulf or along
canals.

Trout fishing was a lure. “Some of the best fishing waters in
Florida are here,” developers wrote in brochures. Hunting was
mentioned, too.

A companion mobile home village. Vista Del Mar, offered another
350 residential sites. “You can fish at your own door (and) tie
your bow-line to your door knob,” as the brochure bragged.

The publicity materials also mention Martha’s Vineyard, “an
exclusive, restricted waterfront development of some 132 home
sites” just to the south within Port Richey city limits.

For inspiration to name the streets of the new subdivision, Bud
Clark looked no farther than his family. That explains the
origins of Lonnie Lee Lane, Yvette Drive, Allan Way, Debbie Lane
and other street names.

The main road, however wouldn’t become Clark Street until
later. Earliest diagrams simply list it as “State Road,”
eventually earning the designation 595-A.

So, just how much would a waterfront lot set you back in 1956?

Basic lots were going for $1,595 – comparable to about $11,000
in 2006 inflation-adjusted dollars – while premium lots started
at $2,495. Later ads mentioned homes themselves started at
$9,750. Sounds like a steal, right?

But that was a pretty penny back in the 1950s, nonetheless,
since people could “join the hundreds of families who have
already chosen Moon Lake for their future retirement home” on
lots costing $250 apiece, according to an ad at the time. Moon
Lake Development Corp. required $25 down and $5 monthly
payments, by the way.

Indeed, the era seemed quite quaint compared to the hustle and
bustle of today’s computer age.

Back then, the Maas Brothers department store was advertising a
Royal portable typewriter in its own case, the 1950s equivalent
of a laptop computer.

To get information on the subdivision, people had to dial only
a 4-digit phone number, 6911

Lusting for an iPod portable music player that fits in your
pocket? Forget about it! Newspaper ads at the time showed a
supposedly portable LP record player so bulky it required a
sturdy table to hold it.

Ford was bragging about its latest cars that were so roomy all
passengers could keep their hats on with ease. “Every seat has
full-depth springing and cushioning in a Ford.” Even then, the
carmaker noted fuel economy. “You can expect to save as much as
$1 on every tank of gas” because Fords liked regular gas just
fine, compared to the pricier, premium gas called “ethyl” at the
time.

While sales of lots for homes went rather briskly for the
fledgling Hudson Beach Estates, some turmoil surrounded
development of the beach itself.

In fact, Clark took out a full-page newspaper ad on Feb. 13,
1958, to put to rest various rumors.

“To the Citizens of Pasco County, the beach at Hudson will be
built,” the ad read.

Clark recalled Tom Sawyer, president of Hudson Community Club,
and others had approached him to donate about three to five
acres for the public beach. Clark agreed on the condition the
state would pay to build the road to the beach.

Once the main road was built for some $75,000, the state seemed
to lose interest in the beach project. Plus the road dead-ended
short of the beach park area.

“This has been dragging on for three years and I am getting a
lot of adverse publicity by word of mouth and the press,” Clark
said in the ad. “We are definitely going to have a beach, even
if a small one at the expense of the development,” Clark
concluded.

The county broke the deadlock by July 1958 when it took over
the deed to the site. The county then extended the road and
began hauling in fill dirt to create the beach. Hudson Community
Club was instrumental in helping the county see the project
through.

One interesting note emerges from newspaper accounts in 1958.
The county at the time had no central road department. Each
county commissioner had his own road crews and budget and kept
his own records. About $250,000 total in road funds was divided
among the five commissioners to do with as they saw fit.

By February 1959, photos in the Tampa Tribune showed
that dredges had kicked into high gear to build up the public
beach.

Excitement was building among residents because the closest
beach at the time was in the Clearwater-Dunedin area, Mallett
recalls.

“At first Hudson beach was so rocky you couldn’t hardly walk on
it,” Mallett said about the coarse limerock base.

The same newspaper report mentioned the population of the area
had boomed from 150 to more than 1,000 over a few, short years.
Some 200 fishermen were flocking to the area on weekends.

A side effect of development shrunk the commercial fishing
fleet.

Tom Sawyer from the Hudson Community Club, quoted in another
article in early 1959, had recalled how Hudson had been a small,
but important, commercial fishing village since Civil War days.

Only five commercial fishermen remained based in Hudson by
1959, compared to 30 fishermen only six years earlier.

Prior to World War II, Hudson even boasted a fleet of sponge
fishermen, Sawyer had pointed out.

By late 1959, though, the destiny of the area was altered
forever when the public beach finally took shape.

The Story of Pasco County’s Pioneer Hudson
Family

This article appeared in the Tampa Tribune on June 8,
1952.

