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HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA

WITH HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE
ACCOUNTS OF BLOCK ISLAND AND COW NECK, L. I.
THEIR ORIGINAL SETTLEMENTS

ROBERT DODGE

SUBSCRIPTION

NEW YORK
PRESS OF J. J. LITTLE & CO
1886

Copyrighted, iSSb,
By ROBERT DODGE.

^1*^

INTRODUCTION.

At this long interval of over two centuries since
my ancestor came from England to the new world
of America, and in his age, when earnest men were
too much engrossed with the cares of existence to
pause for their own record of the immediate occa
sion of their movements, any more than the soldier
can halt, whilst the battle is in progress, to furnish
its history ; when, even in our own day, of such
wide circulation for like objects, unless the traveler
become official or inscribed as member of some cor
porate or other permanent association, or prominent
in his new settlement : — it alike grows impossible
even in the lapse of ten years, or less, to trace their
existence or the causes of their emigration : — at
that epoch, so long before the era of the press,
telegraph, or post-office, when the geography of
the country was so little known beyond the few
northern sea-ports, the whole interior of the conti
nent an unexplored wilderness, and, although the
excellent New England system of recording by the

iv INTRODUCTION.
Town Clerk each birth, marriage, and death in their
towns, as well as grants of land and membership in
their Church, where such membership was an indis
pensable condition for civic rights or the capacity
to hold land ; never prevailed in the new settlement
by Roger Williams and his fellow-exiles for freedom
of conscience on Narragansett Bay ; that gathered
from the Old and New World' all those who suffered
from persecution, where no man was questioned for
his opinions by any human authority ; and Rhode
Island never had any such custom of record ; even
that of deeds and wills was then and for many
years unprovided, and no law for the record of
births, marriages, or deaths existing there before
1856; which even then was left of almost voluntaiy
compliance, without adequate penalty : — it is cause
for special gratitude, when pursuing this filial duty.
of research for the foot-prints of our ancestor, in the
darkness of that early age, and the entire silence of
New England Town Records of himself or his four
sons prior to the eighteenth century ; that the first
and only record that we have is the careful, though
incomplete and rude, entries of that venerable
chronicle — the ancient parchment volume, so long —
even to our day — the only record of Block Island ;
being the " Evidences of Property of the town of

INTRODUCTION. V
New Shoreham, Rhode Island, otherwise called
Block Island." They were contemporary, and much
used ; by 1695 had become worn out ; when the
present volume one, duly copied, as he certifies,
from, the earlier original, was prepared by faithful
Nathaniel Mott, Town Clerk.
These few coeval entries and records furnish from
that remote past the highest possible evidence ; so
that, were any question to arise touching life or
property, they would be accepted as absolute verity ;
and yet they are incomplete, giving no home or
lineage in England, place or date of birth, time or
circumstances of arrival, or date of death. But his
record as one of the sixteen purchasers and original
settlers — in April, 1661 — is carefully given, as well
as of the meetings in Roxbury, Massachusetts, at
the house of Dr. Alcock in 1660, in which he shared,
leaving the conclusion almost certain that our an
cestor and his family of four sons must have then
recently come to New England, and that they
neither joined the exclusive church in either colony,
Salem, Boston, Lynn, or Plymonth, held office, nor
received grants of land therein ; but, exiled by the
persecutions of Church and State in England,
they sought refuge in their own independent do
main of Block Island, where they established a pure

VI INTRODUCTION.
democracy of true civil and religious liberty, con
tinuing until our day : — whose adhesion was naturally
secured by Roger Williams when, later, he obtained
a charter for his infant colony of Rhode Island,
Their Baptist faith and practice — unbroken ever
since — and by our own line this great denomination
having been introduced in New York, whence it has
spread so largely over the Union, induced a close
research into the Baptist history in England and the
United States (perhaps never before as fully writ
ten), as well as an extended study of the political
causes of his emigration. We are able, by the
deeds of his sons and of his grandsons at Cow Neck
and New London, as well as from other public con
temporary events ; records of town affairs and free
men ; to fix approximately his death, his own and
their probable ages ; the names of the first genera
tion ; the boundaries of the " Dodge Lands " on the
island ; their emigration, and settlement of New
London and Cow Neck ; and with comparative accu
racy trace them through that obscure past down
to our own day ; following, by patient study, the
story of their constant advance over this broad
land ; ever foremost in the struggle with hardships
and the perils of the wilderness ; in the Province of
New York and the Western frontier. Patriot sol-

INTRODUCTION. vii
diers and officers of the Revolutionary army, though
their wives and children were flying from the mur
derous raid of Indians and Tories ; active in aiding
the infant Government on the conclusion of peace ;
and at the front in command against the same
British marauding enemy in 1812; and already, in
1804, upon the cession of Louisiana, first to begin
the State history of Missouri. And then, after
leading successfully, when all others failed, in the
Black Hawk War: General Henry Dodge — alike
lineal descendant-— organized his Territory and State
of beautiful Wisconsin ; in which he was emulated
by his son, the late Augustus C. Dodge ; who was
among the first to begin his grand State of Iowa.
Many of the same lineage did true service for the
sacred Union in the late Rebellion; many still
adorn the line of the army, and have won deserved
laurels ; whilst many more of his sons have achieved
lasting fame in civil life by professional, literary, and
scientific attainments.
Succinctly and faithfully to narrate the simple
facts, from public record, has all the charm of ro
mance ; and in such a work of filial honor and duty,
I feel assured of the hearty co-operation of every
member of our numerous and wide-spread family :
remembering the words of Macaulay, that : " A

viii INTRODUCTION.
people or family who take no pride in the noble
achievements of their ancestors, will never achieve
anything worthy to be remembered with pride by
their descendants."
With many, in the family line, but two brief en
tries suffice — their advent — and their departure.
To their kindred, this short record of their life is
full of suggestive, tender memories.
While with many, the record of their life is filled
with active work for their generation, and graced
with large reward. By the kindred of both this
first Family Memorial and History should be cher
ished as a most precious heritage.
Every effort has been made to secure complete
ness and accuracy in the Genealogies ; but, in
the daily hurry of our very active and moving fam
ily ; whose old homes, records, and circles, so con
stantly are given up for new advance, and lapse
into fading memories ; it grows very difficult to se
cure original and complete Family Records.
It is proposed, in order to secure desired correc
tions ; and also a fitting Memorial for preservation
and use in our families ; to issue a second edition,
with appropriate Tables for the several generations ;
after the subscription for this first edition is com
plete.

INTRODUCTION. IX
Such a second edition will, of course, be at an in
creased cost ; will require considerable time, care,
and correspondence ; and can only be insured by an
adequate subscription insuring the success of this
first edition.
The author is conscious of many defects : inev
itable to a first edition of an original, historical
research : for all of which he deprecates censure :
but, he scarcely thinks that, in sound judgment, he
would be thought constrained to expand, by rhet
oric comments, the varied and abundant material
of this narrative of succinctly stated and digested
facts : only to increase the volume and thereby
depart from his aim of studied reserve and brevity.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.
Difificulty of the subject ; without record, save the rude coeval
entries at Block Island ; his adhesion to tolerant Rhode Island with
the other settlers, and early founding the Baptist Church — the only
Church on the island — show them to have been a company of Bap
tist Dissenters from England : and a research for the causes of
their emigration educed a new and original History of the Baptists
in England and here, in their political and social relations, and their
suffering under the Stuarts and Tudors.
From deeds and other records his life period and of his four sons
approximately determined ; the lives of his descendants of like enter
prise and much achievement ; first to found the States of Michigan,
Iowa, Minnesota, Dakota and Wisconsin, and their care to maturity ;
with constant public service since ; and a genealogy as nearly com
plete as could be obtained for this edition.
CHAPTER I.
Historic study of his Christian name ; his English origin ; first ap
pearance in America, 1-4 ; arrival at Block Island, and of first
Town Meeting, 1670 ; Freemen, 5 ; confessions ; early deeds of
sons, 7-8 ; and date of his death, 9 ; result of revived systematic
persecution of Dissenters in England, from era of Elizabeth, 10 ;
their only refuge in Holland or America ; their numbers before
1640, and by 1688, 11 ; persecution for 150 years never retaliated
by the Baptists when in power, 12 ; and his life period coincident
with the struggle in England against the Stuarts, and the birth of
the leading Protestant Sects ; contemporary with Cromwell, Mil-

xii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
ton, Bunyan ; left England in the fierce revulsion of 1660, 13 ;
causing him to join the exiles in America, and their numbers, 14 ;
increased by the expulsion of all Non conformist clergy, 15; facts
of his emigration and of his sons show his attachment to civil and
religioiis liberty ; without military distinction, 16 ; history of the
Baptists from their origin in England, in their political and social
relations, 17-22 ; the first settlers Baptists, and in sympathy with
Roger Williams. CHAPTER II.
History of the English Baptists, continued, 23, 2g ; condition of the
armies and nation, 30-32. CHAPTER III.
Narrative resumed, 33 ; settlement of Block Island, 1661 ; Woods ;
treatment of Indians; "Dodge's Lands;'' allotment and occu
pation ; purchase from New York ; Israel at New London! iSg4 ;
the other sons: John ; Tristram, Jr., and William Dodge re
main and found families on Block Island, 34 ; original entries of
the family in records of the Island, 35-36 ; will of Tristram (2),
37 ; Recapitulation, 38-39 ; families now there, 40 ; families at
Cow Neck, L. I., 40-44 ; Daniel and Stephen, sons of Tristram,
Jr.. 45- CHAPTER IV.
Family of Stephen Dodge, of Nova Scotia, 46-55 ; lands of Samuel
Dodge at Cow Neck, L. I.; Wilkie Dodge; will of Tristram
Dodge of Cow Neck, L. I., 56.
CHAPTER V.
Samuel Dodge, grandson of Tristram (SeniorX 57 ; his deeds of lands
at Cow Neck, L. I., 57-8-9, and will of Tristram Dodge, of Oyster
Bay, L. I. ; will of Wilkie Dodge, of Flushing, L. I., 59 ; will of
Samuel Dodge (father of Wilkie Dodge), 60 ; Samuel (son of
Wilkie) settles at Marbletown, Ulster Co., N. V. ; its history,
61-65 i signs Association on tidings of Lexhigton fight, 65-68 ;

TABLE OF CONTENTS. xiii
petition for his Ulster Grenadiers, 69, 70 ; and for protection
against the Indians, 71 ; with Gen. Gates at Saratoga ; Robert
Dodge (father), birth at Marbletown ; rescue of infant from
Brandt's scalping raid, and arrival in New York City, 71 ; life and
active public service ; Sachem of Tammany (1812), 72 ; family,
73-74 ; Eliza P. ifodge, 74 ; Samuel North Dodge, 74 ; George
Riker Dodge (at Baltimore) ; his eminent service for the Union,
75-76 ; Henry Swartwout Dodge, eminent at New York Bar ;
their marriages and children, 76 ; family of Wilkie Dodge, 77-88 ;
Sarah, wife of Comfort Sands ; his life, 78-80.
CHAPTER VI.
Jeremiah Dodge ; birth and life period ; founder of first and seco7id
Baptist churches in New York, 8i ; facts of their origin, 82-83 ;
his family, 84-104 ; Henry C. Dodge, Captain U. S. A., 91 ;
Colonel John A. Dodge, 92 ; Samuel Dodge, Ensign Revolu
tionary Army, one of the founders of Society of the Cincinnati,
95 ; Colonel Stephen A. Dodge ; his service in the Rebellion,
102 ; also Captain Adam Todd Dodge, and W. H. Dodge, 104.
CHAPTER VII.
Family of Jeremiah Dodge continued, 115 to 118 ; Charles J. Dodge,
116. CHAPTER VIII.
Samuel Dodge, brother of said Jeremiah. He died at Poughkeepsie,
N. Y., and uncle to Samuel Dodge, of Ulster Co., N. Y. (ch. v.) ;
birth and life period, 119 ; of studious habits, astronomy and
poetry, 120 ; Member of Assembly, 1779 ; Keeper of New York
Alms-house from 1775 to 1802, 121 ; Captain in Continental
Army prior to 1777, and one of the founders of the Order of the
Society of Cincinnati in 1783, 122. His son, Henry, First Lieu
tenant in Second Continental Regiment Revolutionary Army ;
Samuel, Second Lieutenant in same regiment, and Richard, as
fifer-boy, 122 ; served through war ; Henry, Adjutant ; Richard
Colonel and Major-General in War of 1812, 123 ; children of

xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Samuel and his wife Helena; James Dodge, M.D. and Consul
at Tunis, 124 ; Henry S. Dodge, Esq., Master in Chancery,
N. v., 125 ; Mary Mapes Dodge, 127 ; Richard Dodge (Genl.),
married sister of Washington Irving ; family, 127-30 ; Wm.
Irving Dodge, Captain in War of 1812 ; service, 129 ; Richard
Irving Dodge, Colonel U. S. A., birth and family, 120 ; his mili
tary life record, 131-132 ; and books, 133 ; Richard J. Dodge,
123 ; John W. Dodge, eminent portrait artist, 135.
CHAPTER IX.
Israel Dodge, son of Tristram Dodge, Senior, settled at New London
(Montville), Conn., by 1694. His birth, 136 ; his will proved,
1745 ; Israel Dodge, Junior, his son, died in camp ; John Dodge,
son, married, 1748, Lydia Rogers, of Pomfret, Conn.; family, 137,
138 ; Rev. Nehemiah Dodge and family, 138, 139 ; Israel Dodge
(3d), life and services, 139, 140, 141, 142, 141, 144, 145 ; (Gen.)
Henry Dodge, birth 1782, 145 ; life from childhood, 145-165 ;
tributes to his memory, 166, 167, 168, 169 ; Augustus C. Dodge's
life and services, 170-172 ; family of Israel Dodge (3d), 172 ;
family of Gen. Henry Dodge, 173, 174 ; death of Hon. Augustus
C. Dodge, 174 ; tributes to his memoiy, 174 to 194.
BLOCK ISLAND.
Its sterling attractions, 195 ; location, 196 ; Nile's narrative, 196 ;
description, 197 ; Breakwater ; Light-house ; Ocean View Hotel ;
Cable ; enterprise of Nicholas Ball ; his life sketch, and of his
father, 198 ; discovery in 1614 ; Massachusetts Bay Colony title
from an Indian raid grant, 1658, 197 ; Alcock, Terry, and Sands
sell this title in i56o to the sixteen first settlers ; the price, prepa
rations, details, and allotments, 209-107 ; first freemen of the
Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 208-209 ;
providential reservation, 210 ; first and present church — Baptist —
organized and maintained by the Dodge families, 211 ; island
now treeless ; its settlement of much historic interest ; lack of
knowledge, never visited, and unvisited, 212, 213, by that age of
adventure, 214-215 ; first settlers of town of New Shoreham, 216 ;
number of Dodge families estimated ; characteristics of islanders.

TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV
COW NECK, LONG ISLAND.
Now Port Washington, 218 ; description, 219 ; now in North Hemp
stead ; Sands Point ; origin ; Dutch paramount title, 220 ; grant
Car. I. ; to Earl of Stirling— James Fassett, agent, whose titles con
flict with Dutch, 221, 222 ; Hempstead's alleged Indian deed of
1643, 223, 224 ; origin of name, 225 ; Hempstead Records and
lost book, 225, 226 ; Record of town meeting, 1683, 227 ; John
West, Attorney- General's patent, 228; bounds, 229; settlement
in 1647 ; Thomas Dodge, grandson of Tristram Dodge, Senior,
born on Block Island; settled here 1711, and died 1755, 230-232;
his cousin, Samuel Dodge, acquired land there, 1712-20 ; Flower
Hill Cemetery ; Dodge ancient homestead, 233.

TRISTRAM DODGE
AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.
Our ancestor from England owed his first or
Christian name to that classic of the " Age of Chiv
alry," viz. : " Tristan " or " Tristram," " le Roi."
Its alleged date is about A.D. 740, and before the
time of Charlemagne ; when this theme, long time
sung by the troubadours, from their oral tradition,
was first embodied in form as an Epic, reaching the
widest and most enduring popularity ; while the
name of this hero-king, like those of Homer's Iliad,
pervaded the middle and later ages with its lustre,
down to Chaucer, whose " Sir Tristram " portrays
the chivalric "Bayard ; " and in our day, that careful
mediaeval student, Sir Walter Scott, presents him
anew in his elaborate story of the middle ages —
Quentin Durward.
Its poetic antiquity, remote as the Greek ballads
and myths that were embodied in the Iliad, or

2 TRISTRAM DODGE
the Gothic legends of the " Niebelungen Lied,"
was preserved in the melodious " chansons " of
the careful rhythm and dialect of Languedoc by
the wandering masters of the " gaie science." The
troubadours ; whose influence, as they moved, and
sang through all those barbaric courts, castles,
tournaments, and wherever knighthood or their la
dies assembled, were the reforming element of that
rude age, potent as the church, and to whom we
owe the Latin tongues of Southern Europe, their
advanced culture, and thereby the civilization of
modern Europe.
It may now fall strangely on our prosaic ears ;
yet, to the students of the " Heroic Age," its tradi
tions and verse are as enkindling as those of its
associates ; the legends of King Arthur, the Knights
of his Round Table, Sir Launcelot, and the Holy
Grail. To us, it is of special interest, that so far down in
the centuries, and through the darkness and tumult
of English history, a thousand years after the al
leged era of "Tristan," or "Tristram le Roi"; his
name and renown should have become, through the
Normans, so deeply rooted in rude Saxon England
that it was cherished through every age, even dur
ing fierce Puritan zeal, to the restoration of the

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 3
Stuarts, and then was transported to our new world,
where it is preserved in his lineage down to our
own generation.*
" Sir Tristram " was a poetic creation as a his
tory of the great knight of the Lyonnais, the name
in romance for a part of Cornwall, England. He
was an English knight and next to Sir Launcelot, or
Galahad, the. most renowned of the Knights of the
Round Table. His exploits, as well as his love of
Yseult, daughter of the King of Cornwall, and his
* "Encyclopedia Britannica," article, "Poetry." (Its European
history.) " The third class of Romantic traditions then (from about A.D.
740-814) first embodied in poetry, were those relative to the fab
ulous King Arthur, begirt with British and Armoric knights ; by far
the most interesting of which is the celebrated legend of a pathetic
or elegiac character, which bears the name of ' Tristan ' or ' Tris
tram.' Among all the great epic poems of love and chivalry in the
middle ages, says Frederick Schlegel, the first place is given by all
nations to Tristram; but that we may not be fatigued with uni
formity of fiction, the airy and lively legend of Launcelot is placed
by the side of the more grave and elegiac representative." — Webster.
" ' Tristram Sir, ' the hero of an old Cymric romance, whose ad
ventures form .an episode in the incidents of Arthur's court, and are
related by Thomas the Rhymer, as well as by many romancists. The
original meaning of the name is said to have been 'noise' and 'tu
mult,' but from the influence of Latin upon Welch, it came to mean
' sad.' In Europe, it regularly entered the ranks of the names of
'sorrow.' "

4 TRISTRAM DODGE
aid to Arthur in driving the Saxons out of Wessex,
were all in England. From the dawn of chivalry
and the troubadours he had been the Hero of West
ern Englattd, the theme of its bards, and the first
ballad of its youth ; as the type of its Heroic Age,
our ancestor's Christian name expressed and pre
served its greatest memory.
Besides supplying to Ariosto much of his " Or
lando," it has furnished many operas, as " Tristan
le Roi " and " Tristan e Ysolde," by its Odyssey of
love and adventure. The curious reader will find it
amply told in Dunlap's History of Fiction, Vol. I.,
pp. 174-183, and in Tressau, Vol. IV., and it now
re-appears as an English Idyll, by A. G. Swinburne.
Our ancestor appeared in America first in 1660-1,
as one of the original sixteen proprietors and set
tlers of Block Island, in the faithful official record
of honest old Nathaniel Mott, town clerk, copied
in 1695. The ancient scribe, though writing a
strong legible hand, shows by his records of the old
deeds that few or none of the Islanders of that age
could write their names, and he expressed the sev
eral names by imitating their pronunciation ; and
as with other settlers, our ancestor's name in his
record " suffered a sea-change " by his pen, into
" Thrustararorum Daudg, " and " Thurstarorum

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 5
Daudge," Trustrome, etc., etc., until, long after
those days, in the next generation, the influence of
the school-master appears and rescues the name to
its true orthography.
Of his origin : We may be sure he was not born
in either of the New England settlements, as in all
their careful records of births, and other records, his
name does not appear.
Town Clerk Mott's detailed account of the pre
liminary meetings of 1660 shows that the settlers
had then engaged and advanced the money to buy
the island as their home for life. These serious
acts could only have been executed by men who
had at least reached their majority, or the age of
twenty-one years.
He had been married sometime before: though
his wife's name is not given, and in 1670, he had
four sons with him as settlers, who were then ad
mitted freemen: as appears [Book i. Evidences of
Property of New Shoreham (Rhode Island), page
55]. viz. :
" At a Town meeting held the month of July for
the year one thousand six hundred and seventy :
" It was resolved that the freemen of the Town
their names should be recorded for the Town
Record,

6 TRISTRAM DODGE
" thyrustarom Daudge
" John Daudge
" thrustarum Daudge
" William Daudge
" Israel Daudge."
Thus, recording in 1670, nine years after he
sailed, as freemen of the Town of New Shoreham
or Block Island (though only in 1672 the Town
was chartered by Rhode Island) : first, our ancestor
and then his four sons, viz. : John, Tristram, Wil
liam, and Israel Dodge. He must have been married
at least thirty years before, for his four sons to have
attained majority and been admitted freemen in
1670. The father, then, on his emigration in 1661
must have been, at least, about forty years old,
which would place his birth-year about 1620.
We have no record of the date of his death. His
son and grandson bear the same name, and the sev
eral names are frequent on the records ; the distinc
tions of Senior and Junior being usually omitted, it
is difficult to determine which one was intended.
But, at pages 90-3, " Confessions of Nathaniel
Briggs and Trustram Dodge, Sen.," detailing ver
batim allegations of the parties to a legal contest,
then settled by the warden's advice, dated De
cember 13, 1681, and 31st August, 1682, he was

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 7
then living on the island perhaps at over sixty years
old. His name as " senior " does not again appear, but
the name Tristram Dodge, without other designa
tion, continues frequent in the records till 1735,
which was after the death of his son and emigration
of his grandson of same name to Cow Neck, L. L
At pages 102 and 103 of Book 2, of the "Evi
dences," etc., we find a deed, dated 1st February,
I72f, of release on voluntary actual partition, by
William Dodg, and
Tristram Dodg, both of New Shoreham in the
Colony of Rhode Island and Providence plantations
in New England and
John Dodg, of the Town and
Colony aforesaid.
Reciting : that the parties did receive several
tracts of land in New Shoreham which was their
father's : Tristram Dodge lately deceased, who died
intestate, and the said parties have ever since the
death of their father held the aforesaid parcels of
land in common. The one part of said land being
near the middle of New Shoreham, by estimate
30 acres, bounded, etc. :
Second parcel on the East side of the Harbor (3

8 TRISTRAM DODGE
acres) : Third parcel on the North side of the Har
bor, " bounded South on the Neck fence. South-west
on the pond. North and East on the Comon near
the sea." (Reciting a survey, and locating each lot.
thereby) and Releases one Third. By their Deed of
the same date, at p. 103,
John Dodg and
William Dodg: Release to Tristram Dodge sev
eral parcels of land at New Shoreham, left unto said
parties by their father Tristram Dodge late de
ceased, " being known by the name of the Dodge
Lands." Both of these Deeds are signed by each son
his
by X
mark. At page 40 ibid, we find the deed of
Israel Dodge Date ist October, 1720.
of New London Colony
Connecticut, late of Block
Island, to " My brothers "
John Dodge, Tristram Dodge, and
William Dodge of Block Island.
Conveying with full covenants, all his right, title,
and interest in all the lands at New Shoreham,
whereof his father Tristram Dodge had died seized.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 9
and intestate ; and the undivided share descended
to him as one of the heirs in common.
There is no record of grant of letters of adminis
tration, and no other children or heirs are anywhere
alleged. That their father — the first settler — may have died
in 1700-10, at 80-90 years of age, is consistent
herewith. After much research in England, we have been
disappointed in our hope to be able to give from
his English home the exact dates of his own birth
and that of his four sons, and only children, who
survived and emigrated ; and further knowledge of
his wife, family, and their ancestral home.
On this record ; evidence of the highest character,
it is manifest, that our ancestor and all his children
were born abroad, and not in New England, before
the arrival of William Dodge in the fleet settling at
Salem in 1629 ; who was, probably, of his kindred;
but of what, if any, affinitj' and in what year he
came remains for further research, and we are even
yet hopeful of some proof thereon : but he first ap
pears in history in 1660 ; and may then have just
arrived from England in Massachusetts, though
only as a place of temporary sojourn, preparatory
to permanent settlement on Block Island.

