John W. Blodgett

John Wood Blodgett Sr. (1860–1951) was a lumberman, civic leader, and philanthropist. He was born on a frontier farm where the present village of Hersey, Michigan, now sits, to logging and sawmill operation owner Delos A. and Jane Wood Blodgett.

Education John's father built a school for the settlement where he received his early education, then attended Todd Seminary, Woodstock, Illinois, and Military Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts, graduating in 1876. Although he expected to attend college, his father's illness directed John into the family's pine-logging and milling interests, quickly learning the trade.

Blodgett family archive According to the Finding aid for Blodgett Family papers, 1872–1953 abstract at Bentley Historical Library within the University of Michigan Digital Library, the family archive contains:

Blodgett's consolidation of three banks during the depression protected many of his clients' homes and account balances. The product of that consolidation was the American Home Security Bank. He and his wife, Minnie, were quite the philanthropists, noted for the Blodgett Memorial Hospital, the Clinic for Infant Feeding, Vassar College's Minnie Cumnock Blodgett Hall of Euthenics, The Association for the Blind, among many others.