By D. B. McKAY

This interesting and well-written history of a prominent family
of Pasco County pioneers was sent in by Mrs. Emily Larkin, the
Tribune’s Dade City correspondent. That the writer has done a
thorough job is immediately evident—not only has she presented
the story of the Hudsons and their part in the early development
of the adjoining county, but she cites the names of other
pioneer citizens deserving of a place on the honor roll. For
instance, A. J. Burnside, who held the office of clerk of the
Circuit Court for nearly a half century, and who was succeeded
on his voluntary retirement by his son.

Here is the story of the Hudsons:

Ex-Sheriff I. W. Hudson, who has lived for 81 years within the
present boundaries of Pasco County, has a fund of recollections
and anecdotes to delight the heart of any historian of this
section.

Among his memories are early childhood days in a wild and
fertile countryside where the settlers had to fight the deer out
of their sweet potato patches; boyhood days aboard sailboats
that carried freight and passengers from the Anclote River to
Cedar Keys; years of Pasco politics, and the satisfaction of
accomplishing what he had set out to do, when as sheriff he rid
Pasco County of a band of notorious cattle thieves.

I. W. Hudson was named for his father, Isaac Washington Hudson,
who came from Alabama in 1868, and after a year or so in Madison
County brought his family to Pasco, then a part of Hernando. The
rich hammock land he cleared was near a small settlement then
called Chipco, later becoming part of the present Blanton
community in the northeastern part of the county.

I. W. Hudson, the seventh of eight sons, was born at Chipco in
1870. He remembers the log school house with split pine benches
where school was held three months of the year. His teacher was
a Mr. Benson He remembers attending church at the old Mount Zion
Methodist Church, on the site west of Dade City where the Mount
Zion cemetery is still located. This church building. with a
Masonic lodge room overhead, was important in the life of the
Ft. Dade community which preceded the town of Dade City.

I. W. Hudson, Sr., and his older boys planted corn, sweet
potatoes, sugar cane, peas and peanuts, not only to feed the
family but to produce good hog meat, which was really their main
crop. Once or twice a year, their wagon loaded with cured meat
and lard, with other wagons from the neighborhood, made the
three or four day trip to Tampa, the travelers pitching camp at
night.

About the only food supplies that came back from Tampa to the
Hudson home were a barrel of flour and a supply of coffee The
unspoiled and unfertilized land yielded plenty of food. Part of
the corn crop was used to harden the peanut and chufa fed hogs,
and the rest carried to the nearby grist mill to become meal and
grits for the family. Sheriff Hudson says he remembers having to
take off the gable end of a corn crib to get in a bumper crop.

Cane was grown for sugar and syrup, as well as stock feed. They
even grew rice on the lower land. The sheriff remembers stacks
of big pumpkins his father piled in rail fence corners to throw
on the ground for the hogs. They didn’t have to call the hogs,
the sound of bursting pumpkin would bring them on the run.

He remembers being sent one day with one of his brothers to his
sister’s home, to bring back one of the wild turkeys which his
brother-in-law trapped in a baited pen, and the indignant fuss
those seven big turkeys made over being trapped. Wild turkey
meat, however, was no rare article of food, as the farmers had a
lot of trouble keeping wild turkeys from destroying the blossoms
in their bean and pea patches.

Besides plenty of turkey, deer and other game for the table, and
home-grown pork, his mother kept chickens, and they had a few
milk cows. Asked if they didn’t eat mighty well in those days,
Sheriff Hudson agreed, with a reminiscent grin, that they surely
did. But he added that the more balanced diets of today are a
good idea—that children in those days were sometimes sallow for
lack of fresh vegetables, as well as from malaria.

Chills and fever from the undrained swamps and bayheads around
Chipco, and the father’s bronchial trouble, caused the Hudson
family to seek the salt air of the Gulf. In 1877, when young Ike
Hudson was seven years old, they trekked to a new frontier in a
two-horse wagon with the boys driving the milk cows ahead of the
team.

For their new home they chose some high ground not far from an
inlet of the Gulf and near the large spring which is still the
center of the Hudson community. When they first arrived only the
J. T. Hay and Bill Lang families were settled in the stretch of
land between Hudson and Brooksville.

Young Ike wasn’t bothered with school for a couple of years. By
that time his father and brothers and the Lang and Frierson
families had built a one-room school house. He recalls that in
chilly weather the youngsters warmed by a lightwood knot fire in
the school yard, as cracks between the logs let plenty of cold
into the heatless building. With the addition of a pulpit the
cabin doubled for a church, with preaching by circuit riders,
and by a Dr. Ray of the Pasadena section, who were guests at the
Hudson home.

It wasn’t long until young Ike was very much at home on the Gulf
and familiar with sailing craft, the one-sailed sloop,
two-sailed sharpey and the schooner. A man named Hall, from the
Bayport settlement, ran some produce from the Hudson farm up to
lively port of Cedar Keys on his sloop. Hudson, Sr., liked the
sloop, traded Hall a couple of oxen for it, and an older son, J.
B. Hudson, took over the freight run to Cedar Keys, which was
both deep water port and terminal of the nearest railroad. He
marketed cured pork, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, and 30 gallon
barrels of cane syrup. Tomatoes, a novelty at that time, which
the Hudsons found grew well on their land, sometimes made up
part of these cargoes, often sold as provisions for the ships
anchored at Cedar Keys.