ID TRISTRAM DODGE
To gain a close view of the lives of our earliest
ancestors, in an era when the humblest education
was rare, so that none of the executive class, as we
may call the great majority, were able or willing to
record the facts, motives, or aims of their public
conduct, we must resort to established history for
the chief events controlling their daily lives, and
frame our own conclusions therefrom.
By public records — statutes, and their enforce
ments — we know how the enthroned Church of
England, from the era of Queen Elizabeth, by law
begirt all Dissenters with systematic, con.stant, in
quisitorial persecution ; by heavy fines, confisca
tion, pillory, prison, exile, torture, and martyrdom.
With ever renewing devotion to their chosen
tenets, successive generations suffered without re
volt, but with unswerving loyalty to their royal
oppressors and patriotism.
Their only refuge was exile to Holland ; for cent
uries the sole nation in Europe of enlightened tol
erance ; but there the English refugees languished
in hopeless and obscure poverty; or, last of all,
banishment to what they thought the impenetrable
and savage wilderness of far distant America ; beyond
the vast ocean, whose perils must be crossed, only
to meet wild beasts and Indians fiercer still. Long

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. II
did the Dissenters hesitate and suffer before ventur
ing on the treacherous ocean for their last resort.
Prior to the memorable assembling of the Long
Parliament, in 1640, the English Calvinists in the
New World of America had reached to twenty
thousand souls ; with small resources : and so con
tinued till 1660, when the restoration of the com
bined tyranny of Church and Crown reviving the
sharpest rigors of the- despotic Tudor law, drove
into American exile increasing numbers that stead
ily grew, for many years, unchecked even by the
promises of the Revolution of 1688.
Dissenters in religion from the English Church
were mostly Republicans in political opinion, and
their persecution was thought essential to the se
curity of the State. Oppression swelled their num
bers and strength, and in 1640, rising to the front as
the majority of the House of Commons in that im
mortal Parliament, they began the grandest epoch
of English history. Every shade of religious and
political dissent and opinion was there, each clam
orous for the mastery; even emulating their for
mer oppressors until their new license was checked
by the dignified tolerance of Cromwell, Milton,
Hampden, Marvell, and others, as they in turn
secured supreme power.

12 TRISTRAM DODGE
For one hundred and fifty years, with brief re
spites. Dissenters had suffered. When, in turn, they
gained supremacy, some grasped the chance of per
secuting their former followers in adversity.
Among those conflicting sects, in this chaos of
creeds, the Baptists held their own distinctive
tenets stoutly as the rest ; but never with the
persecuting spirit of the ambitious Presbyterians,
whose laws surpass those of the reign of Eliza
beth. In 1660, escaping from the furnace of the revived
fires of persecution in England, our lineal ancestor
— Tristram Dodge — with his four sons, then grown
to manhood, first appear in the Colony of Massa
chusetts Bay, recent arrivals from England. Their
home of origin may yet be discovered. It was,
probably, Devonshire, or its vicinity, and allied to
the old Cheshire stock. His life-period, 1620 —
1700-10 (James I. to Anne), was the tempestuous
era of struggle against the tyranny of church and
king, that brought forth the grand English Com
monwealth, Cromwell, Milton, the execution of the
King in 1649 ; the revolting submission, shame, and
license of the Restoration ; the bitter persecution of
James II., — his exile; the Constitutional Revolu
tion of 1688, and Queen Anne; with the develop-

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 3
ment of a Protestant Church, Puritans, Independ
ents, Presbyterians, and Baptists.
If he left England about 1660, he could not fail
to have witnessed or shared under the Lord General
Cromwell, " chief of men" in the fierce struggle of
the time ; and probably in those days of bloody re
action, that swayed the English at the Restoration,
when like Goffe, and many other sincere Puritans,
he sought secure retreat beyond the seas, and found
his fitting home on Block Island.
He had been contemporary with John Bunyan
(1628-88), whose spirit seems to have directed his
course and that of his descendants.
At the Restoration of 1660, the fierce revulsion
of the Cavaliers, that shrank not from digging up
the corpses of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw,
subjecting them to mock trial with the old horrors
of the sentence for treason, and then impaling their
heads on Westminster Hall, was of such undisguised
ferocity that the former triumphing Puritans were
no longer seen or heard of in England. A large
number affected extreme loyalty to lull suspicion,
but many who had been active and earnest in the
great RebeUion, if they would remain, were obliged,
like Milton, to seek concealment ; while great num
bers fled to remote New England, beyond the seas.

14 TRISTRAM DODGE
and reach of the blood-thirsty mob that gained the
smiles of the royal Stuart and his advisers by their
brutal violence to all who adhered to the principles
of the commonwealth or a free church.
Doubtless this tempest in Church and State, at
the era of the Restoration, induced our ancestor to
join in the New World, with his family of four sons,
that very large colony already gathered in New
England, which, according to the careful research of
Prof. John Richard Greene (History of the English
People, Vol. 3, Book 7, Chap. 6) : " between the sail
ing of Winthrop's expedition, and the assembling of
the Long Parliament (1629-40), in eleven years two
hundred emigrant ships had crossed the Atlantic,
and twenty thousand Englishmen found a refuge in
the West. The two hundred who first sailed for
Salem (1629), were soon followed by John Win-
throp with eight hundred men, and seven hundred
more soon followed. Nor were they broken men,
as they were in great part men of the professional
and middle classes, some of large landed estates,
some zealous clergymen, like Cotton, Hooker, and
Roger Williams. They were driven forth from their
fatherland, not by earthly want, greed of gold, or
love of adventure, but by the fear of God and zeal
for a Godly worship."

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 15
If this were so at the milder era prior to 1640, how
vastly must this emigration have increased under
the subsequent Stuart tyranny and the fierce Satur
nalia of the Tories at the Restoration, when the
Non-Conformist clergy were deprived and thrown
into jail, or abject life-long poverty, and men's lives
and liberties were no longer safe from violence.
Doubtless he only yielded to mortal terror before
his exile from the old land ; that so shortly before,
under the Commonwealth, had been the home of
true liberty regulated by wise laws.
His life-period (1620-1700) is of such marked co
incidence with those great epochs of English his
tory, that in his day enlisted so many in England
actively to take part for the King and tyranny, or
the Parliament and Liberty ; that it requires no
imagination to outline the panorama in which he
lived. His emigration to America with all his family —
four grown sons — and property, for the life-residence
of himself and all his descendants about 1660; and
the significant fact that he refused to cast his heri
tage with intolerant and exclusive Massachusetts
Bay or Connecticut colonies; but joined his fortunes
and theirs with those of Roger Williams and liberal
Rhode Island, previously securing his practical in-

1 6 TRISTRAM DODGE
dependence by becoming one of the original owners
and settlers of Block Island; and further, that estab
lished by his grandchildren the only church on
Block Island, now and always sustained znd officered
by his descendants, is the Baptist Church ;¦ -when
duly considered, might warrant the conclusion,
that he may have been prominent for civil and re
ligious liberty against the King and Cavaliers. But
merely military service, even so eminent as that of
the Ironsides of Cromwell, did not induce retalia
tion at the Restoration.
" Quietly and without a struggle," says the his
torian Greene, " as men who bowed to the inscrutable
will of God, the farmers and traders who had dashed
Rupert's chivalry to pieces on Naseby field ; who
had scattered at Worcester the ' army of the aliens,'
and driven into helpless flight the Sovereign that
now came to enjoy his own again ; who had renewed
beyond the sea the glories of Crecy and Agincourt ;
had mastered the Parliament ; had brought the King
to justice and the block ; had given law to England,
and held even Cromwell in awe ; became farmers
and traders again, and were known among their
fellow-men by no other sign than their greater sober
ness and industry."

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 7
As a sect, the Baptists first gathered a church
in England at London about A.D. 1614, or the mid
dle of the reign of James I. ; taking their origin by
the small society organized at Amsterdam, that
emigrated to London at that date.
"In the sixteenth century" — says Macaulay —
" Quakerism was unknown in England, and there
was not in the whole realm a single congregation
of Independents or Baptists."
Congregational in their church government, each
society formed its own laws, and the exercise of
private judgment was untrammeled. Denying all
human authority, priesthood, or hierarchy, with
infant baptism : insisting on Immersion as the only
true ordinance for adult believers, who were equal
before their Divine and only Teacher, Christ, in
his Word — they embodied the best elements of
Puritanism, without its intolerance, and have al
ways been esteemed as cardinal exponents of true
civil and religious freedom. They have always been
a standing protest against Church Establishments
and their perpetuity, by Episcopacy, or infant bap
tism ; all human creeds, or any form of State con
trol of conscience, so universal in Europe; whereby
the Baptists, save only in tolerant Holland, were

1 8 TRISTRAM DODGE
prominently sought for and systematically perse
cuted by a long series of statutes enforcing the
Established Church.
" The Baptists," says Bancroft, " nurslings of
adversity, driven by persecution to find resources
within their own souls; when they came to found a
State in America, rested it on the Truth, that the
spirit and the mind are not subordinate to the tem
poral power."
Their principles, so congenial to the spirit of the
colonists, with few exceptions, took early and deep
root; strengthened their successful resistance to
tyranny,, and became a fundamental basis or Magna
Charta of the Constitution of the United States
and of each State.
From the feeble seedlings of Block Island they
have had a steady and immense growth, so that in
December, 1885, there were in the United States
three million five hundred and seven thousand and
seven hundred and three Baptists officially reported.
It is noteworthy and of special gratitude, that,
however persistently early legal constraint in New
England, Virginia, and Carolinas sought to found
Church establishments here, they all failed to take
root, and lapsed into oblivion; while the Baptist

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. I9
principles became the cherished corner-stone of our
national, civil, and religious independence.
" In England, during the civil _ war, the Baptists
took active part," says Greene. " Lord Man
chester suffered Cromwell to guide the army at
his pleasure, but they were startled and alarmed
by his dealings with these dissident recruits. He
wanted good soldiers and good men, and if
they were these, the Independent, the Baptist,
the Leveller, found entry among his Ironsides.
' You would respect them, did you see them ? ' —
he answered the panic-stricken Presbyterians, who
always charged them with anabaptistery and revo
lutionary aims; they are no anabaptists, they are
honest, sober Christians ; they expect to be used
as men." Theological speculation took an un
wonted boldness from the temper of the times.
" Behold now this vast city," cried Milton, from
London, " a city of refuge, the mansion-house of
liberty, encompassed with God's protection. The
shop of war there hath not more anvils and hammers
working to fashion out the plates and instruments
of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth,
than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their
studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new
notions and ideas wherewith to present us, as with

20 TRISTRAM DODGE
their homage and fealty, the approaching reforma
tion; others as fast reading, trying all things accord
ing to the force of reason and convincement."
The English Baptists as a sect were conspicuous
for loyalty and quiet obedience to the rulers of the
State and the powers that be ; unlike the Pres
byterians, who were bitterly intolerant and ambi
tious of supremacy over all classes in State and
Church ; or the " Independents," " who," says
Froude, " were not meek like the Baptists, who
used no weapons to oppose what they disapproved,
but passive resistance."
The Presbyterian rancor in the act of 1648, im
prisoning for declaring infant baptism unlawful, and
death to those who denied Christ or the Trinity,
was short-lived ; and became obsolete on the early
ascendancy of the liberal spirit of Cromwell, after
the death of the King and the newly modelled Par
liament had destroyed the Presbyterian ascendancy.
With all other acts of the Long Parliament at the
Restoration, this was treated as void, as being
passed during the King's enforced absence, or after
his death ; while it was also held, that all laws of
previous parliaments and reigns, although repealed
by the Long Parliament, were, on the restora-

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 21
tion of the King to his throne, revived and in full
force. Under the Act 35th of Ehzabeth (A.D. 1593) Non
conformists refusing to attend worship in the par
ish churches were to be imprisoned till they made
their submission. Three months' time was allowed
them to consider ; if at the end of that time they
were still obstinate, they were to be banished the
realm ; and, if they subsequently returned to Eng
land without permission of the crown, they were
liable to execution as felons.
Thus, no sooner was Charles II. on the throne,
viz., the 25th May, 1660— the date of his landing in
triumph at Dover, preceded by his declaration of
Breda, promising general pardon, oblivion of all
political offences, and religious toleration, which,
like the many official promises of his father, proved
a snare to his subjects, — the frantic loyalists were
suffered to pursue their defeated enemies to»every
extremity. Yet, according to Froude, the better feelings of
the magistrates and administrators of the law would
have fain relieved its severity even in Bunyan's case,
and allowed him to escape with a light penalty, if he
had not by his conspicuous over-zeal forced them to
his arrest and conviction. And even then, though

22 TRISTRAM DODGE.
detained in jail, which he illuminated with his divine
dreams; he was supported there by his Bedford
church, and allowed to attend its regular Sunday
service in their chapel, where he and his Baptist
brethren were tolerated during the whole twelve
years of his nominal imprisonment, and until his
release. May, 1672, by virtue of the Declaration
of Indulgence of Charles II., repealing the severer
Conventicle Act of 1670. And, in 1671, while lodg
ing in jail, Bunyan was chosen their pastor, and
preached regularly as such, and was allowed to re
ceive the visits of all who desired.
It would seem almost certain that my ancestor
adhered to the Baptist persuasion, from the con
stant prominence of his immediate family as Bap
tists in the church organization, that about the
close of his life was established by them on Block
Island ; and from the significant fact that no other
sect has ever been established there ; and, also, that
all the first settlers must have been singularly in uni
son with Baptist sentiments and principles, if not
publicly professors of that faith.

CHAPTER II.
Although the holders of Baptist tenets in Eng
land were systematically persecuted from the era of
the Reformation, Henry VIII., A.D. 1534, by his
proclamations, inflicting banishment and death,
and by royal commission to Ridley and Gardner of
Edward VI., and martyrdom of Joan of Kent and
others, they increased in numbers ; and for their
simple faith were martyred under Mary and espe
cially persecuted under Elizabeth, by proclamation
1560, like that of her father, and by her Acts of
Uniformity. They were hunted to the death, fined,
whipped, and imprisoned for their religious convic
tions, like the early Christians. This was continued
under James I., by whom in 1612 Edward Wightman,
for denying infant baptism, was burned at the stake ;
followed by the High Commission Court of Charles
I., where Laud wreaked his malice on all Dissenters
and especially on the Baptists ; who, however, like
the faithful in the Catacombs of Rome, steadily
grew in numbers and power, so that when this cent
ury of fruitless coercion and barbarity terminated,

24 TRISTRAM DODGE
and a new era of hope dawned with the Long Par
liament, they had, in 1646, forty-six churches in Eng
land ; seven established in London, of which the
first, in Devonshire Court, remains to our day ; and
enjoyed religious liberty during the Commonwealth ;
until the Restoration of 1660 found considerable
Baptist churches in thirty English counties, six
leading towns in Ireland, and very numerous in
Wales. Persecution of unexampled rigor com
menced immediately on the Restoration.
Throughout all this period of persecution, the
Baptists had held their meetings for worship, often
at midnight, in woods or unfrequented places, with
out announcement, or, if in houses, in unsuspected
dwellings. The minister, disguised as a carter, with
smock, high boots and whip, or as a laborer, being
admitted through the roof, which was also the com
mon escape of the assembly. No music or singing
was permitted, and watchful sentries were placed to
notify the approach of the enemy : viz., either the
informer, vicar, or summoner from the High Com
mission Court.
" They have been taken from their peaceful hab
itations," says John Stoughton, " and thrust into
prison, in almost all counties in England, and many

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 25
are still detained in crowded cells, poor men, with
dependent, starving families."
In 1660, John James was martyred.
In 1662, the Act of Uniformity was re-enacted
and enforced. Two thousand clergymen, includ
ing Baxter, Flavel, and about thirty Baptist minis
ters, with many others, were imprisoned, fined, or
exiled for Non-conformity. This was followed by
the Act against Conventicles of 1664, the Five Mile
Act, 1665, and the new Fine and Penalties Act of
1670. " It was made a crime," says Macaulay, " to at
tend dissenting places of worship; a single justice of
the peace might convict, without a jury ; and for
the third offence, sentence to transportation for
years. With refined cruelty, it was provided that
he should not be transported to New England,
where he would find sympathizing friends ; and for
return before the term of his sentence, he was liable
to capital punishment."
On July 26, 1660, the Baptist churches of Lin
colnshire, in their petition to Charles II., say:
" We have been much abused as we pass in the
streets, and as we sit in our houses, being threatened

26 TRISTRAM DODGE
to be hanged if but heard praying to our Lord, in
our own families, and disturbed in our so waiting
upon Him by continual beating at our doors and
sounding of horns ; stoned when going to our meet
ings ; taken as evil-doers, and imprisoned when
peaceably met together to worship the Most High
in the use of his most precious ordinances. They
have indicted lately many of us at the sessions, and
intend to impose on us a penalty of iJ"20 — for not
coming to hear such men as they provide us."
The king replied only with fair promises, and the
persecution increased.
By November, 1660, Bunyan was imprisoned, fol
lowed in the next year by many other Baptist min
isters. The warfare upon Dissenters continued till the
Revolution of 1688, when persecution ceased; though
the Test and Subscription Acts, requiring all who
bore office, either public or corporate, to swear to
their faith in the Creed, and subscribe the Articles
of the Established Church, were enforced till their
modification by the Act of 1779; and even now the
same exclusive spirit rules in their Parliament.
Lord Macaulay says of the Toleration Act of
1689, "that its provisions were cumbrous, puerile,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 27
inconsistent with each other and with the true
theory of religious liberty. All that can be said
in their defence is this : that they removed a vast
mass of evil without shocking a vast mass of preju
dice. That they put an end at once and forever,
without one division in either house of Parliament,
without one riot in the streets, with scarcely a mur
mur from the classes most deeply tainted with big
otry, to a persecution which had raged during four
generations, which had broken innumerable hearts,
which had made innumerable families desolate, which
had filled the prisons with some of whom the world
was not worthy, which had driven thousands of
those honest, diligent, and God-fearing yeomen and
artisans, who were the true strength of the nation,
to seek a refuge beyond the ocean, among the wig
wams of red Indians and the lairs of panthers."
It seems strange to an American that it should
require near three centuries for the English nation,
whose historic boast is their common law of consti
tutional liberty, to acquire the elementary princi
ples of true civil and religious freedom.
During this persistent warfare on their rights in
England, Massachusetts colony, sharing the same
pretensions of exclusive theocracy, was not back-

28 TRISTRAM DODGE
ward in imitation. Besides her shameless persecu
tions for suspicion of witchcraft, and of the Quakers,
and her banishment, in 1635, of Roger Williams for
his doctrines of religious freedom ; she followed
these by a general ordinance, in 1644, of banish
ment and perpetual exile, with fines and imprison
ment at discretion of the magistrate, against all who
held the Baptist tenets as to infant baptism and
religious independence.
From this condensed history, it is plain that my
ancestor, and all who like him sympathized with
Roger Williams, had no home in England or Massa
chusetts, and that he sought his only true abiding-
place— Block Island — which he placed under the
sheltering wing of what was then the only free
(chartered) colony of England — Rhode Island.
Without further pursuing our inquiry for the oc
casion of his emigration, while in that age', so de
prived of the press or any record save the public
acts of monarchs or statesmen of eminence, that
with a private subject, we are left wholly to pre
sumptions, we quote again from Greene :
" The sudden outbreak and violence of the perse
cutions (that arose on the Restoration), breaking up
of conventicles, the imprisonment of worshippers,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 29
etc., turned the disappointment of the Presbyterians
into despair. Many were for retiring to Holland,
others proposed a general flight to New England
and the American colonies. Among the Baptists
and Independents there was vague talk of an ap
peal to arms."
By this episode-sketch of the tumult and perse
cution that pervaded Church and State in the Eng
land of our ancestor, from his birth about 1620 till
he and his four sons appear, in 1660-61, as settlers
of Block Island, sailing thither with his (fourteen)
associates from Massachusetts : —
I have rather sought to develop to my own clear
apprehension, and thereby portray the elements of
his character, than to invent his history, by the easy
process of imagining our resolute ancestor in emi
nent position of active zeal for the Commonwealth,
or defence of the persecuted Baptists.
He was manifestly not in favor or sympathy with
the Crown or its restoration. His career in the
New World plainly indicates that he adhered to the
faith and practice of Roger Williams and the toler
ant Baptists. Yet, however earnest his convictions
in that tempest, he may have emulated the meek
ness and moderation of many other Baptists, or

30 TRISTRAM DODGE
the studious quiet of Isaac Walton (i 591-1683);
Thomas Hobbs (1559-1679), or his adversary Cud-
worth (1617-88), and others, whose opinions were
not aggressive, and who remained out of the strife
in word and action.
The armies were composed only of volunteers ;
small in number, and never reaching over one-thir
tieth of the population ; so that the great majority
were not in the ranks, and but a very few in civil
office; and thus, in spite of revolutions, the ordinary
pursuits and trades went along in their old way. At
that period of English history, when most of the
nation could not read or write ; without the news
paper and all modern means of intelligent opinion ;
without proper highways or the steam engine, in a
small nation of about three millions, scattered over
a territory only one-third larger than the State of
New Jersey, but whose largest area was covered
with impassable forests and morass, — the rapidly
crowding events that make the history of that time
so interesting, even at this interval, could only have
been known on their date by a very limited circle of
the metropolis, and imperfectly and slowly reached
the mass of tTie people.
The nation was poor; nearly one-fourth of the
population were dependent on parochial relief as

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 3 1
paupers. The average earnings of good mechanics
was, according to Macaulay's careful research, not
over 4s. 6d., or about one dollar a week ; and the
food of all below the very wealthy was only oatmeal,
rye, and barley, without meat ; whilst the army of
the Commonwealth secured its choice recruits by
the pay of seven shillings a week, an advance of
nearly one-half their possible earnings.
If to this actual hardship be added the fact that
all hope of social elevation was impossible, even in
peaceful times, their despair would have driven
large numbers to bleak and distant America for an
independence. It is not a little strange that Great Britain never
had a census taken by law till 1801, while twice be
fore, viz., in 1753 and in 1800, the bill therefor had
been defeated. It was at length adopted in imita
tion of the United States, but it has no such aims
as securing a just taxation or apportionment of
representation, and is made as an accurate basis for
political and economic questions.
Beyond the army lines the kingdom preserved
its old tranquillity ; the Dissenting chapels, in dark
corners of towns and cities, were the arenas of
harangue on the new doctrines of Church and
State, by all manner of untutored declaimers — Fifth

32 TRISTRAM DODGE.
Monarchy Men, Ranters, Independents, Presbyte
rians, etc., etc. — each, in their uncouth way, attack
ing the Established Church and all other sects, with
equally strange and clashing theories of civil govern
ment. The great majority had no means of obtain
ing correct and adequate knowledge of events or
sound opinions thereon.
Transporting ourselves, in thought, to the Eng
land of 1660, as our native land for all past genera
tions, where our home was the imagined centre of
every comfort and domestic bliss; and in contrast
sterile, bleak, rock-bound New England, at immeas
urable distance over the tempest-tossed Atlantic,
the Siberia of that age, to be voluntarily chosen as
our life-long home ; quitting our native land for
ever, taking all our family and property : such a
resolution evinced the utmost courage and sacrifice,
only to be accounted for by persecution that ren
dered the much-loved home in England intolerable.
The irresistible attraction of his contemporary
history, in what seems now the grandest crisis of
England, must apologize for the extent of our
digression.

CHAPTER III.
Let us resume our narrative — with the advent
urous party of fifteen settlers on board the Shallop,
sailing from Taunton for " Block Island," April,
1661. Their voyage, of perhaps a day, brought
Tristram Dodge with his four sons, and all his
worldly goods, to their landing (by tradition) at
Cow Cove, on the eastern shore, north of the
present harbor, and but a short distance south of
Sandy Point, the site of the present North-eastern
Light-house ; and he, with the other settlers, en
tered the dense forests which then covered the
island hills, peopled only by the savages in over
whelming numbers, without any protection ; and
took possession of their allotments of all the lands
of the Indians, by virtue of paper titles in Massachu
setts ; to which the natives were strangers : and yet
our entire history will be vainly searched for a simi
lar example of uniform, unbroken, peaceful acquies
cence by the aborigines. No history survives to
tell how this was accomplished. The small com
pany of white settlers must have conciliated their
3

34* TRISTRAM DODGE
vastly more powerful native neighbors by deeds
of charity, which were afterwards emulated by Wil
liam Penn's colony of 1685.
The allotment of land, known for generations as
the " Dodges' Lands," was mapped by surveyors ;
but their map is no longer extant on the island,
and we find it described, at the time of the voluntary
partition after his death, between his four sons, by
their releases of 1720-3.
It extended across the island, from east to west,
through the " centre," from the old harbor on the
eastern shore north of the present breakwater.
He was scarcely planted on Block Island, when
he bought of the Province of New York (1665) (by
the N. Y. Records — his license dated April 14, 1665)
the island of 500 acres, yet called " No Man's Land,"
lying two leagues south-west from Martha's Vineyard.
Of his four sons — Israel, John, William, and Tris
tram, Jr. — Israel is on record as purchaser and set
tler of land in 1694, in the North Parish of New
London, Conn, (now Montville), where he died in
1745- The other sons and children, viz., John, Tristram,
Jr., and William Dodge, remained on the island,
and became progenitors of a very numerous race ;
some of whom emigrated in after generations, and

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 35
whose descendants are now to be found in almost
every State, and frequently in eminent stations.
The ancient records of New Shoreham occasion
ally contain entries of births and deaths, as well as
of deeds and wills, which in Rhode Island was not
by law required until 1856.
At page 44 of Book i. Evidences, etc., we find,
" an account of some persons born, marryed, and
dyed on Shoreham."

"Ebenzer Daudg — son of Trustarum Daudg, Sen.,
born October 21st, 1687.,

" Josiah Daudg — son of same, born December 25,
1690. Dorcas Daudg — daughter of same, born May 16,
1694. " thyrustarum Daudge had a son born the third of
November, 1684, called Nathaniel Daudge.
" thomas Daudge, son of said thyustarum Daudge,
born January 23, of January, 1684.
" Mary Daudge, dafter to John Daudg, born the
1 8th of April, 1682.
"John Daudge, sonne to John Daudge, born the
loth of January, 1685.
" William Daudge, sond to William Daudge, born
the 8th of March, 1680.

