Judah Paddock
b. September 26, 1767 Nantucket, MA d. August 10, 1823 Hudson, NY
Revolutionary Service: New York in the Revolution, Corporal 7th Regiment, Dutchess County, Militia
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Businessman, Sailor, Sold into Slavery and Escaped
Profile portrait of Catherine II by Fedor Rokotov, 1763, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Judah, the son of Stephen Paddock, was a sea captain and had many seafaring adventures. A sword given to him by the Empress Catherine of Russia as a tribute for his rescue of a Russian man-of-war ship, was once displayed in the Hudson Masonic Lodge, and later given to General William J. Worth when he visited Hudson. On another trip Judah was shipwrecked, captured, sold into slavery and ransomed.
He was not only an adventurer but a key leader in the development of Hudson. Judah had a lucrative business sailing to the West Indies, Russia, and Liverpool and established a general freighting business between Hudson and New York City. It began with sailing cargo ships and transformed into the New York and Hudson Steamboat Company.
He was a director of the Hudson Aqueduct Company, on the building committee of the Almshouse and Insane Asylum erected at 4th and State Streets and on the committee to create a canal through Middle Ground Flats to expedite the Hudson Athens Ferry service.
Judah Paddock was one of the early supporters of the Lancaster School in Hudson, a school for the education of the children of the poor. The page below from Hudson’s Heart by Ken Sheffer recreates a Hudson Daily Star article of March 12, 1936 and shows Paddock’s place in Hudson as an educator and civic-minded person.
![Image for item](https://omeka.hrvh.org/files/fullsize/f7f900eb5e14e270408651f67c502bc9.jpg "Hudson's Heart article "Board of Education Meeting Last Night Adopted Name of 'Paddock Place'")
Judah Paddock’s Grave,
Section 1/2B, Hudson Cemetery
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Additional Resources:
Deed of Sale, Hudson, NY (Links to PDF)
Documents conveying a lot and house in Hudson, NY to Judah Paddock, Master of the brig Oceola, regarding a purchase by Paddock including the deed of a land with a building on the west side of Front Street between Fleet and Union streets and an affidavit signed by John L. Broome verifying the above in the Indenture, 1822.
VFM 872, Manuscripts Collection, G. W. Blunt White Library, Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc.