Henry  Clay  Hodges,  president  of  the  Detroit  Lubricator  Companj^
general  agent  of  the  Connecticnt  Mutual  Life  Insurance  Company  of
Hartford,  Conn.,  the  senior  member  of  the  firm  of  Hodges  Brothers,
and  also  prominently  identified  with  other  important  interests  of  the
city  of  Detroit,  was  born  in  South  Hero,  Grand  Isle  county,  Vt  ,  March
2,  1828.  His  father  was  Nathaniel  Hodges,  a  native  of  New  York  State,
who  was  born  in  Washington  county  in  1787,  and  was  a  soldier  in  the
war  of  1812.  His  grandfather  on  his  father's  side,  Ezekiel  Hodges,
was  a  soldier  of  the  Revolution  and  served  under  Gen.  Stephen  Van
Rensselear,  who  was  a  direct  descendant  of  Killiaen  Van  Rensselaer,
the  first  patroon  of  the  manor  of  Rensselaerwyck  in  the  colony  of  New
Netherlands,  now  the  major  portion  of  Rensselaer  county,  N.  Y.
Ezekiel  Hodges  migrated  from  the  vicinity  of  Boston,  Mass.,  to  Wash-
ington county,  N.  Y.,  a  few  years  prior  to  the  Revolutionary  war.
Clarissa  Phelps,  mother  of  Henry  Clay  Hodges,  was  born  in  South
Hero,  Vt.,  in  1793,  and  was  a  descendant  of  the  early  Phelpses  of  Con-
necticut, a  branch  of  which  family  migrated  from  the  vicinity  of  Hart-
ford, Conn.,  to  northern  Vermont  in  1783,  settling  on  Grand  Isle.
Nathaniel  Hodges  and  Clarissa  Phelps  were  married  in  1813  at  South
Hero,  Vt.,  and  reared  a  family  of  eleven  children,  Henry  Clay  being
the  second  son  and  eighth  child.      He  attended  the  public  schools  of

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Vermont  until  sixteen  years  of  age.  In  those  days  it  was  the  custom
in  New  England  to  give  each  boy  a  specialty  as  a  pursuit  in  life.  Thus
Alexander  P.  Hodges,  the  eldest  son,  became  a  lawyer;  Henry  C.