36 TRISTRAM DODGE
" Elizabeth, dafter to William Daudge, born the
last of May, 1683."

And at page 89 and 97, Ibid, in the " Record
of the Persones born and buryed in New Shoreham
to 1683."
" Nathaniel Dodge, son of Tristram Dodge, Senior,
born the second of November, 1681.
" Mary Dodge, daughter of John Dodge, buryed
January 4th, 1683.
" Samuell Daudg, son of William Daudg, Sr., born
in September 19th, 1691.
" Ebenezer Dodge ^nA Ann Rathbo7ie married the
23d of February, 1714, and had a daughter named
Jemara, born the 22d of September, 1716."
And in the
" Account of the persons born, marryed, and dyed
on Block Island in the year 1682,"
"John Daudg, Junior, son oi John Daudg, Senior,
died April the i6th.
"Mary Dodg, daughter of John Dodg, born April
\%th. The above completes all the ancient coeval entries
of births and deaths of the Island Dodges. As they
are necessarily the only evidence of origin, I have

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 37
inserted them in full, in their antique form. I annex
another original of importance, being the Will of
Tristram Dodge (2d). The same person is called
" Senior " in foregoing record of persons born, etc.,
to 1683.
The Will following is invaluable, as supplying
the only Record of his descendants down to
1735- Liber 2, Evidences, etc., page 211. Will of Tris
tram Dodge. Dated 26th day July, 1733.
" First : — Gives and devises to Dorcas my wife
my house and all my land on Block Island for her
life, and all my movable estate indoors and out ; and
after her decease, the House and Land to my son
Nathaniell Dodge ; and the movable estate to be
equally divided between my two daughters Dorcas
Landworth and Sarah Mitchell ; and my Will is that
my son Nathaniell Dodge (who is named Executor)
shall pay to my son Thomas Dodge Ten pounds ;
and to my son Ebenezer, £\0; and to my son
Hezekiah, £\o; and to my son Tristram Dodge,
£\o; and to my daughter Dorcas, £2 ; and to my
daughter Sarah, £2.''' Revokes all prior wills (at
testation clauses). Proved at New Shoreham, June
7. 1735-

38 TRISTRAM DODGE
These entries together show, as to the births and
deaths, some uncertainty and carelessness, ex. g.,
children oi John Dodge (Sen'r).
His son — John (at p. 44) is recorded as born 10
January, 1685, and at page 97, Lb.,
" John," his son, died April the i6th, 1682, with
out stating — if such were the fact — that the former
was a second son of like name ; while Mary — his
daughter's birth is given the same on both " records "
as Ap. 18, 1682.
Nathaniel's birth-year is given in 1681 and 1684,
3d and 2d of November, in two entries by different
clerks.

Recapitulation.
Their wives are not named.
John Dodge. Children.
John {Jr.) born 10 June, 1685.
Mary " 18 April, 1682,
died 4 Jan. 1683.
John (2d) " 10 April, "

Tristram Dodge (2). Children.
Nathaniel, born 2d Nov. 1681 (or 3d Nov. 1684).
(i) Thomas, " 23 Jan. 1684.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 39
Ebenezer, born 4 Oct. 1687.
Hezekiah, " date not given,
(2) Tristram (3), " " "
DorcaS, born May 16, 1694.
Sarah, " not stated.
Josiah,* " 25 Dec. 1690.

William Dodge. Children.
William, born 8 March, 1680.
(3) Samuel, " 19th September, 1691.
Elizabeth, " " last of May," 1683.

Of the foregoing grandchildren,
I Thomas \ Emigrated to Cow Neck (Long
2 Tristram and >¦ Island), where they settled.
3 Samuel ) From Samuel descended a
large family of the State and city of New York.
From the remaining grandchildren descend the
families on Block Island, which now are those of
Samuel Dodge, John R. Dodge,
Edwin B. Dodge, Noah Dodge,
Aaron W. Dodge, Joshua Dodge,
* Is not named in will, and may have been deceased without issue
at the time of the father's death.

40

TRISTRAM DODGE

Nathan C. Dodge,
Solomon Dodge,
Amhad Dodge,
Edmond Dodge,
Welcome Dodge,
Caleb W. Dodge,
James M. Dodge,
Andrew J. Dodge,
Richard A. Dodge,
John W. Dodge,
William Dodge,
Lorenzo Dodge,
Samuel P. Dodge,
James A. Dodge,
Samuel B. Dodge,
Darias B. Dodge,
John C. Dodge,
Joshua T. Dodge,
Robert C. Dodge,

William H. Dodge,
Uriah B. Dodge,
Robert E. D. Dodge,
W. Ray Dodge,
William M. Dodge,
Edwin A. Dodge,
Burton B. Dodge,
Welcome Dodge, Jr.,
Samuel A. Dodge,
Ralph E. Dodge,
Rainsford A. Dodge,
Simon Dodge,
Hiram Dodge,
Gideon Dodge,
Leander Dodge,
Edward Dodge,
Nathaniel Dodge,
Edward T. Dodge.

The foregoing list of family representatives is in
complete and with some inaccuracies, due to the
failure to respond to repeated inquiries for the
entire list and their respective descents.
The several families of Cow Neck are, viz. :
Tristram Dodge (3) of New Shoreham) : Grand-

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 4I
son of settler of Block I. of same name. Married
November 28, 1741 : Phebe (widow Adam) Mott.
Children : Joseph Dodge, who married Sarah Hicks,
July 28, 1763. Children:
Fanny, died 1843, single.
Penelope, married Schuyler Baxter, born 17 May,
1767. Margaret C, died single, 1806.
Tristram Dodge (4), married Phebe Downing,
died, no issue, 18 16.
William, born May i, 1774, married Susan Hawley.
Charity married Isaac Downing, died 1815.
Joseph Dodge, Jr., married Cath. Cheeseman
(1 81 6).
Isaac H., married Jane Burtis, 1805.
Sarah C, born 1788, died single.
Joseph Dodge, Jr. (died 1835) and Cath. Cheese-
man. Children : Hampton married is!; Sarah Undcrhill.
Married 2d, December 27, 1855, widow (Murrell).
Cheeseman married Martha Cornell, September
I, 1863.
Both reside in Buffalo, N. Y.
Isaac H. Dodge (died at Cow Neck, September
19, 1877) married 1808, April 20, Jane Burtis.

42 TRISTRAM DODGE
Children :
Martha B., married Henry Tredwell.
Sarah C, born 1816.
Joseph, born 1821.
Thomas Dodge (i), son of Tristram (2), born at
New Shoreham June 23, 1684, (about)
171 2 married at Cow Neck, L. I.,
Susannah Hutchings.
Children — born at Cow Neck,
William — born May 15, 17 14.
Mary " March 8, 1716.
Married Thos. Thorne, December 12,
1738.
Amos — born September 2, 1719.
Thomas (Jr.), born January 17, 1722,
died May 12, 1789.
Thomas Dodge, Senior, died at Cow Neck Home
stead, where his tomb-stone is now in door-yard,
July 14, 1755.
His wife Susannah died April 11, 1778.

Thomas Dodge (2), Junior, in 1749 married Sarah
Onderdonk.
Children — born at Cow Neck,
Marie— " 1751, died do. December 15, 1831.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 43
Peter, born 1753, died November 30, 1776.
Thomas (3), born June 15, 1755, died May 30,
1840.
Andries, born 1757, died October 28, 1762.
William, " October 16, 1761, died December
3, 1844-
Sarah, born 1764, died January 27, 1784.
William Dodge, born 1761, married Phebe Craft,
died December 3, 1844.
Children :
Sarah Dodge, born September 19, 1789, died June
17, 181 1, married J. Davis.
Martha Dodge, born June 9, 1791, died June 26,
1847, married Wm. Remsen.
Thomas Dodge (4), born July 2, 1793, died Octo
ber 20, 1830.
Robert Dodge, born October 17, 1795, died De
cember 10, 1857.
Peter Dodge, born April 13, 1798, died September
3, 1871-
Maria Dodge, born December 29, 1803, married
W. Remsen — and widow.
Henry O., born October 13, 1805.
Peter Dodge (first) married Rebecca Ketchum.
Children :
Edward Dodge.

44 TRISTRAM DODGE
George K. Dodge.
Thomas Dodge.
Peter Dodge (second) married Hannah Ketchum.
Children :
William H. Dodge.
Alonzo P. Dodge.
Rebecca Dodge.
Thomas R. Dodge.
Thomas Dodge (3), married Ehzabeth Monfort,
no issue.
Robert Dodge, married Susan Dodge (1795), son,
Isaac Dodge.
Henry Onderdonk Dodge, married (ist) Elizabeth
Craft, son, Jordan C. Dodge, born November
8, 1839; married (2d) Julia Oakley, children.
Miles W. Dodge, Henry T. Dodge.
Jordan C. Dodge (of Glen Cove, Long Island),
married Clara E. Kirby (1863), son, Herbert
A. Dodge.
Miles W. Dodge (of Philadelphia), married Nettie
F. Snedeker (1871), child, Ella I. Dodge.
Henry T.. Dodge (Port Washington, Long Island).
Tristram Dodge, settled at Oyster Bay, Long
Island, where he died, 1763. Married Sarah
Hawxhurst, of Oyster Bay, at St. George's
Church, Hempstead, Jan. 13, 1726, children,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 45
Stephen Dodge, who, 1783, settled in Nova Scotia,
pursuant to conditions of Treaty of Peace.
Daniel, who remained in New York.
Freelove, d-aughter, married Townsend Parish.
Among the signers to the Loyal Address of
Welcome, dated 20th October, 1776, to Lord
Richard Howe and General William Howe,
on their arrival at New York as Crown
Commissioners to the Colonies of " His
Majesty's loyal and well-affected Freeholders
and inhabitants of Queens County, on Nassau
Island, in the Province of New York, that
they ' bear true' allegiance, &c.," are:
" Tristram Dodge,"
" Daniel Dodge,"
" Ezekiel Roe and others."
This testator was a descendant of the " early
settlers of Cow Bay." As appears by his will,
his only sons were Daniel, who remained in
New York, and Stephen, who, in 1783, with
his family, emigrated to Nova Scotia ; his
daughters, Sarah and Anne, died single, and
Freelove married Townsend Parish. Of his
son Daniel, his son Daniel, Jr., died without
issue in New York city about 18 14, and this
branch is believed extinct.

CHAPTER IV.
Stephen Dodge was the son of Tristram Dodge,
of Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. He
emigrated to Nova Scotia in October, 1783,
with his wife and five children.
Stephen Dodge was born about 1748, died June 6,
1808, married Blanche Shaddon February 17,
1 77 1, by whom he had nine children.
Sarah Dodge, born New York, November 24,
1 77 1, died December 20, 1864.
Charles Dodge, born New York, September 18,
1773, died May 17, 1832.
Samuel Dodge, born New York, October 6, 1775,
died June 6, 1852.
Mary Dodge, born New York, September 20,
1778, died 1845.
Freelove Dodge, born New York, March 24,
1 78 1, died February, 1848.
Stephen Dodge (2d), born Granville, Nova Scotia,
March 21, 1784, never married, died October
27, 1870.
Jacob Dodge, born Wilmot, Nova Scotia, No
vember 26, 1786, died October 23, 1870.

TRISTRAM DODGE. 47
John Dodge, born Wilmot, Nova Scotia, Febru
ary 26, 1789, died July 18, 1875.
Isaac Dodge, born Wilmot, Nova Scotia, Febru
ary 21, 1792, died December 21, 1878.
Sarah Dodge, born Wilmot, Nova Scotia.
Sarah Dodge married David Nichols, May 19,
1789, by whom she had seven children.
Sarah Nichols, born August 30, 1790, died 18 19,
married Robert Fitz Randolph, 18 12. She
left two sons and one daughter.
Mary Nichols, born July 20, 1792, died 1823,
married the above Robert Fitz Randolph,
1820. She left one son and one daugh
ter.
William Nichols, born October 22, 1794 (farmer),
died February 15, 1881, married Phebe
Young, by whom he had five children.
Amy Nichols, born October 22, 1797, married
Henry D. Charlton (farmer), March 5, 1822,
by whom she had six children, namely,
Eliza Charlton, born July 14, 1823, died February
6, 1829.
Edward C. Charlton, born February 14, 1825.
William H. Charlton, born December 17, 1826.
Ann Ehza Charlton, born November 2, 1831.
Mary Charlton, born July 22, 1833.

48 TRISTRAM DODGE
Randolph Charlton, born July 12, 1835. He is
master mariner.
Stephen Nichols, born December 16, 1799 (farm
er), married Mary Rulofson, November 3,
1823, by whom he had six children, namely.
Amy Nichols, born July 31, 1824.
Seraphine Nichols, born March 2, 1826.
Rulof A. Nichols, born December 31, 1828.
William H. Nichols, born December 2, 1829.
David Nichols, born December 7, 1831.
Stephen James Nichols, born May 8, 1834.
Charles Dodge, master shipwright, and second
child of Stephen Dodge, married Mehettable
Gates, September 24, 1794, by whom he had
three children, namely,
Ambrose Dodge, born December 4, 1795, farmer,
died June 6, 1873, married Abigail Parker,
April 8, 1 819, by whom he had eleven chil
dren, namely,
James P. Dodge, born September 20, 1820.
Samuel Dodge, born September 2, 1822, died Oc
tober 17, 1840.
Obadiah Dodge, born November 21, 1824,
Keziah Dodge, born August 3, 1826, died Janu
ary 25, 1866.
Susan M. Dodge, born July 31, 1828.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 49
Hannah Dodge, born January 8, 1831, died Janu
ary 27, 1849.
Isabel Dodge, born April 5, 1833.
Ingram B. Dodge, born March 11, 1835.
Charles E. Dodge, July 25, 1835.
Stephen A. Dodge, born May 27, 1839.
Robert Dodge, February 2, 1841.
Susannah Dodge, daughter of Charles Dodge, born
December 16, 1797, died August 21, 1852, mar
ried Christopher Margeson, November 4, 1819,
by whom he had eleven children, namely,
Bayard Margeson, born October 16, 1820 (carriage-
maker and undertaker).
Ambrose Margeson, born July 12, 1822, died May
28, 1849.
Gilbert Margeson, born February 13, 1824 (black
smith).
Parker Margeson, born November 2, 1826.
Thomas A. Margeson, born October 11, 1828
(merchant and justice of peace).
Harris H. Margeson, born October 31, 1830 (car
riage-builder).
James Margeson, born September 7, 1832.
John Margeson, born February 17, 1835.
Lavinea Margeson, born March 6, 1837.
4

50 TRISTRAM DODGE
Christopher Margeson, born September 14, 1839.
Susannah Margeson, born October 11, 1842, died
July 19, 1865.
Maria Dodge, daughter of said Charles Dodge,
born April 25, 1 800, married Robert Nichols
(farmer), by whom she has eleven children,
all married but one, and all with large fam
ilies, and all living but the second daughter.
Charles Dodge's first wife (Mehettable) died April
15, 1802.
2d, married Margaret Rulofson, November 11,
1806, by whom he had ten children, namely,
Minetta Dodge, born September 19, 1808.
Helen Dodge, born September 27, 1810.
Mahettable Dodge, born January i, 1813.
Emily Dodge, born February 27, 181 5.
Charles R. Dodge, born April 18, 1817.
Louisa Dodge, born June 12, 1819, died August,
1880.
Amy A. Dodge, born April 19, 1821.
Lindley M. Dodge, born October 10, 1824.
William A. Dodge, born April 29, 1826.
James F. Dodge, born January 7, 1829.
Samuel Dodge, farmer and carpenter, married

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. .5 1
Lydia Woodbury, January 26, 1806, by whom
he had ten children, namely,
Elizabeth Dodge, born September 17, 1806, mar
ried William H. Chipman, February 19, 1838,
by whom she had four children, namely,
Charlotte R. Chipman, born June 8, 1840.
Janet B. Chipman, born November 10, 1842.
Elizabeth R. Chipman, born September 23, 1845.
Harriet A. Chipman, born March 8, 1848.
Arthur Dodge, born November 9, 1808, wheel
wright and undertaker, appointed justice of
peace, November, .1848, also town clerk and
treasurer for township of Wilmot in 1854, held
both offices ever since ; married Rebecca Chip-
man, May 24, 1832, by whom he had five
children, nam.ely,
I. Samuel H. Dodge, born February 27, 1833
(carpenter and builder), married Mary North,
by whom he had five children, namely,
Louisa, Frank, Anthony, Eva, Rebecca.
2. Sarah E. Dodge, born July 7, 1837 (second
child of Arthur Dodge).
3. William W. Dodge, born November 20, 1843
(farmer and undertaker).

52. TRISTRAM DODGE
4. Annie A. Dodge, born October 14, 1846, mar
ried Handley Cheslay, farmer, December,
1877, by whom she had two children, namely,
Adda B. Cheslay, born January 17, 1879.
Edward Percy Cheslay, February 15, 1881.
5. Jessie R. Dodge, born December 2, 1850, died
May 31, 1851.
3. Emily Dodge, born December 7, 1810, married
Luther Morse, November 26, 1850, a farmer,
no children.
4. John Dodge, born February 3, 1813, a farmer,
married Harriet Woodbury, December 10,
1842, by whom he has two children, namely,
Ella Dodge, born January 26, 1845.
Albert Dodge, born March 10, 1847, married
Adelia Bank, and has two children.
5. George Dodge, born February 22, 181 5, a farmer,
married Harriet Parker, February 14, 1846,
by whom he has four children, namely,
Sophia Dodge, born November 15, 1848.
Beespe Dodge, born April 14, 1852.
Clara Dodge, born February 23, 1855.
Charles P. Dodge, born February 27, 1858.
6. Mary Dodge, born August 11, 1817, married

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 53
Zachariah Banks, carriage-builder, February
15, 1844, by whom she has three children,
namely,
Adelia Banks, born June 26, 1847.
Thomas Banks, born September 20, 1849.
Emma Banks, born August 15, 1852.
7. Edwin Gilpin Dodge, born December 19, 1819,
a farmer, appointed justice of peace, 1848,
married Keziah Dodge, December, 1849, by
whom he had three children, namely,
Susan Alida Dodge, born July 10, 1851, died May
25, 1874.
Bessie C. Dodge, born April 4, 1854.
Willard P. Dodge, born November 3, 1858, died
.October 14, 1878.
8. Charlotte Dodge, born November 6, 1822, mar
ried James P. Dodge, June 18, 1884, by whom
she has three children, namely,
Edwin Dodge, born June 26, 1845.
Eugene and Augusta Dodge, born December 28,
1848. 9. Harriet Dodge, born May 15, 1825, married
Obadiah Dodge, farmer, September, 1854, by
whom she has three children, namely.

54 TRISTRAM DODGE
Abigail, Arthur P., and Carey.
lo. Lavinea Dodge, born September i, 1829, mar
ried Valentine Groop, January 15, 1855, by
whom she has two children, namely,
Jessie B. and Minney.
Mary Dodge, fourth child of Stephen Dodge,
married Elias Moore in 1804, by him had
five children, namely,
Mary, Lindley M., Eliza, Elias, and Barah.
Freelove Dodge, fifth child of Stephen Dodge,
married Isaac Longley, farmer, June, 1814,
by whom she had four children, namely,
John, Darcus, Minetta, and
Jacob Dodge, master shipwright, seventh child of
Stephen Dodge, married Rachel Clark, by
whom he had five children, namely,
William, John, Maria, Mary, and Susan.
John Dodge, carriage-builder, eighth child of
Stephen Dodge, married Mahettable Rulof
son, December 3, 181 8, by whom he had
eight children, namely,
I. Ann Dodge, born April 19, 1820.
2. Alfred G. Dodge, born March 25, 1822, died

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 55
November 4, 1873, married January, 1851,
and had five children, namely,
Ellen, Harry (a merchant), Rupert, Allice, and
Hattie. 3. Priscilla Dodge, born June 20, 1822.
4. John A. Dodge, born November 21, 1826, died
December 27, 1826.
5. Ethelinda Dodge, born March 10, 1828.
6. Isaiah Dodge, born May 3, 183a. Appointed
justice of peace, 1878.
7. Arabel Dodge, born April 8, 1833.
8. Henrietta Dodge, born December 6, 1835.
Isaac Dodge, farmer and carpenter, ninth child of
Stephen Dodge, married (ist) Letticia Charl
ton, July 8, 181 5, by whom he had two
children, namely,
Eveline Dodge, born April 19, 1816.
Edward Henry Dodge, born April 19, 1820, died
December, 1824.
Isaac Dodge's ist wife died November, 1821,
married (2d) Grace Young, January, 1825, by
whom he had three children, namely,
Henry Dodge, born January, 1826.
Wesley Dodge, born February, 1828.
Letticia Dodge, born June, 1829.

56 TRISTRAM DODGE
The present location of the lands at Cow Neck
of Samuel Dodge is believed to be near the bounds
of the farm of Richard Mott, Esq., which was lately
of Joseph Dodge.
Wilkie Dodge, the witness to deed (1718) of
Thomas Dodge and wife to Samuel Dodge, was
the testator whose will is dated 1752, and father of
my grandfather Samuel ; his eldest son Wilkie was
a captain in the West Indies trade.
He was a posthumous child, born after his father's
death in 1750; master of a vessel during the Revo
lution, taken prisoner, and died in New York city
about 1778.
I find on record in the office of the Surrogate of
New York the following ancient wills, proved in
the Probate Court of the Province, whose testators
are above-named, viz. :
Tristram Dodge, dated October, 20, 1760.
Proved in Queens Co. 1760, December 29.
Rec. N. Y. Surv. Lib. 22, p. 313.
" Last will of Tristram Dodge of Cow Neck,
Township of Hempstead, Queens Co., Province of
New York."
After provision for his wife Phebe (formerly
Phebe, widow of Adam Mott) : Devises all his real
estate to his son Joseph Dodge.

CHAPTER V.
Samuel Dodge, son of William Dodge and
grandson of the original settler Tristram
Dodge, was born at New Shoreham or Block
Island, as appears by the record there, on
the 19th of September, 1691.
He was first cousin to the two preceding, viz. :
Thomas and Tristram Dodge, Jr. ; settled at Cow
Neck prior to his arrival.
Samuel Dodge : first appears at Cow Neck, L. I.,
on the records of Hempstead, L. I., by the Deed of
Thomas Dodge and
Susannah his wife
of Hempstead, Queens County
Province of New York — Yeoman
To
Samuel Dodge of the same place
Yeoman.

Dated 5, Gen. i,
and the " Year of
man's Salvation
(1718); Consider
ation ;^I24; (Rec.
2, Lib. 2, p. 395)
Conveys Farme
att Hempstead of 59 acres 26 square Rods ; or One
Third, lacking Five acres of that Farme that was
Samuel Clowes' ; Bounded Easterdly, partly by
Thomas Dodge aforesaid, and partly by Tristram
Dodge, and northrdly by Rigbell Mott ; westerly

58

TRISTRAM DODGE

by other lands laid out upon gate rights and
southrdly by the land belonging to the heirs of
John Carle deceased : "
Witnessed by
Thomas : (Jr) : Wilkie ;
Trustom (3) Dodge
In 1720, he is granted also :
Capt. John Cornell
of Cow Neck in town
ship of Hempstead, Queen Co.
Prov. of New York to
Samual Dodge of the same
place. Yeoman

17th
(Lib.

" Mai'd y"
March, 1720
2, p. 397) Con.;^5oo
of a Dwelling house
at Cow Neck nigh
Cullards Cove, with
adjoining twenty
acres of Land."

In 1 73 1, Samuel is again granted at Cow Neck,
by same description ; by Deed :
Andrew Onderdonk of Cow Neck
Hempstead, Queens Co. Pro. N. Y., Yeoman
and Gertry his wife Dated 12 April
to in the year of
Samuel Dodge of the same place. Our Lord Christ
Yeoman. I73i-
 ^Con. .^274 I2.r.
Lib. 2, p. 392.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 59
Conveys : " a piece of land on Cow Neck ; bounded
Easterly by the highway that leads through y^
Neck ; Northerly by the Highway that leads to
Landing ; Westwardly by Land of Robert Hutch
ings and Jonathan Whitehead, Southerly by land
of Andrew Onderdonk ; containing Fifty-three
acres ^ and 36 rods " (with a survey description).
Will of Tristram " Dodge " (3) of ye Township
"of Oyster Bay; Queens Co. Nassau Island and
Colony of New York." Died 1760.
I. After his wife's death Devises all his Real
Estate in " Equal Halfs " to his sons Daniel and
Stephen Dodge, and then makes the following be
quests 2. To my daughter Sarah — one feather bed.
3. To do. Freelove (wife of Townsend
Parish) same ; and to do. Sarah and Anne the per
sonalty in equal shares.

Will of Wilkie Dodge (son of Samuel — son of
William Dodge who was son of Tristram (i).
Will dated Feb. 13, 1752— Rec. Lib. 18, p. 148 of
" Wilkie Dodge of Flushing, Queens Co. on Nassau
Island, Province of New York."

6o TRISTRAM DODGE
First Devises " to my son Samuel, lot of land at
Cow Neck, Nassau Island, near the land of my
father joining to the Creek."
Bequeaths to his daughter Sarah, and to his
youngest son, Jesse, each — certain silver plate.
Appoints as executors his father Samuel Dodge
and his brother Samuel Dodge and Mary Dodge,
wife. He was interred in the Quaker burial-ground at
Cow Neck.
Will of Samuel Dodge : (father of said Wilkie
born at Block Island, 1691, as above).
Dated New York, May 23, 1761. Proved N. Y.,
 , 1766. Lib. 23, p. 28.
After bequests for her life to his wife Elizabeth :
2. Devises Lot of land in Queen St. to his son
Jerejniah ; do. next Lot do. do. do. Samuel.
3. His whole estate (except as follows) to his
said two sons and daughter Deborah.
4. To his grandson, Samuel, son of Wilkie (de
ceased), " all that ground in Cow Neck, L. I., near
the house of Joseph Dodge, lying on the South
side of the road, that leads from said house up
the Neck between said road and the farm of Qliver
Baxter, be it more or less."

