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John Filmore Hudgins, shown here in this undated photo, served as a lighthouse keeper for 35 years at eight different lighthouses from 1895 to 1923 when he retired as the keeper of the Stingray Point Lighthouse. Apparently he used his middle name and most people referred to him as Captain Filmore Hudgins. In a newspaper interview after his retirement from the Stingray Point Lighthouse in 1923, he told a reporter how much of his years in the Lighthouse Service were in the days when a winter was considered mild if the Chesapeake Bay didn’t freeze over like a pond. He was only stationed at Smith Point Lighthouse at the entrance to the Potomac River near Sunnybank, Virginia for a short time when the ice floes surrounded the lighthouse and took it six miles away from its foundation. The captain recalled that he and the other keeper loaded a boat and pushed it two-and-a- half-miles over the ice to land. He said they were lucky to have escaped the lighthouse with their lives; the ice crushed the lighthouse to pieces just moments after they had departed.
He was then sent to the Nansemond River Lighthouse near Suffolk, Virginia where he served until 1896. It was here on January 23, 1896 that a Western Union telegram addressed to him as J. Filmore Hudgins was delivered to him with the following message, “Your child Gertrude burned yesterday. No chance of recovery.” One can only imagine the shock that went through him when he opened that telegram and read it.
John Filmore Hudgins was proud of the fact that for his entire life, since the age of 21 he voted in every election, which was often a challenge because, in the 35 years that he was a lighthouse keeper he always had to row a boat from a lighthouse to the mainland to cast his ballot. He kept up the record until a shortly before his death in 1949 at the age of 93 when he hobbled with his cane into the voting booth on November 2nd of that year to cast his vote for President Harry S. Truman.
During his long and illustrious career, Capt. Hudgins was credited with saving eleven lives. In later years, he said, “Through all of this, I haven’t taken a drink or used tobacco.” That remained true he said even when he stayed awake once for eight days and eight nights without sleep. “I kept the bell ring at Windmill Point Lighthouse all that time. I had to wind her up like a clock every half hour, but I stayed awake and did my job.” (Photo courtesy Cindy Hudgins Brizzolara.)
Back to the edition of: Jul/Aug 2018
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