Hudson Family Papers

Waddy Hampton Hudson was born in 1867 in Greenville, South Carolina. He graduated from Furman University in 1890 and from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1893. In December 1893, Hudson married Maude Chapin, who was born in Boston 1867. The Hudsons had seven children: George Alexander, David Venable, Eirenne Chapin, Lois Chapin, Maude Chapin, Waddy Hampton, and Annie Chapin.

Having been appointed missionaries under the Presbyterian Church, U.S., Waddy and Maude Hudson sailed for China on December 21, 1893, supported the Independent Presbyterian Church of Savannah, Georgia. They arrived in Sinchang, China in January 1894 and were engaged in language study until September 1895. With their fellow missionaries, the Hudsons established the Jiaxing (Kashing) Mission, which included missionary residences, a hospital, a church, and schools. Waddy Hudson remained in Jiaxing (Kashing) except for furloughs in the United States, until 1940, formally retiring in 1941. He died in 1960.

Waddy Hudson received honorary doctorates from Davidson College (1914) and Furman University (1922). His missionary duties included being in charge of the mission accounts, building churches, training ministers, and preaching in small towns in the Jiaxing (Kashing) area. He was the first Moderator of the Kashing Presbytery, engaged in famine relief work, and was a correspondent for the North China Daily News.

Maude Hudson supervised the hiring and training of teachers in the two schools she had established in Jiaxing (Kashing), taught a Bible study class for women, ran the household, and cared for her seven children. The family traveled by houseboat to the outlying villages for religious work. Maude left China in 1918 due to ill health and died in 1934 in Warm Springs, Georgia.

George A. Hudson, the eldest son, was born in China in 1894 and lived there, educated by his mother, until he was 16. After one year of high school in Davidson, North Carolina, he attended Davidson College for three years before transferring to the University of South Carolina and graduating in 1918 with B.A. and M.A. degrees. He received a B.D. degree from Columbia Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina and later received Th.M. and Th.D. degrees from Union Seminary, Richmond, Virginia. Hudson returned to China after graduating from seminary, also supported by the Independent Presbyterian Church of Savannah, Georgia. Following the Communist takeover in China, Hudson worked in Taiwan, primarily in tent evangelism and church extension. He conducted 129 evangelism campaigns in frontier villages and helped to organize and build more than 50 churches and chapels following the tent campaigns. Hudson retired in 1966 and died in 1982.