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 6l
His grandson Samuel Dodge, son of Wilkie as
above, was the Author's grandfather, and of the
fourth generation iii descent from Tristram (i), the
original settler of Block Island.
In this historic narrative the scene now changes
to Ulster County, State of New York, Township
of Marbletown, where it continues during part of
the war of the American Revolution, and finally
to the city of New York.
Ulster County, New York, in 1683, by the Colo
nial Governor, Lovelace, was organized by Charter
dated ist November, " to contain the towns of
Kingston, Hurley, Marbletown, Foxhall, and the
New Paltz, with all villages, neighborhoods, and
Christian inhabitants, from the Murderer's Creek
near the Highlands to the Sawyer's Creek."
Orange County, formed also in 1683, comprises
all the region West of Hudson River and South of
Murderer's Creek.
Both counties were then the wilderness frontier,
and without any attempt at settled boundaries, till
1774, and the Colonial Act " To run the boundary
of Ulster and Orange County, from the East side of
the Shawangunk Mountains to the Delaware River."
Ulster County included the country generally be-

62 TRISTRAM DODGE
tween the Hudson and Delaware Rivers. In 1797,
part of Delaware County; 1800, part of Green
County ; 1809, part of Sullivan County were an
nexed ; and in 1798, part of Ulster County was
annexed to Orange County.
By 1809 the two counties attained their present
bounds. During the Revolutionary period, that ensued so
soon after the first colonial act (1774), " to run the
boundary between Ulster and Orange Counties,"
there was no time to survey and map boundaries
of the vast unexplored wilderness called " Ul
ster," from his native county in Ireland, by Gov.
Lovelace, at the same time when he took posses
sion for James II., Duke of York, of the Dutch
fort " Ronduit," on Hudson River, and their walled
town, which he named " Kingston," and the next
Dutch " Nieuw Dorp," that he named "Hurley:"
both from his home in Ireland.
In fact, throughout the Revolution, the two coun
ties formed one; the inhabitants of Ulster being
designated as of Orange County, and those of
Orange called of Ulster County.
Marbletown was patented June 25, 1703, to Col.
Henry Beekman and associates — thirteen in all —
who held all the lands in common, till surveys and

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 63
allotments made were filed under the State law of
1783. The town was organized in 1788.
It was an old settlement at the time of the Revolu
tion, but with undefined boundaries. There was no
other settlement south of it to the Delaware River ;
and until long after the Revolution Marbletown
was the name of the whole unexplored frontier re
gion of Ulster County, extending along the Esopus
and Rondout creeks. The origin of the name is
from the large deposit of a very hard white lime
stone there, still abundant, and in those days re
puted to be a good building marble.
This town now lies on the old High Road
south-west from the city of Kingston, to the Del
aware River, along the Isthmus of fertile farms be
tween the Rondout and Esopus creeks; in their
Valley guarded on the west by the Shawangunk
Range ; and on the east by the Shandaken or lower
Catskill Mountains.
The settlement was on Rondout and Esopus
creeks. The mountains were the war-paths of the
hostile Indians ; of whom the Six Nations, under
their chief (of the Mohawks), Joseph Brandt, were
subsidized through the brutal policy of the British
Government, by treaty with Sir Guy Carleton at
Montreal, Governor of Canada, through the price of

64 TRISTRAM DODGE
a guinea for each white scalp delivered there ; to
every extent of murder and rapine in their stealthy
and frequent raids upon the scattered settlers of the
frontier valleys.
The family record of the parents of my grand
father, which he must have had, is now lost ; per
haps in their burning home in Rondout Valley.
His life-period was perhaps from 1740-1800, and
he was doubtless born at Cow Neck on the home
stead farm of his grandfather, whose name he
bore. He married Deborah, daughter of Dr. Robert
North, of Dutchess County, New York (born in
London, England), about 1769, and settled in
Marbletown, Ulster County.
By contemporary evidence from a deed by John
Allen and wife to Robert North (1764), of a lot of
land in Rosevelt Street, New York City, witnessed
by Samuel Dodge, my grandfather and his father-
in-law were inhabitants of New York City in 1764;
where probably the marriage, whose evidence is lost,
occurred. Samuel Dodge, my grandfather, with his wife
were early settlers in Marbletown, upon the banks
of Rondout Creek not far from Hurley ; and here

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 65
his earlier children were born. The six children
subsequent to 1779 were born in New York City.
At Marbletown.
Wilkie Dodge, born 1771.
Mary " 1773, August 9.
Daniel " 1775, April 5.
Moses " 1777, January 5.
Robert — my father — 1779, April 17;
died 1825, December 14, at New York.

At New York City.
James born 1781, April 8.
Andrew " 1783, June 4.
Katharine " 1785, October.
Margaret " 1787, February 2.
Charles " 1790, March 25.
Katharine (2) " 1792, January 16.
All of those, now deceased, left no surviving rep
resentatives. Grandfather had been long married, and settled
in Marbletown, when the first shot at Lexington,
Massachusetts, April 19, 1775, was fired " around
the world."
" Upon tidings of the battle of Lexington," says
Colonel Marinus Willett, in his narrative (1795) of
5

66 TRISTRAM DODGE
" Proceedings in New York City," " the most ac
tive of the citizens formed themselves into a vol
untary corps, assumed the command of the city,
and possessed themselves of the keys of the custom
house and public stores.
"There was a general stagnation of business;
armed citizens constantly paraded about the city
without any definite object. The British garrison
was confined to their barracks (in the Park), etc.
The unsystematic and confused manner in which
things were conducted manifested the necessity of
forming some regular plan of government ; to effect
which a meeting of the citizens was requested at
the merchant's coffee-house ; where it was unani
mously agreed that the government should be
placed in the hands of a committee, and solemn
resolutions entered into to support these measures
until further provision should be made by the Con
tinental Congress which was shortly to meet in
Philadelphia. " The sacred honor of the citizens being pledged at
the same time to support the measures of Congress.
A committee of one hundred citizens was then formed
and the pledge of Association generally signed."
Gaine's New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury,
for Monday, May i, 1775, says:

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 6^
" The following Association was set on foot here
last Saturday (April 29), and on that day it was
signed by one hundred of our principal inhabitants.
It is to be transmitted to all the counties in the
province, where we make no doubt it will be signed
by all ranks of people."
(Annexing a copy of the following General Asso
ciation.) " Calendar of Papers and MSS. of the Revolution,
N. Y., 1868.
" General Association," Goshen, Orange Co.
April 29, 1775.
"A general association agreed to and submitted
by the Freeholders and Inhabitants of the County
of Orange in the Province of New York.
" Persuaded that the salvation of the rights and
liberties of America depends, under God, on the
firm union of its inhabitants, in a vigorous prosecu
tion of the measures necessary for its safety ; and
convinced of the necessity of preventing the anarchy
and confusion which attend a dissolution of the
powers of government : We, the freemen, free
holders, and inhabitants of the County of Orange,

68 TRISTRAM DODGE
being greatly alarmed at the avowed designs of the
ministry to raise a revenue in America, and shocked
by the bloody scenes now acting in Massachusetts
Bay : Do, in the most solemn manner, resolve never
to become slaves, and do associate, under all the
ties of religion, honor, and love to our country; to
adopt, and endeavor to carry into execution what
ever measures may be recommended by the Conti
nental Congress, or resolved upon by the Provincial
Congress, for the purpose of preserving our consti
tution, and opposing the execution of the several
arbitrary and oppressive acts of the British Parlia
ment, until a reconciliation between Great Britain
and America on constitutional principles (which we
most ardently desire) can be obtained ; and that we
will in all things follow the advice of our respective
committees respecting the purposes aforesaid, the
preservation of peace and good order and the safety
of individuals and private property.
"Adopted in Marbletown, Ulster Co.
5 June, 1775. Levi Pawling, Chairman.
" Signed (with many others)
Samuel Dodge."

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 69
In the same Calendar we also find the following
petition :
" PETITION FROM MARBLETOWN, ULSTER COUNTY.
" Marbletown, March, 1776.
" To the Hon. the Provincial Congress for the Prov
ince of New York :
"The petition of Josiah Robertson, JohannisTack
and others, of Marbletown, in the county of Ulster,
Province of New York, Humbly sheweth, that
whereas the Township of Marbletown, formerly con
tained a sufficient number of men for three distinct
companies of militia, which although increased
since that time, was by the committee of said town,
for local convenience only, divided into two beats
or districts, and now form two companys of up
wards of one hundred men each. And whereas cer
tain dissatisfactions have arisen about the choice of
a Capt" in the Southwest district of said Town
ship, which we humbly conceive may have an evil
tendency to disunite the good people of this town,
if some suitable remedy be not applied in time.
And whereas it is judged that the most effectual
method for removing dissatisfactions from among
us would be for to raise a Company of Grenadiers,
under the command of Charles W. Brodhead, Capt.,

70 TRISTRAM DODGE
Jacob Delamater, 1st Lieutenant, Moses M. Can-
tine, 2d Lieutenant, and Jacob Chambers, Ensign.
We therefore having obtained the previous ap
probation of the commanding officer of this Regi
ment, together with ye Committee and ye officers
of ye militia of said township. Humbly pray that
we may be imbodyed into a company of Grenadiers
in said Regiment and that the said Charles W.
Brodhead, Jacob Delamater, Moses M. Cantine and
Jacob Chambers may be commissioned as above
mentioned, and your Petitioners shall ever pray."
(Signed with 69 others, whose representatives are
still inhabitants of Marbletown) by Samuel Dodge.
(Indorsed March 20, 1776.) "Petition of the
Marbletonians. They are grown to the stature of
Grenadiers. Let them be commanded as such by
Charles W. Brodhead. Amen."
In 1778 said Samuel Dodge signs the petition to
Gov. George Clinton, of the inhabitants of Roches
ter, then lately organized from Marbletown, for pro
tection against the Indians.
The organization of the Revolutionary American
armies was very imperfect and but few traces re
main. It is believed that these Grenadiers were

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 7 1
soon mustered into service and marched to join
Gen. Gates at Saratoga, in which victory grand
father shared, and continued with the army till
after 1779, when he returned to New York City,
where he died.
Robert Dodge, my father, was born as above at
Marbletown, Ulster County, New York, April 17,
1779; and in August ensuing his mother fled with
him, her infant fifth child, on a raft upon the Ron
dout Creek and Hudson River at night, their path
lighted by the flames of their cottage that perished
amid the yells of the savages and Tories, to his
future home — New York City ; in which he was
reared and passed his life. His mother was alone
in her hour of trial ; grandfather being absent on
duty in the army under General Gates. She took
with her all her five children, the oldest being only
of eight years. Grandfather joined them in New
York City soon after, on leaving the army.
The plundering and burning raid of the Indians
and Tories had destroyed nearly all the family prop
erty ; and the nurture and education of a large
family was due to their sterling energy and thrift.
" Robert learned his trade." In those early days,
few began life with any other resource ; and the

72 TRISTRAM DODGE
founders of the best of our city families, now con
spicuous for antiquity and wealth, were mostly me
chanics. His fellow-apprentices were Gerardus and
William Post, Stephen Allen, John Targee, Jacob
Harsen, and many other equally well-known and hon
ored citizens, who achieved their own fortunes and
high stations as the just reward of their useful lives.
Father was an officer of the City Artillery
stationed at Fort Green in 1812 ; also an active
life-long member of the Mechanics' Society and of
the Volunteer Fire Department of the city ; assist
ant foreman of Company No. 15, to Mr. Peterson,
and his successor ; also of the Society of Tammany
at its origin, when representing the spirit and pre
cepts of Jefferson and Tompkins.
In the New York City Directory (vol. 23) for
1812-13 is an appendix, in which, as advertisement,
is a very copious account of the origin, purposes,
and organization of the Tammany Society, their
processions, celebrations, etc., signed by all the
officers and Sachems in their quaint style and titles.
Sachem of the South Carolina or Raccoon Tribe
Robert Dodge.
On the same page appears Stephen Allen as Sa
chem of the New Jersey or Tortoise Tribe.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 73
It is part of our earliest civic memories how these
honored fathers appeared as Sachems in Indian
bravery, leading the hosts of Tammany's warriors
in many a city procession and pageant.
He was conspicuous in devotion to duty in every
relation, and especially as an officer in the Fire De
partment, at the first fire of the old Park Theatre,
and the wide desolation, in 181 1, of the great fire in
Chatham Street, where he led his men into the
seething flames repeatedly, saving lives and prop
erty. To such fearless exposure and self-sacrifice
might be attributed the paralysis which so early
(1824) checked his manly vigor and fatally termi
nated his life after a year's illness, December 14,
1825, in his forty-seventh year.
Robert Dodge and Eliza Pollock Fowler were mar
ried at New York City, January 3d, 1801.
Children :
Ellen R. Dodge, born 1801, October 16; died
1802, September 23.
Samuel N. Dodge, born 1802, December 4 ; died
1865, April 14.
Mary E. Dodge, born 1804, November 17; died
1885, November 2.
Robert and William, born 1806, September 20;

74 TRISTRAM DODGE
died, Robert, 1807, January 8 ; William, 1864,
July 12.
George R. Dodge, born 1809, February 20; died
1866, August.
Robert E. Dodge, born 1811, September 20; died
18 1 2, August 10.
Martha A. Dodge, born 1813, January 17.
Henry S. Dodge, born 1815, November 12; died
1855, September 17.
John R. Dodge, born 1818, May, 16; died 1828,
September 2.
Robert Dodge, born 1820, December 15.

Eliza P. Dodge, my venerated mother, whose hon
ored membership of the Baptist Church in New
York City for over fifty years, as well as her model
life of beneficence, made her so widely known and
beloved, was born at Bayside, near Flushing, Long
Island, on the loth day of September, 1783, and
she died in New York City, loth November, 1863.
She wore the silver crown of eighty years for just
two months — " when she was not, for God took her."
Their sons have proved not unworthy.
Samuel North Dodge was for some years Presi
dent of the Seventh Ward Bank, New York City,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 75
and few in the busy city attached a larger circle of
valued friends.
George Rtker Dodge long resided in Baltimore,
where he died. He was a prominent Unionist there,
when, in the late Civil War, the rebels in that city
sought to draw Maryland into the Confederacy. On
July lO, 1861, by order of General Banks, in com
mand, he was appointed Marshal of Police, or Pro
vost Marshal at Baltimore ; and by the order of Gen
eral Banks's successor, Major-General John A. Dix,
he arrested the Mayor of the city and the delegates
to the State Legislature, and saved the city and
State in the Union.
Scharff's History of Maryland, vol. 3, pp. 439-41,
says: " Gen. N. P. Banks, in command at Fort McHenry.
" Baltimore, /?</)/ lo, 1861.
" By virtue of authority vested in me, as com
manding officer of this Department, I have ap
pointed, and do hereby appoint, George R. Dodge,
Esquire, of Baltimore, Marshal of Police : and Colo
nel John R. Kenly, who, being relieved of this serv
ice, at his own request, now assumes command of

76 TRISTRAM DODGE
the First Regiment of Maryland Volunteers, on the
Upper Potomac, in the State of Maryland.
"N. P. Banks,
" U. S. Maj.-Gen."
"The appointment of Mr. Dodge, as Provost
Marshal of Baltimore, was accompanied by the.
withdrawal of the troops from the central part of
the city ; and from that time until the restoration
of peace, the Police Department of Baltimore was
under the military power of the Federal Govern
ment.""To George R. Dodge, Esq.,
" Provost Marshal. " 12 September, 1861.
" Arrest without one hour's delay : George Wil
liam Brown, Mayor of Baltimore, and the within
named delegates to the Legislature. "Jno. a. Dix,
" U. S. Maj.-Gen."
Henry Swartwout Dodge was a distinguished
member of the Bar of New York City, and, from
excessive professional labor, died in his fortieth
year. Samuel North Dodge married (1837) Clara Whit-

and HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. T]
ing, sister of the late Hon. James R. Whiting, emi
nent as District Attorney and Justice of the Su
preme Court of New York.
Their eldest daughter, Clara, is wife of Henry
Morton, Ph.D., President of the Stevens Institute
of Technology, Hoboken, N. J., and of much scien
tific repute.
Mrs. Eliza P. Gibson, widow, her sister, are all
that survive of his family.
Henry Swartwout Dodge married (1836) Mary
D. L. M. Moore (died 1848) ; he died Septem
ber 17, 1855, leaving his daughter, Katharine
Alice Dodge, and his son, Henry M. Dodge,
who married (1880) Annie B. Keeler. One
child, Harold Dodge.
Robert Dodge married (May 16, 1867) M. Annie
Roe, daughter of the late Charles Roe, Bay-
side, Long Island.
Martha Ann Dodge married (August 9, 1841) A. L.
DeCamp, only surviving child, R. L. DeCamp.
Wilkie Dodge (father of my grandfather) and his
wife, Mary (daughter of Thomas Hunt, of
Hunt's Point, Westchester County, New
York, born 1725), died, New York, July 23,
1796.

78 TRISTRAM DODGE
Children :
Samuel.
Wilkie, died 1778, at Hunt's Point.
Sarah, born May 24, 1749, died. New York, Janu
ary 24, 1795, interred at St. Paul's, East
Chester, married (June 3, 1769) Comfort
Sands, who was early prominent as a Whig
patriot of New York City, and merchant,
Commissary General of the Revolutionary
Army and Commissioner of Accounts.
Wilkie Dodge died at Cow Neck, Long Island.
He was a ship-builder at Whitestone (town
of Flushing, Long Island) for many years,
where he lived till shortly before his death
(by consumption), he moved to Cow Neck.
Comfort Sands, born at Cow Neck, Long Island,
early settled as a merchant in New York City,
and was active in resisting the British oppres
sion. In 1765, on the arrival at Burling Slipof
the brig from London, bringing the first cargo
of stamps, he aided in removing her bales of
stamped papers in the night, and in tak
ing them to the beach of Colonel Rutger's
farm (now Seventh Ward), East River, where
they were burned.
1774. Member of the first Continental Congress

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 79
and one of Committee of Sixty, to secure
compliance with their resolutions of non
importation.
1775. On the tidings of the conflict at Lexington
reaching New York City, by the meeting of
citizens, he was appointed and served on the
Committee of One Hundred, to see to the
" execution of the non-importation resolve,
and. provide for the public safety."
In 1776, the Non-Importation Association with
his signature was published.
1775, November 7, he was elected to the Provin
cial Congress, serving until June 30, 1776,
and also as one of the pay table, and on the
Committee of Safety. In 1776, appointed
Auditor General of the State of New York,
serving until 1782.
1777. One of the Commissioners appointed by the
Continental Congress for New York to meet
at New Haven with members from other
States, to regulate prices of articles for army.
He was baptized and communed in St. Paul's
Church, New York City, in 1767, the year of
its erection, and was its oldest member at
his death in 1834 (in Hoboken, New Jersey).
1784. On the organization of the "Bank of New

8o TRISTRAM DODGE.
York," March 17, 1784, he was chosen on the
first Board of Directors. It was then the
only bank in the city ; and, relatively, the
Directors were like Governors of the Bank of
England.

CHAPTER VL
JEREMIAH Dodge, brother of Wilkie, above
named, and uncle of my grandfather, born at
Cow Neck, Long Island, May, 1716, died at
New York City, 1800, married October 6,
1737, Margaret Vanderbilt (born 171 8; died.
New York, 1804).
True to ancestral faith, Jeremiah Dodge planted
the first Baptist Church in New York City. Dr.
Robert North, from London, and Samuel Dodge, of
my kindred, joined with him from the outset.
In 1745, at the house of Jeremiah Dodge, in New-
York City, the Baptists first gathered in prayer
meetings, at which Dr. Robert North and a few
more regularly attended every week. He and Dr.
North invited the Rev. John Pyne, of Fishkill, to
preach to their meeting, and he officiated till his
death, 1750; when they united with the church at
Scotch Plains, New Jersey, and its pastor, Rev.
Benjamin Miller, preached to them at intervals from
1753. The assembly increased so much that they

82 TRISTRAM DODGE
hired a larger room in a rigging-loft in Cart and
Horse Lane (now William Street, from Fulton to
John Street) for one year, after which they con
tinued their meetings at the house of Joseph Meeks
for a year.
In 1760, they bought part of a lot on Golden
Hill (John Street).
In 1762, the first or earliest Baptist Church of
New York City was organized with about twenty
members, in the Golden Hill Meeting-House,
Jeremiah Dodge,
Dr. Robert North,
Samuel Dodge, and
Margaret Dodge, its first members, are justly to
be recorded as the Patriarch founders of the denom
ination in New York City.
Their first pastor was the Rev. Stephen Gano.
He was a leading patriot, and early became Chaplain
in the Revolutionary Army, New York Line, serv
ing until the Peace. In 1787 (according to a letter
from New York City, by Hon. William Grayson to
James Monroe, 22d October, 1787), " Rev. Dr. Gano,
with his whole congregation, about five hundred,
would, it was said, early leave to settle in the new
lands of the Ohio purchase." '
Dr. Gano, with some associates, soon after settled

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 83
in the Ohio purchase, where he lived till his death.
The society remained.
The Records of the present First Baptist Church,
New York City, begin on June 12, 1762, and of those
members of the church at Scotch Plains dismissed, as
above stated, to form the above church in New
York City, are :
Jeremiah Dodge,
Samuel Dodge, and
Margaret Dodge, who sign Covenant on organiza
tion June 19, 1762.
Samuel Dodge (born 1730) was chosen clerk, and
Rev. Stephen Gano, pastor.
From its locality, it was then popularly known
as the " Golden Hill Baptist Meeting."
1770. June 4.
Jeremiah Dodge, \ Dismissed to form Second
Margaret Dodge, I Baptist Church, N. Y. City,
Samuel Dodge, ) in Fayette, now Oliver St.
Samuel Dodge, baptized 1756.
Margaret Dodge, " 1805, August 6.
Eliza P. Dodge, " 1810, June 6, in the First
Baptist Church, and on February 10, 1812, dis
missed, at their request, to unite with the (Second)
Baptist Church in Fayette (OHver) Street, whose

84 TRISTRAM DODGE
pastor was the Rev. John Williams, father of the
late Rev. Dr. W. R. Williams.
Jeremiah Dodge, born May, 1716, died in N. Y.,
1800. Married, October 6, 1737,
Margaret Vanderbilt, born 171 8, died April, 1804.
Rev. John Dodge, Pleasant Valley, Dutchess Co.,
N. Y., born February 22, 1738, died April 13,
1816.
Samuel Dodge, born August 9, 1758, died Octo
ber 20, 1820.
Jeremiah Dodge, born October 15, 1755, died
September 24, 181 3.
Margaret Dodge, born July 23, 1745, died April,
1823.
Marcia Dodge, born January 12, 175 1.
Mary Dodge, born June 7, 1753, died October 21,
1755-
Elizabeth Dodge.
Rev. John Dodge (Baptist), born February 22,
1738, died April 13, 1816.
Thrice married: ist, married, Decem
ber 23, 1759,
Elizabeth Denton, born September 30, 1741, died
March 8, 1762.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 85
Jeremiah Dodge, M.D., Dutchess Co., N. Y., born
May 18, 1761, died September 11, 1842.
2d, Married, February 7, 1763,
Annie Smith, born April 2, 1741, died May 13,
1774-
Anna Dodge, born December 27, 1763, died Sep
tember I, 1764.
John Dodge, born October 7, 1768, died October
16, 1768.
Phineas Dodge, born February 2, 1772, died June
16, 1772. 3d, Married, October 13, 1777,
Keziah Newcomb, born November 7, 1758, died
February i, 18 14.
John Dodge, M.D., Clinton, N. Y., born July 7,
1778, died October 27, 1849.
Samuel K. Dodge, Honcsdale, Pa., born October
12, 1779, died September 12, 1863.
Elizabeth Dodge, born June 29, 1782, died June
29, 1855.
David S. Dodge, Alton, 111., born December 23,
1783, died November 2, 1872.
Margaret Dodge, born February 27, 1786, died
August 8, 1788.
Sarah Dodge, born March 17, 1788, died April,
1874.

86 TRISTRAM DODGE
Marcia Dodge, born August i6, 1790, died Sep
tember II, 1854.
Adam T. Dodge, Brooklyn, N. Y., born July 23,
1792, died October 8, 1872.
Cyrenius N. Dodge, New York, born August 13,
1794, died February 14, 1863.
Margaret Dodge, born December 21, 1796, died
December 25, 1850.
Edwin Dodge, died Grand Gulf, Miss., born De
cember 21, 1798, died October 9, 1836.
Keziah Dodge, born February 17, 1801, died 1865.
Samuel Dodge, born August 9, 1758,
Married
Ann Stansbury, of Baltimore, Md.
No children.
Jeremiah Dodge, born October 15, 1755, died
September 24, 1813.
Married
Sarah Frost, born February 26, 1762, died No
vember 29, 1824.
John Dodge, born May 18, 1779, died December
6, 1831.
Jeremiah Dodge, born July 23, 1781, died January
II , 1 860.
Samuel Dodge.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 87
Margaret Dodge, born October 23, 1787,
Susan Dodge.
Adam Todd, born June 2, 1746,
Married
Margaret Dodge, born July 23, 1745, died April,
1823.
David Stodder, 2d,
Married
Marcia Dodge, born January 12, 1751.
WiUiam Halleck Married
Elizabeth Dodge.
Jeremiah Dodge, born May 18, 1761, died Sep
tember II, 1842. Married
Esther Lane.
David L. Dodge, born February 21, 1790, died
October 6, 1873.
Benjamin Dodge died single.
John Dodge,
Elizabeth Dodge.
John Dodge, born July 7, 1778, died October 27,
1849.