Young Ike went along every chance he got, and at 14 was a
regular member of the two-man crew. He saw deep water freighters
from Key West, the West Indies, and even from Spain in the Cedar
Keys harbor, most of them after cedar.

Once J. B. Hudson, sailing alone, was caught by a hurricane on
the homeward trip, and forced into Bayport, where he anchored
safely. His anxious family had no way of knowing that, and had
given him up for lost, when he finally arrived safe and sound.
The storm, from the northeast, had blown back the Gulf waters
and left the sloop sitting in the sand. He had to wait until the
Gulf came back to his boat.

Sometimes the Hudson sloop was loaded with oranges from early
Pasco County groves. Dr. Alexander and Jim O’Berry brought
two-horse wagon loads from their groves near Chipco, and the
Hancock family brought them from the Townsend House settlement.
Sheriff Hudson remembers Jim O’Berry, father of the late Edwin
O’Berry a school superintendent, arriving on one of those trips
at the Hudson home with such a bad cold he couldn’t talk. As
both O’Berry and the elder Hudson were great talkers this was an
intolerable state of affairs, and the sheriff says his father
set in to cure his friend – and succeeded – with
half-teaspoonful doses of pepper sauce at half-hour intervals.

When Captain Richey, founder of Port Richey, arrived to settle
at the mouth of the ‘Cootie River, he bought a sharpey, a
two-master, to use as a freighter on the Anclote-Cedar Keys run.
Frank Hudson, another brother of the sheriff, operated this boat
for Richey.

When in 1885 the railroad was built from Wildwood to Tampa, and
the Tampa Northern was built between Tampa and Brooksville, with
a spur from Fivay Junction to Hudson, the days of coastwise
shipping by sail were numbered, and soon this colorful period of
Florida’s Gulf history was over.

In the meantime young Ike had seen the beginning of the sponge
crawls put up by the Conch spongers from Key West. These Key
West sponge boats sometimes put into Hudson’s landing for
provisions, and the Hudson boys were well acquainted with the
crews. It was not until much later that the Greek sponge divers
came to the bayou where Tarpon Springs now stands. Until then
the Key Westers had hooked sponges with long poles, sometimes as
long as forty feet, holding glass-bottomed buckets over the
water to locate the sponges.

One of young Hudson’s earliest tasks was to ride horseback after
mail every Sunday, inland some seven miles to Worley Prairie,
which he believes was approximately the present site of Moon
Lake ranch, and where the mail was brought weekly by horse and
buggy from Brooksville to the postmaster, old Mr. Worley, who
lived there alone. After 1880 these trips were unnecessary, for
a post office was established in the Hudson home, and the
community was designated “Hudson” by the Post Office Department,
although Mr. Hudson’s choice for a name had been “Hudson’s
Landing.” The mail still came from Brooksville by horse and
buggy, the mailman, who Sheriff Hudson remembers as Dan Whitten,
driving on 15 miles south to the Anclote post office at the
mouth of the Anclote River.

Young Hudson’s father and brothers got into the commercial
fishing business, and during the September-November season he
often sat up all night “butchering” mullet for the customers,
who sometimes came from as far as Sumter and Polk counties, or
even from Orlando, driving over the wood trails in buggies or
wagons. He said the buyers paid 25 cents a hundred for this
chore, and did their own cleaning, and that he remembers the
mullet selling for a penny. Mullet made up a good part of his
diet in those days, and he said that the more he ate the better
he liked them. In addition to smoked mullet, his mother often
pickled mullet to last through the year.

Another of I. W. Hudson’s boyhood jobs was helping his father
“cowpen” Lykes cattle from the first of April to the first of
July. His father profited by getting the fertilizer, which he
needed on land that was not so rich as that at Chipco, and Dr.
Lykes in turn had some of his cattle already penned for marking
and branding. Farmers who penned the Lykes cattle also had the
right to get milk—if they could.

Sheriff Hudson recalls that Dr. H. T. Lykes, Sr. father of the
famous ship-building and cattle-raising family, had cattle
roaming from Springhill, Hernando County, where he lived, as far
sought as Anclote, and maybe farther. Dr. Lykes told his father
that he wanted enough cows so that when he was out in the woods
and saw cow tracks he would know they were Lykes cows.

While Hudson was still a boy the store put up by his older
brothers, J. B. and J. W., at the spring in Hudson was robbed
and burned to the ground, the thieves presumably coming by boat.
Afterwards M. L. Mosely from Mississippi built a store and later
the large frame hotel at the spring, which burned only a few
years ago.

I. W. Hudson, at twenty years old, determined to get more
schooling than circumstances had thus far permitted, spent some
time in the Fort Dade community where he stayed with relatives,
the J. L. Fortner family, and attended a school at Clear Lake,
now Lake Jovita.

The sheriff vividly recalls an unpleasantly exciting two or
three years while he was a young man living at Hudson, and the
Whitten-Stevenson feud that caused five deaths, was raging in
that section. Almost everyone carried guns, and weren’t certain
when they went out at night if they would ever get home alive.
He remembers a visitor to the neighborhood getting pretty
nervous over the situation and declaring that he “wouldn’t stay
in that place overnight if they deeded him a square mile of it.”

When he was 25, I. W. Hudson married Miss Nettie E. Hay, whom he
had known since she was three years old. She was the eldest
daughter of the J. T. Hay who had pioneered on the Gulf between
Hudson and Aripeka, and operated a cedar camp. The young couple
at first lived at Hudson, later moving to Elfers. They had three
sons, Elzie, Bernard and Leon. Elzie Hudson now lives in Tampa,
Bernard in West Palm Beach, and Leon Hudson is Dade City’s chief
of police.

Ike Hudson traded 38 head of cattle to his father-in-law for a
grove on the ‘Cootie river near New Port Richey. His and his
family’s groves were practically ruined by the big freeze, but
Hudson stayed in the grove business caring for some of the many
new groves set out in that section. He was in the grove business
with his brother-in-law, the late Senator J. M. Mitchell of
Elfers, when he was first elected sheriff in 1916.

Sheriff Hudson began his political career at the age of 35, when
he was elected county commissioner from the west coast district.
His brother, J. B. Hudson, had been the first commissioner from
that district when Pasco was cut off from Hernando County. It
was the sheriffs office, however, that I. W. Hudson was really
interested in; because he explains he never liked to see a
wrong-doer not only get by with his misdeeds but brag about it.
He declined to run for commissioner a second time.

Getting elected sheriff wasn’t easy for a candidate from a small
west coast settlement, with the bulk of the population around
Dade City, and Ike Hudson was defeated twice by Bart D. Sturkie,
the fourth sheriff of Pasco County; the second time by only
forty-eight votes. On his third try he was elected.

Now he had a chance at the cow thieves, the notorious Tucker
gang, with headquarters at Richland, who had operated in the
county for years and got by scot-free. Sheriff Hudson took
office in January, 1917, and at the spring term of circuit court
the six main members of the gang were indicted. The sheriff says
they couldn’t believe their luck was over and were lounging
calmly around the court house yard when he came out with the
capiases.

“Go get your dinner, Sheriff,” one of the Tuckers told him, “and
we’ll have our bonds ready by the time you get back.”

Sheriff Hudson isn’t one to waste words. He simply said, “Come
on, boys,” and before they knew it the six invincible cow
thieves were behind bars.

Although the Tuckers and their attorneys were able to prevent
their cases from ever coming to trial here, they decided that
with Hudson as sheriff Pasco County was too warm for comfort,
and by the end of his first term the sheriff had the
satisfaction of knowing that the gang had left Pasco County for
good, and organized cattle stealing in Pasco was over.

The Hudson-Sturkie political feud was renewed at the end of
Hudson’s first term, with Sturkie victorious. At the end of
another four years Hudson made a smashing comeback against his
veteran opponent, and was sheriff for another full term. Now,
instead of cattle thieves he had the bootleggers and moonshiners
of the prohibition era to contend with. He was as
straight-forward and uncompromising about upholding the law with
the one as he had been with the other.

The role of a thorough-going law enforcement officer in
prohibition days didn’t tend to make one the most popular of
politicians, and Hudson was defeated at the end of this term. C.
E. Dowling was elected sheriff; and I. W. Hudson, with the
knowledge that he had won his principal battles, retired from
the political battlefield.

Sheriff Hudson will tell you that of all his life’s experiences
he enjoyed best his two terms as sheriff; and the many citizens
who are acquainted with his life and his character will tell you
that the county was very fortunate that I. W. Hudson spent eight
years in the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff, his brother, A. L. Hudson, of Hudson, and his
sister, Mrs. J. A. Mobley, of Dade City, are the youngest and
only living members of a family of eight boys and three girls.
An elder sister, Mrs. W. L. Osborne of Dade City, died about
five years ago at the age of 96. I. W. Hudson neither looks nor
acts his 81 years. He until recently operated his 1200-head
poultry farm near Dade City. He and his wife now live at their
pleasant home on South 14th Street, Dade City.

Sheriff Hudson, tall, erect and silvery-haired, is often seen at
community gatherings, at church or with a group of old friends
discussing politics. He and the county grew up together, and he
feels a vital interest in its affairs.