) TRISTRAM DODGE
Thrice married ; ist, married, October
26, 1803,
Sallie M. Hawkins, born October 19, 1788, died
April 10, 181 1.
Joseph Dodge, born July 15, 1804, died April 9,
1808.
Keziah C. Dodge, born May 7, 1806, died May 6,
1872.
Jeremiah Edwin Dodge, Lancaster, Wis., born
February 20, 1809, died 1877.
2d, married, December 22, 181 1,
Sophia Cheesman, born May 21, 1792, died Octo
ber II, 1827.
Nathaniel Dodge, born February 21, 1813, died
December 21, 1813.
John Dodge, M.D., Grant Co., Wis., born Novem
ber 5, 1816, died March 14, 1869.
Cheesman F. Dodge, N. Y., born March 22, 1817.
Samuel Dodge, M.D., Poughkeepsie, born August
26, 1819, died June 30, 1863.
Margaret Dodge, born October 16, 1821.
Robert L. Dodge, Judge Common Pleas, King
ston, Mo., born November 16, 1823.
David Dodge, Esq., Kerwin, Kansas, born January
20, 1826. 3d, married, December 18, 1828,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 89
Mehetable Mosher, born November 13, 1810, died
January 27, 1 841.
Sarah Dodge, born September 2, 1829.
Marcia E. Dodge, born March 29, 1831, died No
vember 27, 1878.
Benjamin Franklin Dodge, born July 15, 1832,
died Holly Springs, Miss., 1856.
Abraham Dodge, born July 22, 1838, died 1863,
killed in battle, last war, loth Reg. Wis. Vol.
Samuel S. Dodge, born October 12, 1779.
Stephen Dubois Married
Sarah Dodge, born March 17, 1788, died April,
1874.
Robert Lawrence Married
Marcia Dodge, born August 16, 1790, died Sep
tember II, 1854.
WiUiam Wilder Married
Keziah Dodge, born February 17, 1801, died 1865.
Edwin Dodge, born December 21, 1798, died
October 9, 1836.
Married, ist,

90 TRISTRAM DODGE
Annabella Dodge.
David L. Dodge, born February 21, 1 790, died
October 6, 1873.
Married
Mary Flagler, born January 31, 1793, died March
13, 1869.
Catharine M. Dodge, born July 13, 1813.
John A. Dodge, born October 16, 1818, died New
York, 1 88 1.
George Mosher
Married
Catharine M. Dodge, born July 13, 1813.
John A. Dodge, born October 16, 1818, died
1881.
Married, 1st,
Annie S. Brown, who died leaving son,
Henry C. Dodge,
Married, 2d,
Parthenia J. Stevenson.
William S. Dodge, died
Annie Dodge, died
John Dodge, died
William D. Dodge, died
Mary F. Dodge,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 9 1
Richard H. Dodge,
Elizabeth H. Dodge,
Cornelia A. Dodge, '
Edward L. Dodge.
Henry C. Dodge, eldest above, at the age of six
teen years, was appointed Cadet in the U. S. Mili
tary Academy, West Point, graduating in June,
1864; he was, as 2d Lieutenant, ordered to U. S. 2d
Artillery of the Potomac Army under Gen. Grant,
and served till the end of the war, and one year in
garrison at Fort Riley, Kansas. In 1870, the Second
Artillery was ordered to the Pacific Coast. He had
been promoted Captain, and was stationed at Port
land, Oregon ; and was thence ordered to Sitka, in
Alaska, where he remained in command for about
a year and a half, when his regiment being ordered
to the Atlantic Coast, was relieved by the 3d Artil
lery at Sitka. Captain Dodge was detained, to turn
over the U. S. property to his successor, until Janu
ary, 1873, when he left Sitka for Portland, in Ore
gon, on the steamer George H. Wright; which was
never heard from, but is supposed to have been lost
in a violent storm on her passage through Queen
Charlotte Sound. A revenue cutter in search found
fragments of wreck along the Sound, and learned

92 TRISTRAM DODGE
from the Indians of the coast that some U. S. officers
and men, escaping from a steamer wrecked in the
Sound, had been killed by the native savages.
The New York Times of November 30, 1881,
contains the following notice of the death of John
A. Dodge :
"Coh John A. Dodge (John A. Dodge & Co.,
Bankers, No. 12 Wall Street), died at his residence
No. 116 E. 52d Street on 28th inst. He had been
ailing since September last, but only for two weeks
since confined to his bed. He was born near Pough
keepsie, N. Y., Oct. 16, 1818, and at 17 years set
tled at Springport, near Auburn, N. Y., as a mer
chant, until the outbreak of the rebellion in 1861.
He was then Lieut.-Colonel 49th Regiment, N. Y.
S. M., risen from a private by long service in every
rank. He at once raised the 57th Regiment, N. Y.
Volunteers, was commissioned its Colonel, and led
it to Santa Rosa, Florida, where it was on duty dur
ing the greater portion of its time of service. He
took part in the bombardment of Pensacola, Fla.,
and many skirmishes. Ill health obliged him to
ask for discharge ; but this was refused from the
Government's need of his efficient service. He was
transferred to Hilton Head, S. C. ; but continuing
to fail rapidly, was relieved from duty, and returned

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 93
to Auburn, where he organized and became Presi
dent of the Dodge and Stevenson Manufacturing
Company of Mowers, Reapers, etc. He retired in
1873, and came to New York, engaging as a banker.
His death was from malarial fever contracted in
the war. He leaves a widow, three daughters, and
two sons. Funeral on Friday, 2d Dec. ; buried at
Fort Hill Cemetery, Auburn, N. Y."

John Wilber, born July 7, 1802,
Married (1825, December 15)
Keziah C. Dodge, born May 7, 1806, died May i,
1872.
Edwin J. Wilber, born December 30, 1826.
Mark D. Wilber, born August 12, 1829. U. S.
District Attorney, E. D. N. Y. (1886).
John W. Wilber, born , 1834.
Jeremiah E. Dodge, born February 20, 1809, died
 , 1877.
Married (1834), ist,
Rosanna Ashley, died , 1838.
Married (1843), 2d,
Rachel M. Ashley.
Rosanna Dodge,
Wilber Dodge,
Jeremiah Dodge,

94 TRISTRAM DODGE
John Dodge, born November 5, 1816, died March
14, 1867.
Married
Catharine E. Perrin.
Edwin Dodge,
Sarah Dodge,
John Dodge,
William Dodge,
Frank Dodge,
Lizzie Dodge.
Cheesman Dodge, born March 22, 1817,
Married Catharine Darling.
Samuel Dodge, born August 26, 1817, died Janu
ary 30, 1863.
Married Miss Rome, child, Clarence Dodge.
Milton Woolley married, December 15, 1839,
Margaret Dodge, born October 6, 1820.
Myron Woolley,
Robert D. Woolley,
William W. Woolley,
John J. Woolley,
Mary Woolley,
Martha Woolley,
Rachel Woolley,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 95
Eliza J. Woolley,
John M. Woolley.
Robert L. Dodge, born November 16, 1823,
Married, 2d,
Laura Kantz,
David Dodge, born January 20, 1826.
Elmer Fitch
Married
Sarah Dodge, born September 2, 1829.
George A. Vanderwater
Married
Marcia E. Dodge, born March 29, 1831.
Samuel Dodge, born August 9, 1758, second son
of Jeremiah, as above, enlisted at the age of sixteen
in the Revolutionary Army.
He became Ensign in the 4th New York Conti
nentals and was at the battle of Saratoga.
At the close of the war in 1783 he signed at New-
burgh, New York, the Institution of the Society of
the Cincinnati as Ensign.
He married Ann Stansbury, of Baltimore, Md.,
of which port he was appointed Collector. He left
no issue.
His cousin, of same name, born September, 1754,

96 ' TRISTRAM DODGE
hereinafter mentioned, also signed the Institution
of the Cincinnati as Captain. The latter left one
child, his son, Henry S. Dodge, who died in 1841.
David S. Dodge, born December 23, 1784, died
November 7, 1872, married
Nancy Rice, born July 6, 1784, died June 30,
1851.
Charles E. Dodge, born February 9, 18 10, died
April 17, 1875.
John Dodge, born October 14, 181 1, died Septem
ber 26, 1812.
Mary Dodge, born August li, 1813.
Rev. Henry W. Dodge, born November 16, 1815.
Harriet Dodge, born August 14, 1818, died May
24, 1847.
Margaret Dodge, born January 29, 1821, died April
27, i860.
John P. Dodge, born March 18, 1824.
Egbert Dodge, born October 4, 1826.
Charles E. Dodge, born February 9, 18 10, died
April 17, 1875.
Mary Dodge, born August 11, 1813.
Rev. Henry W. Dodge, born November 16, 181 5,
Married, 1st,
A. R. Brown, born July 23, 1816, died July 10,
1864.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 97
Mary E. Dodge, born August 19, 1840, died
August 25, 1841.
William E. Dodge, born February 21, 1843, died
October 17, 1844.
Daniel B. Dodge, born December 12, 1844, died
March i, 1853.
Margaret D. Dodge, born December 26, 1846.
Mary E. Dodge, born December 5, 1848, died
June 19, 1851.
Henry W. Dodge, Jr., born
Sarah E. Dodge, born November 15, 1853, died
1864.
Egbert M. Dodge, born 1863, died 1864.
Married, July 12, 1865,
Mrs. Ida B. Latham.
Clarence P. Dodge, born March 13, 1867.
William R. Dodge, born November, 1870.
William F. Kerfoot
Married, October 6, 1870,
.Margaret D. Dodge, born December 26, 1846.
Maria M. Kerfoot, born May 30, 1872.
Daniel B. Kerfoot, born May 12, 1874.
Susan E. Kerfoot, born October 12, 1878.
Samuel K. Dodge, born October 12, 1779, died
September 12, 1863.

98 TRISTRAM DODGE
Married, March, 1805, ist wife,
Hannah Cons, died March 10, 1806.
Keziah Dodge, born January 8, 1806, died July
30, 1863.
Married, September 9, 1807, 2d wife,
Isabella Balding, died May 7, 1820.
John S. Dodge, born August 14, 1808.
David E. Dodge, born February 14, 181 1.
William Dodge, born April 20, 18 13.
Cyrenius M. Dodge, born May 8, 1816.
George E. Dodge, born December 28, 1818.
Married, March 10, 183 1, 3d wife,
Fanny Huntington, died June 23, 1870.
No children.
Peter Pulis
Married
Keziah Dodge, born January 8, 1806, died July
30, 1863.
John S. Dodge, bom August 14, 1808,
Married
Emily A. Dodge, born 1831.
William E. Dodge, born 1833, died 1862.
John A. Dodge, born 1834, died 1862.
Abigal M. Dodge, born 1836.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 99
Ruth Dodge, born 1837.
Malcolm Dodge, born 1841.
Fidelia E. Dodge, born 1846.
Celeste E. Dodge, born 1848.
William Dodge, born April 20, 18 13,
Married, December 24, 1838,
Susan C. Maloney.
Samuel K. Dodge, born May 17, 1841.
Daniel Dodge, born July 11, 1843.
Cyrenius M. Dodge, born October 31, 1844.
Isabella Dodge, born February 4, 1847, died
August II, 1848.
Adeline Dodge, born November 17, 1849, died
April 23, 1870.
William B. Dodge, born September 9, 1852, died
August II, 1854.
Charles E. Dodge, born March 12, 1855.
Buel Dodge, born August 13, 1857.
Alice A. Dodge, born April 25, 1862.
Mitchell Married
Emily A. Dodge.
John N. Lukins
Married
Abigal M. Dodge, born 1836,

I GO TRISTRAM DODGE
Amos J. Mitchell
Married
Fidelia E. Dodge, born 1846.
R. C. Purvis
Married
Celeste E. Dodge, born 1848.
Samuel K. Dodge, born May 17, 1841,
Married, December 19, 1866,
Emma R. Snyder.
William L. Dodge, born June 12, 1869.
Addie Dodge, born February 15, 1874.
Florence Dodge, born March 11, 1877.
Myron S. Dodge, born April 4, 1879.
Daniel Dodge, born July 11, 1843,
Married, June 21, 1866,
Elizabeth T. Heath, born November 6, 1846.
Blanch H. Dodge, born September 2, 1870.
Daniel H. Dodge, born December 7, 1873, died
April 19, 1874.
Bertha M. Dodge, born February i, 1876.
Mary Dodge, born April 28, 1878, died January
25, 1879.
Robert G. Dodge, born May 20, 1880.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. lOI
Cyrenius M. Dodge, born October 31, 1844,
Married, March 22, 1874,
Sarah B. Cushman.
Susan F- Dodge, born June 6, 1875.
Frederick W. Dodge, born April 9, 1878.
Adam Todd Dodge, born July 23, 1792, died Oc
tober 8, 1872.
Married, November 25, 1821,
Martha King.
Children :
Stephen A. Dodge, born September 24, 1822.
Robert King Dodge, born June 23, 1824.
Adam T. Dodge, January 30, 1826, died January
24, 1830.
Adam T. (2) Dodge, born May 5, 1830.
William H. Dodge, born July 30, 1832.
Martha E. Dodge, born November 10, 1834, died
September 28, 1841.
Sarah K. Dodge, born June 18, 1837.
Stephen A. Dodge
Married, September 12, 1844,
Elizabeth Hurley.
Children :
Stephen A. Dodge, Jr., born July 10, 1845.
Margaret Dodge, born July 17, 1847.

I02 TRISTRAM DODGE
Robert K. Dodge, born August ii, 1849, died
January 25, 1852.
John K. Dodge, born August 17, 1855.
Mary E. Dodge, born April 4, 1857.
Adam T. Dodge, Jr.,
(First) married, June 6, 1849,
Virginia Pattison. No children.
(Second) married. May 29, 1862,
Irene E. Ayres, born May 16, 1834.
Child:
Chauncey F. Dodge, born December 31, 1866.
William Henry Dodge, born July 30, 1832,
Married, September 8, 1857,
Mary E. Dunn, born January 24, 1838.
Children :
Albert W. Dodge, born September 8, 1858.
George W. Dodge, born March 8, i860.
Henry M. Dodge, born July 29, 1866.
Elmer E. Dodge, born June 28, 1869.
Clarence B. Dodge, born March 18, 1868.
Stephen A. Dodge, Colonel of the 87th N. Y.
Volunteers, rose from the ranks to a Captaincy in
the 14th N. Y. S. M. After serving his full term in
the line, he was promoted to be Adjutant on the
staff of the late General P. S. Crooke. At the open-

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 103
ing of the war, he was advanced to " Chief of Staff,"
and at the end of the three months' term of the
State Militia he, with the late Colonel Smith of the
13th N. Y. S. M., recruited the 87th N. Y. Volun
teers in Brooklyn during the early fall of 1861.
The regiment, with Stephen A. Dodge as Colonel
(Smith having been killed by a railroad accident at
Plattsburgh, N. Y.), was mustered into the U. S.
service, November 20, 1861, and on arrival at Wash
ington was, at his request, transferred to the " Army
of the Potomac," and assigned to Jamison's Brigade,
Kearney's Division, Heinzelman's Corps, 7th Regi
ment. In the advance on Richmond, it shared in
the siege of Yorktown ; the affair at Peach Orchard ;
the battle of Williamsburgh ; among the first to
enter Fort Magruder ; then at Seven Pines, and Fair
Oaks, where the regiment was severely handled.
Colonel Dodge fell wounded, and in the retreat
was left on the field, with a Captain of the same
regiment. During the night they were picked up,
and cared for by General Roger A. Pryor's com
mand of Virginia ; taken to Libby Prison, and after
seven or eight weeks' imprisonment, the Captain
being convalescent, was sent to Andersonville Prison,
and Colonel Dodge exchanged for a Colonel of a
Mississippi regiment, and carried to Annapolis

I04 TRISTRAM DODGE.
Hospital. During his imprisonment and on the seven
days' retreat to Harrison Landing, the 87th was
greatly reduced, and the Lieutenant-Colonel taken
prisoner at Second Bull Run. The regiment num
bering only one hundred and thirty, it was consoli
dated, like numerous other decimated regiments,
by order of the War Department, with the 40th N.
Y. Volunteers ; the Secretary of War asking the
Governor of the State of New York to appoint
Colonel Dodge to a new command. As he was not
able then, and would not be for a year or more,
to do field service, being severely wounded in the
upper part of the left thigh, he was thereby com
pelled to resign, and received by the hand of Secre
tary Stanton an honorable muster out of the service.
Captain Adam Todd Dodge was a Captain in the
13th N. Y. S. M., and twice, when the regiment was
called to the field, with others responded to the call,
receiving favorable recognition for his promptness
and loyalty, although suffering from chronic disease.
William Henry Dodge also served his term, partly
in one of the New York City regiments and in the
13th N. Y. S. M.

CHAPTER VII.
Cyrenius N. Dodge, born August 13, 1794, died
February 14, 1863.
Married, January i, 1817,
Margaret Dodge, born October 23, 1787, died
February 23, 1863.
Children :
Sarah J. Dodge, born October i, 181 7, died June
16, 1880.
Margaret M. Dodge, born October 28, 1820, died
November 11, 1820.
Margaret E. Dodge, born March 25, 1822.
William M. Dodge, born September 27, 1824.
Charles B. Knudsen, born June 22, 1812,
Married, December 31, 1840,
Sarah J. Dodge, born October i, 1817, died June
16, 1880.
Children :
Charles A. Knudsen, born June 20, 1842, died
November 13, 1854.
Margaret D. Knudsen, born February 12, 1844.

I06 TRISTRAM DODGE
Sarah C. Knudsen, born February 6, 1846, died
July 13, 1847.
Mary E. Knudsen, born September 2, 1849, died
February 15, 1851.
Cyrenius Knudsen, born November 29, 185 1.
William D. Knudsen, September 20, 1857.
Alanson P. Brodt, born May 4, 1835,
Married, May 15, 1872,
Margaret D. Knudsen, born February 12, 1844.
Joseph F. Florentine, born August 28, 1818,
Married, September 16, 1850,
Margaret E. Dodge, born March 25, 1822.
Children :
Margaret D. Florentine, born October 31, 1851.
died August 11, 1852.
Sarah J. Florentine, born July 27, 1854.
William D. Florentine, born January 30, 1853.
Phebe M. Florentine, born February 4, 1856.
Mary Emma Florentine, born July 20, 1857.
Joseph F. Florentine, Jr., born October 24, 1859.
William D. Florentine
Married, November 10, 1874,
Annie E. Lemon.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. I07
Child :
William J. Florentine, born August 16, 1875.
Samuel W. Raimer, died October 8, 1879.
Married, October 31, 1877,
Mary Emma Florentine. No children.
William M. Dodge, born September 27, 1824,
(ist) Married, September 6, 1848,
Susan M. Hopkins, born February 23, 1825, died
August 7, 1853.
Child :
Edward Sanderson Dodge, born July 27, 1853,
died January 12, 1854.
(2d) Married, February 11, 1857,
Emma W. Sowers, born January 8, 1836, died
July 29, 1864.
Children :
Mary S. Dodge, born November i, 1857.
Margaret S. Dodge, born February 6, 1859.
Emma K. Dodge, born June 8, i860.
(3d) Married, May 16, 1866,
Mary L. Selfwich.
Children :
William L. Dodge, born March 9, 1867.
Annie L. Dodge, born May 15, 1870.
Robert E. Lee Dodge, born September 29, 1872.

I08 TRISTRAM DODGE
Jeremiah Dodge (2), born October 15, 1755, died
September 24, 1813.
(4th) Married
Sarah Frost, born February 26, 1762, died Novem
ber 29, 1824.
Children :
John Dodge, born May 18, 1779, died December
6, 1831.
Jeremiah Dodge (3), born July 23, 1781, died
January 11, i860.
Samuel Dodge.
Margaret Dodge.
John Dodge, born May 18, 1779, died December
6, 1831. Married, August 16, 1804,
Jane Evans, born March, 1785, died November 20,
i860.
Children :
Sarah Dodge, born July i, 1806.
Elinor M. Dodge, born July 5, 1808, died Novem
ber 20, 1862.
Titus E. Dodge, born June 25, 1810.
John Dodge, born September 26, 1812, died
August 3, 1814.
Jane Dodge, born January 23, 1815.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. IO9
Abraham L. Boyer, born October 4, 1803, died
August 24, 1880.
Married, May 9, 1829,
Sarah Dodge, born July I, 1806.
Children :
Mary J. Boyer,
Samuel D. Boyer,
Abraham Boyer,
William H. Boyer,
William L. Boyer,
Elinor H. Boyer,
Mary L. Boyer,
Daniel Boyer,
Hattie Boyer.
Oliver P. Hicks, died April 28, 1857,
Married, December 21, 1842,
Elinor M. Dodge, born July 5, 1808, died Novem
ber 20, 1862.
Child :
Oliver P. Hicks, Jr., born 1846.
Titus E. Dodge, born June 25, 1810,
Married, August 17, 1831,
Mary Cumberson, born July 28, 1808, died
Children :
Jane Dodge, born July 4, 1832, died May 5, 1849.

no TRISTRAM DODGE
John L. Dodge, born February 12, 1835.
William E. Dodge, born June 14, 1837, died
November 6, 1839.
Margaret Dodge, born September 15, 1840.
Mary E. Dodge, born February 4, 1843, died
August 12, 1867.
William C. Dodge, born November 21, 1844, died
March 2, 1847.
Sarah Dodge, born August 29, 1847, died Septem
ber 4, 1848.
Sophia B. Dodge, born February 9, 1849.
Henry P. Dodge, born December — , 1855, died
February 22, 1856.
William Salt
Married, May 13, 1835,
Jane Dodge, born January 23, 1815.
Children :
William Salt,
John Salt,
Phebe J. Salt,
Elinor Salt,
Wellington Salt,
Caroline Salt,
Mary Salt,
Daniel Salt,
Sarah Salt.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. Ill
Samuel Dodge
Married
Jane Mclntyre.
Children :
Elizabeth Dodge,
Jane Dodge,
Peter Dodge.
John L. Dodge, born February 12, 1835,
Married
Ellen Anderson, born October 25, 1844.
Children :
William T. Dodge, born November 25, 1864.
Edith Dodge, born April 29, 1868.
Walter Dodge, born September 19, 1876.
Geo. B. St. John
Married
Margaret Dodge, born September 15, 1840.
No children.
Wm. H. Dermott, born January 24, 1844,
Married, April 8, 1869,
Sophia B. Dodge, born February 9, 1849.
Children :
Ellen Dermott, born December 21, 1870.
John T. Dermott, born January 17, 1874.
Margaret Dermott, born December 24, 1880.

112 TRISTRAM DODGE
Jeremiah Dodge (3), born July 23, 1781, died
January 11, i860.
Married, November 16, 1805,
Eliza Brown, born April 15, 1783, died June 17,
i860.
Children :
Charles J. Dodge, born December 7, 1806.
Sarah A. Dodge, born August 10, 1808, died April
16, 1877.
Jeremiah (4) Dodge, born August 30, 18 10, died
October, 1867.
William H. Dodge, born September 6, 1812.
Edward M. Dodge, born August 17, 18 16, died
November, 1874.
James P. Dodge, born October 30, 1818.
Eliza J. Dodge, born November 19, 1820, died
December 17, 1831.
John R. Dodge, born May 30, 1823.
Charles J. Dodge, born December 7, 1806,
Married (ist). May 31, 1825,
Maria J. Iliad, born 1808, died 1829.
Child :
Maria E. Dodge, born June 7, 1829, died July 17,
1830.
Married (2d), June 14, 1832,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. II3
Mary F. Lowerree, born September 27, 181 1.
Children :
Samuel W. L. Dodge, born December 8, 1833,
died November 5, 1836.
Rebecca L. Dodge, born August 8, 1836.
Maria J. J. (wife W. L. Dubois), born June i,
1838.
Eliza J. Dodge, born March 29, 1839, died June
II, 1840.
Frances O. R. Dodge, born August 8, 1841.
Robert M. G. Dodge, born July 3, 1843.
Mary L. Dodge, born July 6, 1845.
Amelia T. Dodge, born July 8, 1847.
John Ewen Dodge, born April 24, 1849.
Charlotte F. Dodge, born September 25, 1850,
died March 6, 1852.
Frances O. R. Dodge
Married, April 14, 1863,
Josiah P. Marquand.
Charles J. D. Marquand, born June 5, 1864, died
June 13, 1868.
Elizabeth M. Marquand, born October 20, 1865.
Hetty W. Marquand, born July 14, 1870.
Edwin Marquand, born October 3, 1875.
Robert M. G. Dodge
8

114 TRISTRAM DODGE
Married, May 23, 1865,
Lydia G. Webster, born 1846.
Stephen Webster Dodge, born June 9, 1866.
Charles J. Dodge, born June 12, 1868.
Robert M. G. Dodge, born August 18, 1871-
Amos F. H. Dodge, born July 9, 1875.
Lydia Webster Dodge, born October 5, 1879.
Amelia T. Dodge
Married, February 6, 1872,
George L. Hulin.
David Hulin, born November 6, 1872.
AHce M. Hulin, born August 18, 1876.
Caroline B. Hulin, born December 5, 1877.
Georgiana D. B. Hulin, born August 5, 1881.
John Ewen Dodge
Married, April 24, 1870,
Hannah J. Chapin.
Mary F. Dodge, born July 14, 1871.
Rebecca L. Dodge, born September 30, 1872.
Charles J. Dodge, Sr., died January 31, 1886,
in his 80th year. Like his father, he was widely
known and of deserved merit as ship carver in New
York City, where he always resided until about
twelve years before his death, when he settled at
146 Keap Street, Brooklyn, E. D.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. II5
He was for many years Colonel of the Tenth
Regiment N. Y. S. M. ; for over thirty years School
Trustee and Commissioner; Alderman of his (nth)
Ward from 1835 to 1846; prominent as a Free
mason, and one of the founders and active mem
bers of the Leiderkranz Musical Society.
In all this varied and engrossing activity, he was
warmly loved, honored, and lamented by a wide
circle of friends, whose good esteem was his well-
earned reward.
John R. Dodge, born March 18, 1824,
Married, 1855,
Elizabeth Lawrence.
John R. Dodge, Jr.,
Charles Dodge,
Mary Dodge,
Flora P. Dodge.
Charles E. Dodge, born February 9, 18 14, died
April 18, 1876.
Married twice. No issue.
Egbert Dodge, born October 4, 1826.
Married, January 27, 1852,
Sarah L. Sherwood.

II 6 TRISTRAM DODGE
Children :
Thomas J. Dodge, born January 2, 1853, died
September 27, 1853.
Adiel S. Dodge, born August 19, 1854.
Raymond E. Dodge, born May 10, 1856.
Emma C. Dodge, born January 25, 1858, died
January 19, i860.
Bulicka M. Dodge, born October 22, 1859, died
May 26, 1864.
Ernest C. Dodge, born February n, 1862.
Henry W. Dodge, born June 16, 1864.
David N. Dodge, born December 15, 1866.
Egbert Dodge, Jr., born January 15, 1869, died
July 30, 1870.
Egbert G. Dodge, born June i, 1873.
Wm. Halleck Dodge, born September 6, 1812,
died July 29, 1838.
Married, January 30, 1832,
Mary A. Bissell, born November 25, 1809.
Children :
Jeremiah P. B. Dodge, born October 17, 1832.
Wm. H. Dodge, born October 28, 1836, died June
2, 1838.
Edwin M. Dodge, born December i, 1838.
Jeremiah P. B. Dodge,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. II7
First, married, February 18, 1857,
Jane E. Wilson, died August 18, 1865.
Children :
Jane E. Dodge, born December 5, 1857.
Harriet M. Dodge, died September i, 1866.
Jeremiah P. B. Dodge,
Second, married, October 17, 1866,
Harriet A. Wilson.
Children :
Jeremiah V. Dodge,
Harriet A. Dodge,
Edwin V. Dodge,
Sarah A. Dodge.
Jane E. Dodge
Married
F. C. Brown.
Edward M Dodge, born August 17, 18 16, died
November, 1874.
Married
Sarah A. Webb, born October 29, 18 19.
Children :
Sarah E. Dodge, born September 13, 1840, died
March 29, 1855.
Emma L. Dodge, born September 6, 1843.

Il8 TRISTRAM DODGE.
Mary J. Dodge, born December lo, 1845.
Amos C. Dodge, born March 22, 1848.
Edward M. Dodge, born August 17, 1850.
Bertram H. Dodge, born October 29, 1852.
Charlotte A. Dodge, born February 3, 1855.
Kennedy F. Dodge, born March n, 1857.
Jerry S. Dodge, born December 29, 1858, died
July 20, 1859.
Amelia S. Dodge, born December 29, 1858.
John F. Dodge, born June 11, 1861.
Emma L. Dodge
Married
John W. Murray.
Mary J. Dodge
Married
Edward P. Wilson.

CHAPTER VIII.
Samuel Dodge, brother of Jeremiah, first above
named, and great-grandson of Tristram Dodge,
the original settler (1661) of Block Island, was
the second son of Samuel Dodge and his wife
Elizabeth (testator in the above will probated
1766). He was born at Cow Neck, L. I.,
O. S. March 29, N. S. April 9, 1730; married
Helena Amerman in New York, August 4,
1753 (she was born May i, 1735, died 1817).
He died at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., October 4,
1807.
He was of marked studious tastes, pursuing the
science of astronomy to the close of his long life ;
at the age of seventy-five years he calculated with
precision the coming eclipses for a century ; and his
elaborate work thereon, with diagrams, in his orig
inal manuscript, is still preserved ; with occasional
poems, that would be justly preferred to much of
the domestic poetry of that early period of our
literature. To the verses, of which the following is
an extract, he prefaces as follows :

I20 TRISTRAM DODGE
"In the year 1779, the author then being a
member of the Legislature (of the State Assembly)
from Dutchess County, New York, wrote and versi
fied his political sentiments in the manner expressed
on the succeeding pages; one of the members,
having procured a copy, called one day to a number
of members then in the House (the Speaker as yet
not having taken the chair) to hear the political
sentiments of one of their body. On reading it,
some groaned and hissed, others threatened calling
the author to the Bar of the House to answer for
his writing such ' d  d Tory principles,' as they
called them ; a bystander observing that the prin
ciples of the author could not be collected from the
reading; he gave it, but it would bear a second
reading; a second reading was called for, when
the reader (being instructed) read each verse ; first
the former half of each verse, and then the latter
half of the same, two lines, and so on ; the insta
bility of the hearers was soon perceivable : that, by
reading the same paper twice, their execrations
were changed to plaudits, and the poor author
came off clear."

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 121
"POLITICAL SENTIMENTS OF THE AUTHOR, 1779."
" Hark ! hark ! the trumpet sounds,
O'er seas and solid grounds.
The din of war's alarms.
Do call us all to arms.
Who for King George do stand
Their honor soon will shine,
Their ruin is at hand
Who with the Congress join."
Continued in this way for thirty-six lines.
The subjects of his other verses are entitled, viz. :
" The Ancient Mode of Baptism."
" On Christ's Condescension."
" On the Taking of Fort Oswego " (Lake Ontario).
" On the Taking of Fort William Henry " (Lake
George). " A Song of Praise."
" On the Fall of Minorca."
"An Acrostic Elegy on the Death of his
Daughter." 
He was keeper of the Almshouse, New York
City (City Hall Park), from 1793 to ist May, 1802.
The appointment is not extant on. the minutes; but
on March 16, 1802, at a meeting of the Board of

122 TRISTRAM DODGE
Aldermen, " It was resolved that the clerk of the
Board be directed to request Mr. Dodge to remove
from the Almshouse (the official residence) by the
first day of May next."
At the meeting of the Board of Aldermen on July
26, 1802, "An account from Mr. Dodge, formerly
the keeper of the Almshouse, was received, and
ordered to lie over for further consideration," and
it was passed in 1803, and settled in full.
During his term of such office, on the last visit of
the yellow fever to the city, he removed the inmates
of the Almshouse to Poughkeepsie, where he also
retired from 1802 till his death, 1807. He was
active in the Revolution, Captain in New York line
prior to 1779; was an original member, and signed
the Institution of the Society of Cincinnati, 1783.
His sons: Henry Dodge was ist Lieut, in 2d
Continental (Col. Du Bois), Dutchess County ;
Samuel, 2d Lieut., same regiment; Richard
entered — boy of thirteen years — Fifer do.
Each served till close of war.
Henry, in 1780, became Adjutant of 5th Conti
nental, and served with Clinton's regiment in
Canada. Richard rose to Colonel's rank, and in the War of

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 23
181 2 became Major-General in command of North
ern frontier.
The children of the marriage of Samuel Dodge
and Helen Amerman were :
(Born in New York.)
Samuel Dodge, born September i, 1754, died
October 27, 1795.
Henry Dodge, born April 12, 1756, died Decem
ber 19, 1820.
William Dodge, born March 5, 1758, died 1842.
Catharine Dodge, born December 7, 1760, died
November 4, 1762.
Richard Dodge, born December 31, 1762, died
September 3, 1832.
Daniel Dodge, born December 14, 1764, died
April 2, 1 84 1.
Ezekiel Dodge, born February 17, 1767, died
April 13, 1839.
(Born at Poughkeepsie.)
Jane Dodge, born August 15, 1769, died Decem
ber 4, 1772.
James Dodge, born December 16, 1771, died
October 10, 1804.
¦ Jane Dodge (2), born December 19, 1773, died
October 14, 1794.

124 TRISTRAM DODGE
Helena Dodge, born June 20, 1776, died Septem
ber 8, 1776.
John Dodge, born December 29, 1777, died
November 25, 1830.
James Dodge was a physician, and his health
requiring change of air, he was appointed first in
the Navy, and then U. S. Consul and Charge
d'Affaires at Tunis, Africa, in which position he
rendered efficient service to many imprisoned
Americans. He died at Tunis.
Samuel Dodge
Married
Mary Forbes.
Child :
Henry S. Dodge, born 1785, died at Brooklyn,
N. Y., 1846.
Married, 181 3,
Jane Dey Varick (niece of Col. Richard Varick).
Children :
John Varick, born 1815 (now Presbyterian minis
ter, Evansville, Ind.).
Henry Augustus, born 1838.
Helen Kissam (wife of Judge B. S. Edwards,
Springfield, 111.).
Richard Varick (Presbyterian minister).

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 25
Henry S. Dodge, graduate of Columbia College,
N. Y., was a member of the New York Bar and
Master in Chancery; during the war of 1812 was
Adjutant in Gen. Mapes' Brigade N. Y. S. M., and
on duty at Sackett's Harbor; 1817, emigrated to
Kaskaskia, 111., returning in 1824, and died at
Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1826. His widow died in 1876,
aet. 84 years.
Henry Dodge
Married
Sarah Rosecrans (of Verona, Oneida Co., N. Y.).
Children :
Harry,
James.
Catherine, 1st, married John Wardell.
2d, " James Wilson.
Jane Married William Plummer.
Susan Married Zebediah Phillips.
Eliza
WilHam Dodge, born 1758, died 1842.
Children :
William Dodge,

126 TRISTRAM DODGE
Samuel Dodge (died single),
Helen Dodge
Eliza Dodge
John A. Dodge "
Mary Dodge,
Alexander F. Dodge.
William Dodge
Married, May II, 1814,
Susan Johnson.
Children :
Wilham Dodge, born May 7, 181 5, died October
28, 1858.
Samuel Dodge, born June 21, 1818, died February
23, 1827.
John T. Dodge, born November 3, 1816 (died
single).
Alexander F. Dodge, born February 17, 1820.
Helen M. Dodge, born December, 1821.
Jane E. Dodge, born October 15, 1823.
Robert J. Dodge, born May 4, 1825.
Alexander F. Dodge, born about 1800,
Married
Helen Amerman.
Children :
Charlotte Dodge,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 127
Elizabeth Dodge,
Mary Dodge.
Robert J. Dodge, born May 4, 1825,
Married, June 9, 1853,
Antoinette C. Arnold, born February 23, 1836.
Child :
Arnold R. Dodge.
William Dodge, born May 7, 1815, died October
28, 1858.
Married, 1851,
Mary E. Mapes.
Children :
James M. Dodge, born June 30, 1852.
Harrington M. Dodge, born November 15, 1855,
died 1881.
Alexander F. Dodge, born February 17, 1820,
Married
Barbara Herwick.
Children :
Herwick C. Dodge, May 11.
Edmund R. Dodge, February 16, 1851.
William A. Dodge,
John F. Dodge,
Ella M. Dodge,

128 TRISTRAM DODGE
Helen A. Dodge,
Lesley E. Dodge,
Victor E. Dodge,
Irving N. Dodge.
Charles Brombacher
Married
Charlotte Dodge.
No children. Tracy
Married
Elizabeth Dodge.
Child :
Tracy. Wardell,
Married
Mary Dodge.
Child :
Wardell.
Herwick C. Dodge
Married
Clara Hatfield.
Child :
Mabel C. Dodge.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 29
Richard Dodge
Married, 1770, February 14, New York,
Ann Sarah Irving, daughter of William and Sarah
Irving, sister of Washington Irving (the au
thor), died 1808.
Resided in Johnstown (formerly Montgomery
Co.), N. Y., and died at Johnstown, N. Y.,
September 2, 1832.
Children :
William Irving Dodge, born 1780, died January,
1873.
James R. Dodge, born October 27, 1795, died N.
C, February 24, 1880.
Samuel Dodge, born 1798, died N. J. No issue.
Jane Ann Dodge, born January 18, 1797, married
Frothingham, 1817, died at Fonda, N. Y.,
July, 1875.
Eliza Dodge, married Isaac Irving, April 3,
1844.
Helen Dodge, married Pierre M. Irving, 1836.
William Irving Dodge was a Captain in the war
of 1 8 12 at the battle of Plattsburgh, N. Y.,
marching there from Johnstown with his
company, January 23, 18 12. Married, at
Johnstown, Patience Aiken.
Q

130 TRISTRAM DODGE
Children :
Ann Sarah Dodge, married Henry Baldwin, Feb
ruary 12, 1833.
Julia Irving Dodge, married James L. Humphrey,
August 12, 1842.
William James Dodge, married, Martha Hum
phrey, August 19, 1844.
Richard Dodge, married Elizabeth Stouts, Decem
ber 4, 1 849.
Elizabeth Russell Dodge.
James Richard Dodge, married. May 24, 1836,
Susan Williams (N. C).
Children:
I. Richard Irving Dodge, born at Huntsville, N.
C, May 19, 1827, married (N. Y.), March 3,
1858,
Julia Rhinelander Paulding.
Children :
Frederick Paulding Dodge, born at West Point,
January 29, 1859.
2. Susan Taylor, born Wilkesboro, N. C, April
20, 1859, married Frank McMillan, 30 May,
1853. No issue.
3. Ann Sarah, born Wilkesboro, N. C, May 31,
1 83 1, married C. L. Glinn, December 17,
1859.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. I3I
4. Mary Helen, born Wilkesboro, N. C, March
15. 1835.
Richard Irving Dodge, now Colonel, U. S. A.,
appointed A. D. C. on staff of General Sher
man, January i, 1880 ; entered cadet at
West Point Military Academy, July I, 1844,
graduating 1st July, 1848; was commissioned
as Brevet Second Lieutenant 8th Infantry ;
until 1856 engaged in active duty on the
South-west Frontier and New Mexico ; in
battle with Camanche Indians on San Saba
River, Texas, March 22, 185 1, and in fre
quent skirmishes.
September, 1854. Adjutant 8th Infantry and
First Lieutenant ; 1858-1860, appointed Mili
tary Instructor Inf. tactics. West Point, and
on recruiting service; 1 861, Captain 8th In
fantry.
1861. July 21. In battle of Bull Run, Va.
August. Defences of Washington.
September. In command Instruction Camp,
Elmira, N. Y.
October. Mustering and disbursing officer,
Pennsylvania and Maryland.
1862. Lieutenant-Colonel, Staff Assistant In
spector-General Fourth Army Corps.

132 TRISTRAM DODGE
i860. Major 1 2th Infantry and Assistant Prov.
Marshal.
1865. Brevet Lieut.-Colonel for meritorious and
faithful services in the recruitment of
the armies ; U. S. Asst. Prov. Marshal,
New York City.
1866. Transferred to 30th Infantry on frontier
service, 1867-71.
1869. Transferred to 3d Infantry. Member of
Board to perfect Army Regulations,
1871-72.
1872-80. On frontier service. Lieut.-Col. 23d
Infantry, October 29, 1873.
1875. In command of Exploring Expedition to
Black Hills, Dak., May to October.
1876. In command of artillery and infantry of
Gen. Crook's force, on winter campaign
against Sioux Indians.
1878. In command of expedition against Chey-
ennes.
1880. In command of the infantry of Mackenzie's
force in campaign against the Utes.
He is also the author of the following works, his
matured observation during his extended military
service on the frontier :

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 33
I. "The Plains of the Great West " (1876).
2. "The Black Hills" do.
3. " Our Wild Indians " (1882.)
Daniel Dodge
Married Ann Turner, March 17, 1796, who
was born New York, January 6, 1776, and
died at Brooklyn, October, 1867.
Children :
Ann Ehza Dodge, born 1801, widow of William
Wheeler.
Richard J. Dodge, born 1807.
Emeline A. Dodge, born 1809.
Susan A. Dodge, born 18 19, wife R. B. Despard.
Descendants (first generation) of Ezekiel Dodge,
born in New York, February 17, 1767, died April
13, 1839, and Jane Power, of Poughkeepsie, born
1780, died March 15, 1837, married May 20, 1806:
1st. Samuel, born in New York, March 15, 1808,
went away (supposed to have gone West)
August 23, 1833.
2d. Catharine Sophia, bom in Poughkeepsie,
August 23, 1809.
3d. Mary, born in Poughkeepsie, June i, 181 1.
4th. Elizabeth, born in Poughkeepsie, March 29,
1813.

134 TRISTRAM DODGE
5th. Emily, born in New York, June 10, 181 5.
6th. James Monroe, born in New York, May 11,
1817, died January 19, 1839.
7th. Augustus Power, born in New York, October
16, 1819, drowned at Sacramento, Cal., July
25, 1849.
Elizabeth Dodge, born March 29, 181 3,
Married, October 31, 1841,
William Everit.
Children :
Elizabeth Everit, born November 29, 1842, died
June 23, 1844.
William Dodge Everit, born February 4, 1844.
Augustus Dodge Everit, born December 27, 1845.
Theodore Lewis Everit, born November 11, 1847.
Eugene Everit, born June 8, 1850.
Eugenia Everit, born June 8, 1850, died Novem
ber 16, 1851.
Edward Everit, born January 20, 1854, died Sep
tember 17, 1854.
Eugene Everit
Married, May 27, 1880,
Delmere W. Merritt.
Children :
Eugenie Everit, born March, 1881.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 35
John Dodge, born 1777, died November 25, 1830,
Married at New York, April 9, 1801,
Margaret E. Wood.
Children :
John W. Dodge, born November 4, 1807.
Matilda Dodge, wife William Tracy.
Clarissa Dodge, wife Marschalk.
Charlotte Dodge, wife Henry O. Wardell.
Catharine Clay Dodge, wife William P. Coles.
James Lawrence Dodge.
Edward Samuel Dodge.
Richard Montgomery Dodge.
Stephen Clay Dodge.
Amelia Dodge.
William Henry.
John W. Dodge was elected Associate of N.
Academy of Design in 1832. Settled in Chicago, IJl.,
as Vice-President of Chicago Academy. Celebrated
artist in portraits and miniatures. Those of Presi
dent Jackson, Henry Clay, Henry Bergh, and others
are widely known and esteemed.

CHAPTER IX.
As before stated, Israel Dodge, one of the sons of
Tristram Dodge (senior), early emigrated from Block
Island, and settled at New London, in the Colony
of Connecticut.
Among the new inhabitants, between 1670 and
1700, recorded in "Calkins' History of New Lon
don," is Israel Dodge, as purchasing and settling on
a considerable farm in the North Parish of New
London in 1694, which was forty-eight years after
the first effort to create the settlement of the town
in 1646.
In 1705, at the session of the Queen's (Anne)
Court Commission, among those returned as settled
on Indian lands is Israel Dodge. This same tract
of land — now Montville — is yet vested in his de
scendants. The first record of freemen of New Shoreham,
Block Island, as we have seen, was in 1670, and
contained his name.
He may, then, have been born about 1649 in
England.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 37
The records of the Town Clerk of New London,
prior to 1781, were destroyed, with other valuable
papers, by the burning of the town, its court house,
and most of its dwellings, in the barbarous raid of
Benedict Arnold, September 6, 1781 ; but a portion
of the Probate Records and Registry of early
Deeds escaped.
Among these we find his will, proved 1745 ; which
being taken as the year of his death, gives him the
advanced age of ninety-six years.
Israel Dodge (Junior), his son, had, in 1743,
enlisted for the " French War," in the contingent
of Colonial Troops that served on the expedition
against Cape Breton ; and in the next spring (1744)
is returned as having died in camp from fever.
John Dodge, another son, born at New London
in 1727, and died in Connecticut, 1792 ; married,
October 23, 1748, Lydia Rogers, of Pomfret, Conn.
They had the family, viz. :
Jordan Dodge, born August 6, 1749.
John Dodge, born July 12, 175 1.
Peter Dodge, born November 17, 1753, died 1759.
Israel Dodge, born September 3, 1760.
Josiah Rogers Dodge, born September 28, 1762.
Jeriel Dodge, born September 28, 1768, died 1770.

138 TRISTRAM DODGE
Christopher Dodge, born July 6, 1765.
Nehemiah Dodge, born July 3, 1770-
Elizabeth Dodge, born November 7, 1750.
Lydia Dodge, born May 8, 1758.
Among whom, we find Rev. Nehemiah Dodge,
prominent as pastor of the First Baptist Church at
New London; and from 1823 pastor of the First
Universalist Society there, and afterwards in New
York City. From him descend the following well-
known citizens, some of eminence in their profes
sion :
Rev. Nehemiah Dodge died at New London,
Conn., June 4, 1843,
Married-
Lucy Smith, of Lynn, Conn, (who died Septem
ber 25, 1868).
Children :
Nehemiah Dodge.
Joseph Smith (M. D.), of New York, born at
Lebanon, Conn., August 23, 1806.
Mary Ann, wife of John Woodward.
(Dr.) Joseph Smith Dodge
(ist) Married, October 14, 1828,
Julia A. Burgess.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 39
Children :
Julia A. Dodge, 1829-33.
Harriet J. Dodge, October 17, 1831, wife (1854)
of W. C. Home, of Florence, Italy.
Joseph Smith, Jr., December 3, 1834,
Married
Mary R. Hall (of Stamford, Conn.).
(Children : Arthur, Julia, Walter, Alice, Herman
Dodge.)
Julia E., March 19, 1843.
Henry Nehemiah, May 19, 1843,
Married
Mary L. Danforth, of Morristown, N. J.
(Children : Ruth P., Edith, Mary Dodge.)
Lucy Emma, wife of W. A. Buckmaster, Esq.
Dr. Joseph S. Dodge
Married (2d), April 22, 1852,
Alania Burger.
Children :
Ella, born November 18, 1854.
Amy L., born February 3, 1857.
Samuel W., born 1859.
Of the family of John and Lydia Dodge (Rogers),
their son Israel, third of the name in his line, true

I40 TRISTRAM DODGE
to the adventurous spirit of his ancestors, left home
when only fifteen years old, and made several
voyages to the African coast. At eighteen he
enlisted in the Revolutionary army, and at the
Battle of Brandy wine (September n, 1777) was
wounded by a bayonet charge of the British line.
In 1782, Virginia, claiming title to the disputed
Mississippi Valley, by commission of Patrick Henry,
Governor, appointed his brother. Col. John Dodge,
to command the Illinois country. Israel became
Lieutenant under him, and was stationed at Kas
kaskia. He had shortly before, at Carlisle, Pa., mar
ried Anne (Nancy) Hunter. On a journey, with his
wife, to Bairdstown, Ky., they halted at the French
Post of Vincennes, where their son Henry was born
on October 12, 1782. He built the first stone house
at Bairdstown, now Kentucky.
Attracted by the large grants of land offered by
the King of Spain to all who would settle in his
Colony, which then included the whole region south
of the Ohio River and west of the Alleghany
Mountains southward to the Gulf of Mexico, Israel
Dodge mounted his horse, and, riding over what be
came the Territories of Indiana and Illinois, crossed
the " Father of Waters" to the ancient town of St.
Genevieve, now in Missouri. Here he erected mills

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. I4I
and made other public improvements, for which he
received large grants of land from Plis Catholic
Majesty. In descending the Mississippi River with
products of his farm and mills, he was captured by
pirates, who subsequently released him, with his
crew and cargo, for a small ransom, paid in pork and
flour. New Orleans then belonged to Spain, and
pirates and robbers infested the land, but they did
not prevent Israel Dodge from his extended journeys.
It was on one of those saddle-rides, from Bairdstown
to St. Genevieve, by land, that his oldest son,
Henry, was born at the French Post Vincennes, on
the Wabash ; his parents being detained at that
post, in consequence of high waters on the river.
Henry was so named for a gunsmith (Moses Henry),
who saved the life of the infant boy when but a few
weeks old, and in the grasp of a savage, who was on
the eve of dashing out his brains. Israel Dodge
was appointed the first High Sheriff, in 1804, of
St. Genevieve County, by Gen. Wilkinson, President
Jefferson's Military Governor, who took possession
of Upper Louisiana under the Treaty of 1803. His
active and adventurous life early terminated in his
forty-sixth year. Among his pleasant recollections
was to have witnessed the hauling down of the
white flag of France, surrendering all design of

142 TRISTRAM DODGE
colonization in America, and the hoisting of the
Star Spangled Banner, March 30, 1804. This cere
monial was performed by Major Stoddard, of our
Army, and the Baron de Carondelet ; amid the tears
and lamentations of the French, who were sincerely
attached to their old government, and the shouts
and plaudits of the few Americans present.
His son, the Hon. Henry Dodge, was born in
1782 ; fitly beginning in the wilderness a life which,
above all others of the North-west, was destined to
be that of their bravest and wisest leader, in their
rapid growth to dominant power. His father had
settled in Missouri, then a Spanish possession, at
the village of St. Genevieve, on the River Missis
sippi, in the County of St. Genevieve, where he
lived till his death in 1806.

REMINISCENCES BY GENERAL A. C. DODGE.
[From his Address before the Old Settlers of Clark County, Mo., in the Fall
of 1883.]
More than fifteen years before the star of empire passed from
Napoleon to Jefferson, my grandparents, paternal and maternal,
migrated from Kentucky to the then Spanish province of Upper
Louisiana. The Dodges located in St. Genevieve County, the
McDonalds near St, Louis. They were tempted thither by re-

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. I43
ports of the rich lands and lead mines which were offered without
price to all who would occupy and improve them. My grandfather,
Israel Dodge, settled at New Bourbon, near the goodly old French
town St. Genevieve, where his ashes repose. For improvements,
such as the cultivation of the soil, building mills and distilleries (the
King of Spain was not a prohibitionist), he received large grants of
land. Surrounded by savages, and remote from market, such grants
were comparatively of small value. Strange to say, however, long
years after the title had passed from his descendants, one of these
tracts of land, otherwise poor, thus granted to Israel Dodge, fur
nished the matchless stone used in the erection of the magnificent
Capitol at Des Moines. A Connecticut Yankee, full of the enter
prise that belonged to his race, Israel Dodge constructed the rude
craft known as the "flat-bottomed boat," the " old broad scow," and
shipped the products of his farm and mills to New Orleans, then a
Spanish town. An incident of one of his voyages illustrates the
perils which beset life and property in those days. When far down
on the Lower Mississippi, his boat was boarded in broad daylight by
a modern " Rob Roy," with a band of river pirates, who, placing
their guns at the heads of ray grandfather and his crew, ordered them
to row ashore, that they might appropriate the cargo to their own
use. A second lieutenant in the Revolutionary war, wounded by a
British bayonet at Brandywine, Israel Dodge's familiarity with danger
and death enabled him to retain his self-possession. Noticing some
thing in the bearing or language of the pirate chief which induced the
belief that he was a Mason, he gave him a sign or grip, whereof I am
ignorant, not being of the initiated. This brought the exclamation
from the man of robbery and blood, " Boys ! we must let this man
and his boat go ! " They did so, the chief graciously accepting a
barrel of flour and some bacon as a present. Rejoicing at the for
tunate escape, my grandfather proceeded on to New Orleans, sold

144 TRISTRAM DODGE
his cargo at high prices, was paid in good money, Spanish gold,
and returned home in safety with his companions. In the " Bon
Homme " (Good Man's) settlement, a few miles west of St. Louis, in
the year 1800, the father of the speaker led his mother to the hyme
neal altar, the high contracting parties having attained the respective
ages of nineteen and fifteen. Thirty-seven years later the speaker
journeyed from Wisconsin to Missouri, to perform a like act of civil
ity for a lady who had been his schoolmate, her father being their
teacher, and whom he was so fortunate as to woo and win in their
native county (St. Genevieve). With abundant opportunities of
knowing, he was ready to certify, in or out of court, that no State
could furnish better wives than Missouri. The speaker then went on
to say that as a friend to matrimony and to early marriages, he sug
gested that these old settlers' reunions, so largely attended by the
young people of both sexes, afforded admirable opportunities for
young people to do a little innocent courting, and he would advise
every faint-hearted swain present to pluck up courage and to ' ' pop
the question " to the girl of his choice, and thus end one of the great
events of human life. The occasion is joyous and the surroundings
are favorable to the success of his venture. Milton says :
" Of earthly good, the best is a good wife."
— Burlington Evening Post, Aug. z, 1884.

Unconsciously, while he journeyed, through the
necessities of European wars and cabinets, the
political and national firmament were beginning to
change, and a new and wider horizon was opening
to a boundless future of growth and power.
By treaty of 1800, the whole region south of the

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 45
Ohio, or the great valley of the Mississippi to the
Gulf of Mexico, with undefined western bounds,
was ceded by Spain to the French Republic. Our
sagacious Jefferson, by his special envoy, Monroe,
found the First Consul Napoleon, in 1803, ready to
cede, for fifteen millions of dollars, all this vast
region. The area was greatly beyond his first intentions,
which were limited to New Orleans, the: river and
its valley. Missouri, and all the wide West {perhaps
Californid) and the South-west, were included in
the " Louisiana purchase," so called, and ceded by
Napoleon through the Treaty of 30th April, 1803.
Henry Dodge, son of the last-named Israel, was
born October 12, 1782, at the well-known French
village or " Post Vincennes," on the Wabash River,
now in the State of Indiana ; his parents being en
route from what is now Kentucky to Missouri,
both places being then in the Spanish province of
Upper Louisiana. He was educated in a log school-
house at Bairdstown, Kentucky. Of his school
mates, older than he, we may mention Felix Grundy,
John Rowan, and John Pope, of Kentucky ; dis
tinguished as Senators and Jurists. He afterwards
read law for some two years in the office of the brave
but unfortunate Colonel Allen, who fell in the war

146 TRISTRAM DODGE
of 1 8 12, at the disastrous battle on the River
Raisin. Of his uncles, on the maternal and pater
nal side, six had fallen under the murderous Indian
hatchet- Among his very earliest recollections was to
have seen the dead and mangled body of one of
those uncles brought to the rude stockade or " Fort
Vincennes " in the arms of another uncle on horse
back. At the age of twenty-one he became High
Sheriff of St. Genevieve County, Missouri, thus fill
ing the place to which his father had been appointed
by General Wilkinson, who, when both were under
age, had served with his father in the war of the
Revolution. Henry Dodge was naturally a leader of his fellow-
men. Commencing as a subaltern, and filling every
intermediate rank, he was appointed a Brigadier-
General of Missouri Volunteers by President Madi
son, in 1814; and afterwards, under the State
organization, was unanimously elected Major-
General. At the commencement of the war of 1812, he was
first called by General Howard, then Governor of
Missouri, to defend the exposed frontiers, which he
did successfully at the head of two mounted regi
ments. He cooperated by land with Major, after-

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. I47
wards President, Zachary Taylor, who commanded
some twenty-two gun-boats against the Indians, then
led by their celebrated chief, " Black Partridge."
The array of the forces thus led by land and water
alarmed the Indians, who retreated to Fort Clark
(Peoria), their place of rendezvous. Referring to
this expedition, Wetmore, in his Gazetteer of Mis
souri, says:
" After two years of hard fighting ' on their own
hook,' the Booneslick settlement made application
to Governor Clark for aid ; and a detachment of
Rangers, under the command of General Dodge,
was sent to their relief. It is reported of this officer,
that when his line of march was obstructed by the
Missouri, on his route to the Miami village, he
dashed into the river, followed by the Rangers, sit
ting steady and erect in their saddles, who swam
their horses to the opposite shore. The transit of
their ammunition had been secured in a canoe. By
this accelerated movement the Miamis were sur
prised and captured in their village."
The Indians, by flight, evaded a general engage
ment ; and when he reached the village, they sur
rendered and asked that their lives might be spared.
It was only, however, by throwing himself between
the Indians and the guns of a portion of his com-

148 TRISTRAM DODGE
mand (the " Booneslickers " so-called); that he was
able to save from indiscriminate slaughter some
four hundred and eighty men, women, and children
of the Miami tribe, and that, too, after they had
surrendered and given up their arms.
In 1820 he was elected a member of the conven
tion to form a constitution for the State of Missouri,
and also appointed United States Marshal. He
filled the latter place until he left the State. Among
the pleasing incidents of his life was the heartfelt
gratification afforded him, in his capacity of Major-
General, to receive and do honor to the Marquis de
La Fayette, when, in 1825, that great and good man
visited Missouri.
In 1827, upon the discovery of lead ore at the
" Upper Mississippi Mines " (in Northern Illinois and
Michigan Territory), now Wisconsin, he migrated
thither; those mines having awakened an excite
ment in the Western Country second only to that
caused later by the discovery of gold in California.
Simultaneously with his arrival, the Winnebago
tribe of Indians had raised the tomahawk, and
were killing and scalping men, women, and children,
and also attacking the " keel boats " then engaged
in conveying supplies to the miners. Without or
ganization, and with but few arms, the people,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. I49
driven into what is now Galena, Illinois, upon " the
flat," in front of that town, unanimously elected
General Dodge to chief command. With character
istic energy, he caused block-houses to be erected
throughout the mining country, and spikes to be
manufactured and attached to the ends of long
poles for defence of the stockade " Forts," to which
the people fled for protection. But prone rather to
give than to receive blows, he led a small mounted
force, all that could be raised, to the Indian towns
on the Pecatonica and the Wisconsin rivers ; swim-
ing the last-named river four times in pursuit of the
enemy. The murderers were surrendered by their
tribe ; tried, convicted, and pardoned by John Quincy
Adams, then President.
" Grim-visaged war having for a time smoothed
his wrinkled front," with other pioneers, General
Dodge moved into the Indian country, discovered
valuable mines, and settled the place called in his
honor, Dodgeville, the present seat of justice for
Iowa County, Wis. Here he pursued for several
years, with his usual energy, the business of mining
and smelting lead ore. He was among the first who
erected the rude furnace of that day, for the manu
facture of lead, within that territory (then Michi
gan). From a point high up on the Wisconsin

150 TRISTRAM DODGE
River, in the frail " flat-bottomed boat," so called,
he shipped quantities of lead to New Orleans, a
distance of more than 1,500 miles. Other persons
engaged in the same business reshipped their car
goes at St. Louis; placing them on board elegant
steamers, while he made the entire voyage to New
Orleans in the same frail and primitive craft. It
was an enterprise of great peril and hardship, re
quiring some three months for its performance.
In 1829, at the first organization of Iowa County,
Wis., he was elected, on the same day, Chief-Justice
of the County and Colonel of its militia. In the
former capacity, with two associates, William Schuy
ler Hamilton, third son of General Alexander Ham
ilton (of New York), and James H. Gentry, as
colleagues, he held the first court in Iowa County.
It was as Colonel of Michigan Volunteers, bearing
the commission of the late Lewis Cass, as Governor
of the Territory, that he won his laurels in the con
test against " Black Hawk."
1832. In this year, and in the month of April,
the evil genius of that renowned chieftain led him
to cross the " Father of Waters " in hostile array,
and without provocation, to invade Illinois and
Wisconsin. To General Dodge it immediately
became apparent that the people in the " Lead

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 151
Mines" were in great peril, and that their country
must soon become the theater of bloody war.
Early in the month of May he called for volunteers,
and at the head of a small force, among whom, it
may be mentioned, were his two sons and a son-in-
law. Paschal Beguette ; he marched in the direction
of what is now Dixon, 111., to watch the movements
of the Indians, and to learn whether the affair would
end in war or peace. In the previous year (1831),
the philanthropic General Gaines had bought peace
from treacherous Black Hawk and his followers by
giving them 10,000 bushels of corn, and also several
thousand dollars' worth of presents, upon their
solemn treaty stipulation never again to come east
of the Mississippi River.
The expedition of General Dodge was timely, and
proved his sagacity. For, on the 14th day of May,
Major Stillman, at the head of some three hundred
Illinois Volunteers, was signally defeated by Black
Hawk ; who killed and scalped a number of Still-
man's men, chasing the main body some thirty
miles, under the sound of the war-whoop. This
flight .inaugurated savage warfare. It was soon
followed by murders in every direction ; by the
successive defeats of Captain A. W. Snyder, Colonel
James W. Stevenson, and Major John Dement, all

152 TRISTRAM DODGE
belonging to the Illinois Volunteers, and officers of
high character and well-known courage.
Throughout the valley of the Rock River the
war was fierce and unremitting, and the tomahawk
bathed in gore. The farmer reaped his harvest in
the dress and with the arms of the volunteer, and
often left his plough to join in the tumult of battle
or share the dangers of pursuit. General Dodge
posted his small force in advance of the settlements,
and, by sagacious leadership, triumphed over the
treacherous savages, inflicting great injury upon
them, with slight loss to his command.
In brief, the main events of this campaign, which
lasted from spring to autumn, 1832, were his expe
ditions to Dixon, 111., and to Ottawa ; his conference
at the " Four Lakes " with the Chief " Spotted
Arm" and his band, intended to prevent the Win-
nebagoes from uniting their forces with those of
" Black Hawk " ; his seizure of Indian spies at the
Blue Mound, thus thwarting their purpose ; his
eloquent address to the volunteers at "Kirker's
Grove," and his successful plan for the recovery of
two young ladies — the Misses Hall — captives of
the savages, after the murder of their parents and
entire family, with numerous other expeditions for
the protection of his fellow-citizens. His battle of

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 53
the Pecatonica, fought on the 6th of June, 1832, at
the " Horse Shoe Bend " on that stream, though small
in numbers engaged, will ever be regarded as one
of the most desperate engagements in the history of
Indian warfare. Senator McRoberts, of Illinois, re
ferring to this fight (see Appendix to Congressional
Globe, 27th Congress, ist session, page lOi), said:
" Dodge and his party pursued and overtook them.
The enemy, finding they could not make their
escape, posted themselves for battle. Now, here
was just the situation to test the courage and devo
tion of any man to his country. The exasperated
enemy were armed with the rifle, tomahawk, and
spear, and accustomed all their lives to the use of
these weapons. The Indians had a decided advan
tage in position, protected by an embankment and
the trees of the forest ; they had also the first fire.
To dislodge them, a charge must be made over the
open prairie, in the most exposed of all possible
situations, and, from the number and desperation of
the enemy, at great sacrifice of human life. In such
a position, what is the course of Dodge and his
brave associates ? They resolved to dislodge the
enemy, or perish in the attempt. They dismount
from their horses, and, headed by their commander,
charge the enemy on foot. They receive his fire

154 TRISTRAM DODGE
when almost at the muzzle of the guns ; a desperate
conflict ensues between the survivors and the
enemy. After each party had delivered its fire, it
became a personal encounter between exasperated
combatants. The enemy all fell; eighteen Indians
were killed, and four whites ; Dodge had but
twenty-one men. I met him and the survivors of
his party a few days afterward, and some of them
still carried on their persons the evidence of the
conflict, and their clothes were burnt with powder."
He also led the a,dvance at the battles of Wiscon
sin Heights and Bad Axe.
Although these combats, if measured by the
numbers engaged on his side, would seem small in
contrast with modern wars, yet, in fact, they were
triumphs of skill and courage. With a small force,
unsupported by any large reserve, unaided ; he met
and conquered numbers of the most sagacious, wily,
and sanguinary of the Indian race, aiding in subdu
ing them, and bringing their Chief, Black Hawk,
and his leading braves into captivity.
1833. Upon the termination of the campaign
against Black Hawk, Colonel Dodge was appointed
by President Jackson to the command of a battal
ion, consisting of 1,000 mounted Rangers, raised by

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 55
Act of Congress for the protection of the frontier.
At the end of a year's service in command of the
Rangers, he was called to the command of the first
regiment of Dragoons ever enlisted in the Army of
the United States. Of this regiment, S. W. Kear
ney and R. B. Mason were respectively Lieutenant-
¦ Colonel and Major, and Jefferson Davis, late Presi
dent of the Confederacy, Adjutant.
1834. He moved from Fort Gibson, Arkansas,
with 500 Dragoons, in the direction of the head
waters of the Arkansas River, to reclaim prisoners
in captivity in the villages of the Camanche,
Kioway, and other hostile tribes. General Leaven
worth, of the United States Army, started in com
mand of the expedition, and, with five other officers,
died on the route, leaving the chief command to
devolve on Colonel Dodge. The Indians surren
dered when he reached their towns, delivering over
the prisoners ; making the expedition a success, but
at severe loss, for, besides above six officers, eighty
dragoons perished on the march.
The Secretary of War (Cass), in his report of
1834, speaks in high terms of the "valuable service
rendered by Colonel Dodge and his command on
that trying expedition."
In 1835 he marched from Fort Leavenworth, on

156 TRISTRAM DODGE
the Missouri, up the Platte River far into the
Rocky Mountain region — then almost a Terra In
cognita — ^visiting some thirty or more tribes, with
whom he formed treaties of amity. On his return.
Congress published a thousand copies of his Jour
nal, and General Gaines, commanding the Western
Department of the Army, recommended that a
sword should be presented to Colonel Dodge, and
that his officers and men should receive a month's
extra pay. Hon. William Medill, Governor and
member of Congress from Ohio, referring to this
expedition (see Appendix to Cong. Globe, page
280, 27th Congress, 2d session), said :
" In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let us turn from
this humiliating picture of human nature, and
inquire for a moment who it was that was removed
to make room for this man. When the Western
frontiers were invaded by the savage hordes of the
wilderness, and the progress of civilization retarded
for a time by the tomahawk and scalping-knife, who
was it that exposed his life and endured the most
extraordinary hardships in defending the home and
fireside of the emigrant ? Who was it that met in
mortal combat, and arrested the career of the mur
derous, but brave and intrepid. Black Hawk ; and

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 57
first caused the sound of our cannon to be heard
on the other side of the Rocky Mountains ? Who
commanded the Volunteers at the memorable battle
of Wisconsin Heights, where, sustained on either
side by one of his own youthful but gallant sons, he
occupied the post of danger, and vanquished a
superior foe, with the loss of but a single man?
Who led on the charge at Bad Axe, and shed such
lustre upon the valor of his countrymen at Peca
tonica, where not a solitary man of the enemy
survived to relate the incidents of the fatal conflict?
The name of General Dodge is identified with the
history and glory of the West, and will ever be held in
grateful remembrance by a people whom his chivalry
and valor have delivered from cruelty and death.
Selected for that purpose by President Jackson, he
explored the vast regions of wilderness on this side
of Oregon ; at the head of his invincible dragoons
visited and entered into treaties of amity with
numerous tribes of' Indians hitherto unknown,
released the whites that were found in captivity,
and restored peace, order, and quietude upon the
whole line of the frontier. His extraordinary
services and signal success drew from General
Gaines, the commander of the Division, a letter
recommending him to the notice of Congress, and

158 TRISTRAM DODGE
suggested that a sword be presented him, as a token
of national gratitude. Honored and esteemed by
the people, though proscribed by the President
(John Tyler), he was chosen by the citizens of
Wisconsin to represent their interest upon this
floor, where he has again had the pleasure of meet
ing one of those sons who fought by his side at
Wisconsin Heights, and who has been honored with
a similar trust from the Territory of Iowa. Such is
an example of the ' reform ' which is practiced by
this Administration."
1836, July 4. When not a hostile Indian was to
be found in the North or South-west, and tribes
recently the terror of the frontier were glad to
remain in peace at their old homes, or be trans
ported to new lands beyond the great River
Missouri ; President Jackson called General Dodge
from the command of his Dragoons, to be Governor
and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the new
Territory of Wisconsin ; larger much in extent than
the Empire of France under the first Napoleon. It
comprised the present States of Wisconsin, Iowa,
Minnesota, and about half of Dakota Territory.
It had then one delegate to Congress, and less than
twenty-three thousand inhabitants. Now the same

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 59
country has six (6) Senators, with twenty-five (25)
Representatives in Congress ; and a larger population
than the United States contained in 1812, during
their second war against Great Britain.
In its earliest history, Wisconsin belonged to
France and England. But, at the termination of
the War of the Revolution, by the definitive treaty
of peace, September 3, 1783, Virginia, aided by the
genius of Patrick Henry (then her Governor), and
by the valor of her troops, led by the heroic George
Rogers Clark — having conquered and brought within
her chartered limits the region now embraced in
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and
about half of Minnesota ; with a generosity charac
teristic of that great Commonwealth, the mother of
States and statesmen — voluntarily ceded to the
United States all claim to this great North-west
Territory. Her deed of cession, executed March i,
1784, bears the honored names of Thomas Jefferson
and James Monroe. In 1787, by the memorable
ordinance of the Continental Congress, the North
west Territory was organized over this vast region.
From 1789 to 1800 Wisconsin formed a part of
the Territory of Ohio; from 1800 to 1809, of
Indiana; from 1809 to 1818, of Illinois; from 1818
to 1836, a part of Michigan.

l6o TRISTRAM DODGE
Upon Governor Dodge devolved the delicate and
important duty, of putting into operation the
machinery of government over this vast Territory
of Wisconsin. All the officers, civil and military,
were to be appointed ; the census to be taken ; mem
bers of the two houses of Assembly to be appor
tioned among the different counties; and the Legis
lature to be convened at such place as the Governor
might designate. He was, moreover, in that year
appointed Commissioner to hold treaty conferences ;
one with the Menominee tribe, at Green Bay, and
the other at the present site of Davenport, Iowa.
To both places, as to all others visited, he rode on
horseback. These duties he performed successfully ;
extinguishing the Indian title to large bodies of
land on both sides of the Mississippi, and meeting
the Legislature, October 25, 1836, at Belmont, Iowa
County (now La Fayette, Wis.). At this session,
the capital was located permanently at the beautiful
site of Madison ; where it still remains, and tempo
rarily at Burlington, now in Iowa, where it con
tinued until July 4, 1838, when the Territories were
divided. In 1837 he negotiated treaties with the Chippewa
and other Indian tribes; for the vast district of pine
lands lying upon the Chippewa, Black, St. Croix,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. l6l
and other rivers of Wisconsin and Minnesota. No
measure, perhaps, ever contributed so much to the
development and rapid settlement of the North
west. Anterior to that date, all the pine lumber
used in many of the Western States and Territories
was transported, at enormous cost, thousands of
miles down the Ohio and up the Mississippi rivers.
Clothed with the power of appointing all officers,
civil and military ; with an absolute veto upon the
acts of the General Assembly ; and unrestricted par
doning power; his administration was, nevertheless,
so acceptable to the governed, that, yielding to the
expressed wishes of the General Assembly and the
people, without distinction of party, he was re-ap
pointed by President Van Buren in 1839.
Upon the advent, however, of the Whig Party to
power, in 1841, he was, from political considerations,
removed ; and the Hon. James D. Doty and, after
him, ex-Senator Nathaniel P. Talmadge, of New
York, appointed his successors, and they served
during the administration of President Tyler.
The " proscribed of the President became the
choice of the people." Immediately upon his
removal, in 1841, Governor Dodge was nominated
by the Democratic Party, to whose principles and
organization he was ever faithful, and elected to

1 62 TRISTRAM DODGE
Congress by an overwhelming majority over his
Whig competitor, the Hon. J. E. Arnold, a much
respected and talented member of the Milwaukee
Bar. On their meeting after the election, Mr.
Arnold jocosely remarked : " Why, Governor, our
race was like that of a colt contending against a
veteran war-horse."
By all the ties that bind man to his fellow-men,
Henry Dodge was the friend of the hardy and
deserving pioneer ; by whom he was equally cher
ished and revered. In his second message, deliv
ered at Burlington in November, 1837, among other
things in favor of pre-emptions, graduation of price,
and homesteads, he said : " Land is the immediate
gift from God to man, and should not be used by
our Government for speculation, etc." He was also
a warm supporter of appropriations for rivers and
harbors ; and had the gratification to obtain the
appropriation for the harbor at Milwaukee and
other points upon the western shore of Lake Michi
gan. He spoke but seldom, and generally for
measures of interest to his constituents or defense
of the frontier. His speech (never reported at any
length) in favor of remounting the 2d Regiment of
Dragoons, triumphantly carried the measure, and
was admired by all, drawing from John Quincy

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 63
Adams, who followed in the debate, a handsome
compliment, Adams referring to him as "the elo
quent delegate from Wisconsin."
In 1843, Governor Dodge was again returned to
Congress, beating his worthy neighbor. General
Hicox, by a larger majority than that by which he
had triumphed over Arnold.
In 1845, at the conclusion of his four years'
service in the House of Representatives, he was
recalled by President Polk to his old place as Gov
ernor of Wisconsin, in deference to the voice of the
people, in which capacity he continued to serve
until her admission as a State, May 29, 1848.
At the meeting of the first Legislature, in June
of the last-named year, there was an animated and
bitter contest for senatorial honors among the lead
ing politicians of the State. Governor Dodge was
chosen over distinguished competitors, such as
Chief-Justice Dunn, Governor Doty, and other
aspirants. In the classification precedent to the
admission of the first Senators from a new State, he
drew the term of four years, and was re-elected, in
1852, by a much larger majority, for a full term,
which expired the 4th of March, 1857.
In 1844, with a degree of self-abnegation and
modesty peculiar to him, he refused to answer a

164 TRISTRAM DODGE
letter written by the late Hon. Robert Dale Owen,
of Indiana, a greatly esteemed friend and repre
sentative from his native State, and signed by some
five or six members of the House of Representa
tives, asking his views upon the Texas, Oregon,
Tariff, and other public questions ; the object of the
letter being to bring Governor Dodge prominently
before the Democratic Presidential Convention of
that year, which nominated Mr. Polk.
Although his opinions upon all of these questions
were in full harmony with those of the requisite
two-thirds majority in the convention of his party,
he refused the use of his name to beat his valued
personal and political friend, Martin Van Buren,
whose defeat in 1840 he thought ought to be
righted by a triumph in 1844.
In 1848, just after he had taken his seat in the
Senate, he was unanimously nominated by the
Democratic Convention, held at Utica, N. Y., for
Vice-President of the United States, to run upon
the same ticket with his old friend, Ex-President
Van Buren. He, however, promptly declined the
honor, which was subsequently bestowed, by the
Buffalo Convention, upon Charles Francis Adams.
At the termination of his senatorial career, he
declined the office of Governor of Washington Ter-

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 65
ritory, tendered to him by President Pierce, with a
fixed determination never again to accept public
station. As a tribute to his worth, the Legislature of
Wisconsin passed an Act " to perpetuate the mem
ory of the late Governor Dodge," directing that his
bust, in marble, be placed within the Capitol of the
State. It stands there, in Italian marble, an excel
lent likeness of the venerable patriot and statesman,
the brave soldier and honest man, who was gathered
to his fathers on the 19th day of June, 1867, at the
house of his only surviving son, in Burlington, Iowa.
He was the great and successful captain of the
civilization of Wisconsin.
Of singularly commanding person, he was six feet
in height, perfectly erect, and possessing a herculean
constitution ; he was rigidly temperate and abste
mious throughout his long life. He was fond of
reading the Scriptures, especially " Scott's Bible "
and its notes. In the latter part of his life he was
a regular attendant upon divine service, and some
years before his death joined the Episcopal Church
at Mineral Point, Wisconsin.
The following eloquent and truthful tribute is
from the pen of Governor Fairchild, on the occasion
of the death of Henry Dodge :

l66 TRISTRAM DODGE
(From the Madison Journal).
" The late ex-Governor and ex-Senator Dodge :
" Governor Fairchild, of Wisconsin, has issued
the following executive order on the death of Hon.
Henry Dodge, formerly Governor of Wisconsin:
" Madison, Wis., June 24, 1867.
" Executive Order No. 4.
" It is with deep regret that I have to announce to
the people of this State the death at Burlington,
Iowa, on the 19th inst., of Hon. Henry Dodge, one
of Wisconsin's most honored public men.
" From an early day. General Dodge was actively
and intimately connected with the affairs of Wis
consin, in the several capacities of Governor, Dele
gate in Congress, and United States Senator. At
the close of his senatorial career, he retired from
public life, and to the enjoyment of a dignified and
happy seclusion, which he had so well earned by
long and faithful service.
" A brave and accomplished soldier, an enlightened
and incorruptible statesman — General Dodge was
for many years recognized as one of the most dis
tinguished leaders in the nation. Too brave to be
other than he seemed, too honest to be a dema-

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 167
gogue, his career was characterized by a manly in
dependence in doing right, which won for him the
confidence of the whole people.
" After a life, long and of rare usefulness, he has
gone from our midst ; and truly may it be said of
him that to few indeed has it been given to leave a
fame at once so wide-spread and so spotless.
" As a testimony of respect, the usual badge of
mourning will be displayed at the several State
Departments for the period of thirty days.
" Lucius Fairchild,
" Governor of Wisconsin."

Many of these events are within the lives of this
generation ; but few, who have always lived in the
advanced civilization of the metropolitan cities of the
Atlantic coast, can appreciate the privations of the
exile on the rude frontier, and the surpassing dif
ficulties and hardships that must have been endured
by the pioneers in achieving through sagacious and
unremitting toil, with slow accession by emigration,
their stupendous task of changing the savage wilder
ness into the grand State of beautiful Wisconsin.
In twelve laborious years this task was done, and
its great career started in the Union. This work

1 68 TRISTRAM DODGE
was conducted mainly by General Henry Dodge,
around whom all naturally gathered as their leader
in war and governor in peace.
Throughout his long career of fifty years of con
stant public service, in which he held with fidelity
and distinction almost every public trust, civil and
military, from his Western constituents, or by the
President, to serve their interests ; in steady and
graded advance, for his exemplary integrity and
merit ; at no time, even when his name was heard
over the land for his wondrous skill and success in
the Indian wars, did he swerve from his fixed habits
of modest reserve and silence as to his own merits
and services. He made no speeches, or sought
popularity by the art of politicians, to build upon
his fame such combinations as might give him Na
tional leadership.
This rare merit in our nation of selfish political
orators, scheming for office and flooding the land
with declamations of their own merits and claims,
was in marked contrast with some of his contem
poraries, who thereby secured their coveted reward
of the Presidency.
Wisely, in modest self-sacrifice to his beloved
constituents of Wisconsin, he chose the silent
course of primary and unswerving fidelity to their

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 69
interests, and calmly awaited the sober judgment of
posterity. Unquestionably the present grand results of his
devoted life, are of far more enduring, and ever
growing public benefits to the North-west and to
the Union, than all the forgotten party strifes and
creeds of political aspirants that filled the air
through the same period.
Such of these as are now remembered have been
long since reversed ; and almost all their fleeting
policies are buried in oblivion, while the nation has
outgrown their memory.
His immortal monument is his own grand State
— Wisconsin.
The infant territory that he, as their chosen
leader, began in 1836 to organize in all its life, from
the frontier wilderness, and with such wisdom and
integrity guided and controlled for twenty-one years,
he had the satisfaction of witnessing its fulfillment
of his hopes ; to behold it rising into an imperial
State, that sent over 200,000 of its sturdy youth to
suppress the Southern Rebellion ; blooming with fair
cities, towns, and villages ; with every culture and
illimitable natural resources ; with universities, gal
leries, and metropolitan elegance ; traversed by
steam on land and water ; the proximate center of

170 TRISTRAM DODGE
population of the Union, and which since i860 has
controlled the nation.
Augustus C, second son of Henry Dodge, was
born at St. Genevieve, January 2, 1812 ; reared in
the lead mines of Wisconsin, and denied the ad
vantages of early education and training in the
schools and colleges now so abundant.
When but fifteen years of age, he served as a
private in several campaigns against the Winne
bago Indians in a company of volunteers, com
manded by Captain William Schuyler Hamilton,
third son of General Alexander Hamilton.
When twenty years of age he volunteered in the
Black Hawk War, and became a First Lieutenant
in the company commanded by Captain Francis
Gehoin. June 18, 1838, he was appointed by President Van
Buren Register of the United States Land Office at
Burlington, Wisconsin, afterward Iowa Territory.
He discharged the duties of this office so accept
ably to the people that, in 1840, they elected him
Delegate to Congress from Iowa, a position to
which he was chosen for four consecutive terms.
In 1848 he was chosen one of the Presidential
Electors of Iowa, and also United States Senator.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 171
He drew into the two-year class, so called, and was
re-elected for a full term of six years. He served in
the two houses of Congress from 1840 to 1855. In
the latter year he was appointed to succeed the
Hon. Pierre Soul^ as Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Her Catho
lic Majesty.
For the manner in which he performed these
important duties, we refer to the published letters
of the late William CuUen Bryant, written from
Madrid in 1859, P^g£ i5o. He says :
" The American Minister, Mr. Dodge, is very
attentive to the convenience of his countrymen, and
a great favorite with such of them as come to
Madrid. He is on excellent terms with the people
of the country, and has done what, I think, few of
his predecessors have taken the trouble to try,
acquired their language. He has sent his resigna
tion to Mr. Buchanan, that there may be no
hesitation in giving the embassy to any other
person ; but, should the resignation be accepted,
it is not likely that the post will be so well filled
as it now is."
The eldest son, Henry Dodge, who had achieved
distinction in the Indian wars under his father, and

172 TRISTRAM DODGE
had served as High Sheriff by election, and also as
Clerk of the United States District Court for Iowa
County, Wis., was appointed Agent for the Navajos,
whose language he spoke, as he also did that of
some ten other tribes ; was captured by the Zuni
savages, and burnt to death at the stake. This
shocking act of savage barbarity was perpetrated
near Fort Defiance, New Mexico, in 1856. He left
a widow and four children, viz. :
George, late of Peoria, 111.
Mary, wife of W. F. Fox, of Chicago.
Christiana, wife of Charles Rutter, New York.
Louis, New Orleans.
Israel Dodge, the grandfather, and his wife (Nancy
Hunter), of Carlisle, Pa., settled at St. Gene
vieve, Mo.
Children :
(Gen.) Henry Dodge.
Nancy, married (ist) James Conn, (2d) Rev. James
Sefton.
Josiah (died without issue).
Israel, Jr., and his wife Louisa had six children
(Arkansas).
John, wife and four children, all dead many years
since.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 73
Theodosia married Logan Caldwell, had six chil
dren ; one only survives, viz., Henry L. Cald
well, of St. Genevieve.
Louis (died without issue).
Mrs. Rebecca W. Sire, of St. Louis, is now the
only surviving child of Nancy.
The children of Israel, Jr., surviving are: George
W., William H., Theodosia, and Mary, of St. Louis
or Arkansas.
John settled in Arkansas, and his line is extinct.
General Henry Dodge married (1800) Christiana
McDonald ; had thirteen children, of whom
nine, viz., seven daughters and two sons, grew
to maturity.
Nancy married George W. Scott, brother of Hon.
J. Scott, was Marshal of Arkansas, and died
without children.
Louisiana, wife of W. J. Madden, Sonoma, Cal.
Henry (died 1856).
Augustus C, of Burlington, Iowa.
Elizabeth married Paschal Beguette, Vidalia, Cal.
Mary married John Dement, Dixon, 111.
Selina married Myers F. Truett, San Francisco,
Cal.
Christiana married Governor James Clark, Iowa.

174 TRISTRAM DODGE
Virginia married H. A. Hayden, Milwaukee, Wis.
Hon. Augustus C. Dodge and his wife Clara
(Herdich) have three children surviving, viz. :
Augustus, Charles J.,
William, of Burlington, Iowa.
On the 20th day of November, 1883, in his
seventy-second year, the Hon. Augustus C. Dodge,
after a brief illness, died at his home in Burlington,
Iowa. His death was deeply felt as of the most cherished
son of the State. From the very numerous obitu
aries, the following is extracted :
CHANTING REQUIEMS.
The press of Iovsta upon the death of General Dodge ; re
gardless OF PARTY THEY SORROWFULLY MOURN A GOOD AND
PURE MAN. A SERIES OF INTERESTING SKETCHES OF AND COM
MENTS UPON HIS LIFE.
{From t)ie Council Bluffs Globe.)
THE GREATEST ROMAN OF THEM ALL.
General Dodge was known to political life almost
from boyhood. His father was the late General
Henry Dodge, of Wisconsin, who was also an officer

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 75
of the United States Army, and the commander of
a regiment of dragoons in the Black Hawk War.
When Wisconsin was admitted as a State, the father
became one of its United States Senators, and the
illustrious son who has just died, was a resident of
the territory of Iowa, and its Delegate in Congress.
The latter served also in the Black Hawk War, un
der his father. As a Delegate in Congress, A. C.
Dodge exerted a powerful influence in securing the
admission of Iowa as a State, and when this was
accomplished, he was elected one of its Senators in
Congress together with General G. W. Jones, now
a resident of Dubuque. The most remarkable feat
ure of this senatorial result was the fact that Gen
eral Dodge, the father, of Wisconsin, and General
Dodge, the son, of Iowa, occupied seats in the
United States Senate at the same time ; and both
took a decided and leading part in contemporaneous
legislation. It is due to the memory of the veteran
statesman who has just passed away, to say that
it is owing to his exertions, principally, that the
boundaries of Iowa were extended to the Missouri
River, so as to embrace the fairest and richest por
tions of our great State. He was always devotedly
attached to the fame and fortunes of the Demo
cratic Party, and when the control of Iowa passed

176 TRISTRAM DODGE
to the Republicans, General Dodge ceased to be its
Senator, but was, under the administration of Presi
dent Pierce, sent as Minister to Spain, where he
won the esteem and confidence of all diplomatic
representatives of all the other Powers residing near
that court. Since his return from that mission he
has taken an active interest in political affairs. In
Congress he was an earnest and efficient advocate
of Pacific railways, and in all his senatorial career
enjoyed the peculiar confidence of Stephen A.
Douglas. General Dodge was a fine lawyer, and
during the last twenty years has devoted his re
markable talents to the practice of that profession.
In all his political and professional career General
A. C. Dodge has been characterized by the most
uncompromising and unswerving honesty. His
private character and reputation are untarnished.
He left official life, not richer as in these modern
days, but poorer by far than when he first entered
it. All classes of people throughout the State,
who knew this sterling character, will read the in
telligence of his death with profound sorrow. He
was the greatest Roman of them all.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 177
{From the Davenport Democrat.')
A HARDY, RESOLUTE, HONEST MAN.
The deceased was bom at St. Genevieve, Mo.,
January 2, 18 12, and consequently had reached the
72d year of his age. He was the son of Governor
and General Henry Dodge, of Wisconsin. Nearly
the entire life of the subject of this sketch was
passed west of the Mississippi River, which is, of
itself, a most exceptional fact. At the organization
of the Wisconsin Territory in 1836, Henry Dodge
was appointed Governor ; what is now Iowa being
included in that Territory, the capital of which was
Belmont, for one year and afterward at Burlington.
In 1838, Iowa Territory was organized and Augustus
C. Dodge appointed by President Van Buren Regis
ter of the Land Office at Burlington. He is said to
have made many friends among the early settlers
by advancing them part of the money with which to
pay claims. Soon after the time designated a dis
pute arose between Iowa and Missouri about the
boundary line between them. General Dodge was
one of the commissioners on the part of Iowa to
settle the dispute, and afterwards he was comman
der of the Iowa forces when hostilities were threat
ened between the two commonwealths. It was

178 TRISTRAM DODGE
largely owing to his moderate course and concilia
tory counsels that the matter was peaceably set
tled. General Dodge served as a delegate for Iowa Ter
ritory in the 27th, 28th, and 29th Congresses. Upon
the organization of the State he was elected one of
the two first senators, and as such met his father,
who was also a member of that national body, hav
ing been chosen United States Senator from Wis
consin. General Dodge occupied his seat in the
Senate for eight years, taking a decided stand for
the interests of his State and constituents. He
served during the sessions of the 30th, 31st, 32d,
and 33d Congresses.
In 1855 he was appointed by President Pierce
Minister to Spain, and there continued during the
remainder of that President's administration and
also of President Buchanan's. In 1859, General
Dodge was the Democratic candidate for Governor
of Iowa, but he was defeated by Governor Kirk-
wood. He was a delegate to the Johnson Conven
tion in Philadelphia and to the Chicago Democratic
Convention in 1864.
For several years following. General Dodge lived
as a quiet citizen in Burlington, of which city, in
1874, he was chosen as Mayor by a large majority

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 79
as a citizens' candidate. During the past summer
the general took a great interest in the semi-centen
nial of Iowa's history, which was so successfully held
at the city of his home. It may truthfully be re
corded that the deceased was always a friend of
young men, and was a favorite with them. Politi
cally, he was always a Democrat, and temperance
was one of the subjects to whose advancement he
devoted much of his time and means. Many are
the temperance organizations and red and blue rib
bon clubs which trace their existence to his efforts.
It was in 1837 that he was married to Miss Her
dich, of St. Genevieve, Mo., who survives him with
the children, A. V., C. J., and W. W. Dodge, all
residents of Burlington. In religion, the sympathies
of the deceased were with the Catholic Church, of
which Mrs. Dodge was a faithful member, and in
the faith of which he was baptized during his last
sickness. In closing this hasty sketch, the materials of which
have been hurriedly gathered, it should be stated
that General Dodge was a strong partisan, and al
ways engaged earnestly in the cause he believed to
be right ; yet he commanded the highest respect of
all, and was most esteemed by those who were
brought into the most intimate relations with him.

l8o TRISTRAM DODGE
His life will form a part of the State's history.
Whether he is viewed as a young man earning his
living by manual labor in the Galena lead mines, as
a flat-boatman on the Mississippi River, as Governor
of the Territory, or as a member of Congress, his
character stands out as a hardy, resolute, honorable
man, always devoted to his country, and doing the
important work assigned to him conscientiously and
well.

{From the Burlington Hawkeye, November 21.)
FEW MEN WITH CLEANER RECORDS.
General Augustus C. Dodge, Burlington's distin
guished citizen, and one of the early pioneers of
Iowa, died at his residence in this city. No. 829
North Fifth Street, at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon,
after an illness of only four days' duration. The
intelligence of the demise of one who has been so
prominently identified with the history of Iowa, as
a State and a Territory, and whose life and pub
lic services have been so closely connected with the
history of this State — a man of generous impulses,
who never knew a selfish motive, kind, noble, urbane,
and charitable — will be received by the public with
profound regret and universal sorrow.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. l8l
THE FATAL ILLNESS.
The first intelligence of the serious and fatal ill
ness of General Dodge was made through the col
umns of the Hawkeye last Saturday morning.
Thursday the General was upon the streets and
apparently in good health. By undue exposure he
contracted a severe cold and about 12 o'clock Thurs
day night he was taken ill and a physician sum
moned. His condition did not improve, and on
Friday morning he was visited by Drs. Stone and
Ransom. Friday evening he was resting quietly,
but was under the influence of opiates administered
by the physicians. At this time it was hoped by
the numerous friends of the General that his strong
constitution would enable him to completely re
cover, and his restoration to his usual good health
was sincerely hoped for. Saturday he was in a crit
ical condition, and in the afternoon an operation
upon the bladder was successfully performed by Dr.
Stone, assisted by Drs. Ransom, Nassau, and Henry.
Temporary relief was afforded, but later in the
night he suffered much pain. Sunday no encour
aging symptoms had manifested themselves, and
during the morning he grew worse and his condition
became alarming in the extreme. A consultation of
the medical advisers was held and another operation

1 82 TRISTRAM DODGE
was performed, which was followed by a chill. The
patient became delirious, his mind wandered, and
only at times did he recognize those about his bed
side. Monday night he grew worse, and yesterday
morning he began failing rapidly and the physicians
gave up hope of recovery. He continued to sink
through the day, and it was quite apparent that the
beloved man would linger but a few hours. At
3.30 in the afternoon there was a decided change
for the worse, for the hour of his dissolution had
come. A few minutes past 4 o'clock General A. C.
Dodge, surrounded by his sorrowing and aged wife,
his three sons, and one or two intimate friends,
quietly expired. The transition from life was
almost imperceptible. At the time of his demise
and for several hours previous the General lay un
conscious. The death-bed scene was affecting be
yond description of pen or tongue. Surrounded by
grieving relatives bowed down with sorrow, the
soul of that good and true man. General A. C.
Dodge, forsook its earthly tenement and winged its
flight to realms above.
The direct cause of General Dodge's death was
hermaturria of the bladder, the result of the con
traction of a severe cold last Thursday. For the
past five years he has been afflicted with a chronic

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 83
disease of the bladder, the kidneys being also badly
affected. General Dodge was a tall, stately, robust
man, and possessed a splendid constitution, which
repelled the attacks of disease until he reached a
ripe old age.
General Augustus Caesar Dodge was the son of
Governor Henry Dodge, and was born at St. Gene
vieve, Missouri, January 2, 1812. When quite
young he emigrated with his father to the lead
mines of Wisconsin, coming up the Mississippi
River in 1827, and locating at Galena, Illinois, long
before the era of steam-boats. He won an honora
ble record in two Indian wars, the Winnebago War
in 1827, and the Black Hawk War of 1832, distin
guished himself for bravery and winning deserved
recognition for his services. He served as aide-de
camp to his father, Governor Henry Dodge, at the
battle of Bad Axe, fought on the 2d of August, 1832,
in Wisconsin ; where Black Hawk was defeated and
his leaders captured in attempting flight to Canada.
Shortly after the termination of this famous Indian
war General Dodge was appointed Register of the
Land Office which had been established at Burling
ton, and during his period of office formed an exten
sive acquaintance among the settlers upon the
Black Hawk purchase, making numerous friends.

1 84 TRISTRAM DODGE
A. sketch of General Dodge, published a number
of years ago, says that at the time he held this
office the " Club Law " was the tenure by which
every man held his land, and many a bitter, violent
quarrel originated between the settlers concerning
their respective " claims." Every neighborhood
had its own " Claim Association," where disputed
titles were settled and adjusted, but whenever
either party felt himself aggrieved by the decisions
of this " higher law court," an appeal was then
taken to the Land Office, where all the bitterness
and strife was again enacted. These disputes and
difficulties General Dodge settled in such a manner
as to give satisfaction to both parties, and made
him afterward the tried friend of either. No man
ever came to the Land Office, while he was in it,
but he went away showering blessings on the gen
erous, noble-minded man who filled it.
The education of General Dodge in his earlier years
had been neglected, and it was during his term in the
Land Office in Burlington that he began to studi
ously apply himself to self-education, from which
time to his death he has been an industrious student
and a constant reader. By constant application he
became a finished scholar and fitted himself for the
many public positions of trust he so worthily filled

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 85
subsequently. General Dodge, in 1841, was elected
a Delegate to Congress from the Territory of Iowa,
and was re-elected for three consecutive terms, ter
minating his career as a representative in Congress
in the year 1847. ^^ was selected as the presiden
tial elector for the State of Iowa in 1848. During
his career as a Delegate to Congress, he formed an
extended personal acquaintance among the leading
public men of the day. The sketch of General
Dodge referred to above, says : " To see a man rise
from obscurity and poverty, untaught and unguided
by any other hand than his own, and rapidly force
his way through every grade of office almost ; with
credit and distinction, among senators and presi
dents, kings, princes and emperors, courts and
camps ; is always a pleasing and interesting spectacle
to every true-hearted American, and sets to the
generation who are to follow him a bright and
glorious example." No man ever worked with a
more fervent zeal for the benefit of a constituency
than he did, and no man ever procured for an infant
State or Territory what he procured for Iowa. He
saw her future greatness, and by his unremitting and
indefatigable labor won for her, aid and assistance
that greatly accelerated her growth to its present
magnitude. He knew what Iowa needed and pro-

1 86 TRISTRAM DODGE
cured it for her; his extended acquaintance and
popularity enabling him to successfully consum
mate any project he undertook.
In 1846 was held the first Legislature after Iowa
became a State, and the name of General A. C.
Dodge was prominently mentioned for Senator, he
receiving the unanimous support of his party. The
contest between the Whig and Democratic Party
for the election of members of the Legislature was
a hot contest. The balance of power in the Legis
lature was held by three Democrats elected in Lee
County, who were termed " opossums " ; and had
run independently of the political party of which
they were members. These three Democrats re
fused to go into caucus and to support General
Dodge; demanding that his name be withdrawn.
General Dodge magnanimously offered to permit
his name to be withdrawn, but his friends in the
Legislature refused to consent to his proposition.
Several attempts to elect him were fruitless, and the
joint convention adjourned without making an elec
tion, and the consequence was that Iowa was with
out a senator for two years.
In 1848, the Legislature reconvened and he was
elected United States Senator, with George W.
Jones as his colleague, serving in the Senate until

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 87
1855. Among the measures aided and appropria
tions secured by General Dodge, were : An appro
priation for a State road from Dubuque to the
southern boundary line of Iowa ; and an additional
appropriation for completing State buildings ; by
personal intervention he secured the retention in
office by President Tyler of the State Supreme
Judges ; he prevented the passage of an Act pro
posing to extend the limits of the half-breed tract
in Lee County ; procured a public land grant for
improving the Des Moines River ; procured a dona
tion of 500,000 acres of public lands in Iowa for
school purposes ; and procured the removal of the
Winnebagoes, a band of Indians that was constantly
committing depredations. He also during his con
gressional career aided in procuring an appropria
tion of $100,000 for clearing out the obstructions
in the rapids of the Mississippi, and an additional
appropriation of $125,000 for the construction of
snag dredge-boats for Western rivers, and procured
the passage of a bill granting lands for railroad pur
poses in Iowa. He opposed the " Bennet Land
Bill," and defended the " Union and Compromise ; "
advocated the passage of a " Homestead Exemp
tion " law, for the protection of the poor class ;
opposed monopolies and labored in behalf of any

1 88 TRISTRAM DODGE
measure he thought would improve the condition
of the laboring class. He played an important part
in the early national legislation, and was the con
temporary of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Silas Wright,
and Senator Phelps. General Dodge sat in the
Senate with his father, and this is the only instance
of a father and son holding seats in the Senate at
the same time.
General Dodge received the appointment of Min
ister to Spain from President Pierce, and the nomi
nation was unanimously confirmed. His amiability
of character, his experience in the halls of the
national legislature, his untiring energy, innate
talent and ability well fitted him for a diplomat.
His nomination at the time was generally favorably
commented upon by the press of the country,
although James Gordon Bennett, of the New York
Herald, opposed the appointment through the col
umns of his paper, and heaped abuse upon General
Dodge, which was entirely unwarranted by existing
circumstances. At the time of the appointment,
the Washington Union commented as follows upon
it : " The unanimous confirmation of the distinguished
Senator from Iowa for the position of American
Minister to Spain, shows how highly the Senate of

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 89
the United States appreciated the wisdom of the
selection by the President. General Dodge is a
genuine type of the American character. His has
been a most interesting career. He has, as it were,
grown up with the mighty West. Still a young
man, his history is crowded with eventful details.
He has been tried and proved in every emergency,
and from his first hour in public life down to the
present moment, he has been regarded as a man
of eminent capacity and lofty integrity. His frank
and fearless character, his sagacity and experience,
will make him a worthy representative of his coun
try. One thing is certain, the President could have
taken no man who more faithfully reflected the
patriotic sympathies of the National Democracy,
or who has been more completely identified with
that sentiment of political action which regards the
Constitution and the Union as one and inseparable."
During General Dodge's eight years' residence at
the Court of Madrid, he discharged the duties of
Minister with promptness and in a business-like
manner. Mr. and Mrs. Dodge were favorites in
society and of Queen Isabella ; the latter one day
presenting Mrs. Dodge with a handsome oil painting
of herself on copper plate, and of her husband,
which are now at the residence of General Dodge.

190 TRISTRAM DODGE
General Dodge finally resigned, and returned to
Burlington. In 1859, General Dodge ran for Gov
ernor on the Democratic ticket against Samuel J.
Kirkwood, but was defeated. The nomination for
Governor was forced upon him, as he declined it.
Immediately following his defeat, he received an
unsolicited complimentary vote for United States
Senator from the Democratic members of the State
Legislature, fifty-two in all, which was tendered as
a mark of their undiminished confidence in General
Dodge. His defeat in the race for the gubernatorial
chair was in reality General Dodge's political down
fall. But he did not pass into obscurity, and would
not, no matter how long he might have lived.
General Dodge was a delegate to the Chicago
Convention of 1864, and also to the Philadelphia
National Convention of 1866. In 1871, while the
nominees for the approaching presidential campaign
were being discussed, the name of General Dodge
for President on the Democratic ticket was men
tioned in a number of newspapers, and he was freely
spoken of among his friends. His name was also
mentioned for the Vice-Presidency. General Dodge
presided as Chairman of the State Democratic Con
vention, held at Council Bluffs, at the opening of
which he made a stirring speech, and was a delegate

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. I9I
to the Capital Convention held at St. Louis a num
ber of years ago. He participated in all presiden
tial and State campaigns, and made numberless
political addresses. On an Eastern tour in 1879, he
was frequently mentioned by the leading journals of
that section of the country, and met many of the
friends he had made while engaged in public life.
General Dodge also wrote a lecture entitled, " Spain
and the Spaniards," which he prepared some ten
years after his return from that country as Minister
Plenipotentiary. It was delivered in a large number
of cities and towns. General Dodge has attended
numberless old settlers' reunions in Iowa and Illinois,
and the limitless fund of incidents and reminiscences
of early pioneer life which he possessed always
made him an interesting and entertaining talker at
gatherings of this character. He was elected Mayor
in 1874, and has assisted in various projects for the
improvement of the city. About the latest matter
that engrossed his attention, and in which he acted
a prominent part, was the semi-centennial celebra
tion held in this city on the 1st of June last. Gen
eral Dodge was made Chairman of the Executive
and Invitation Committees, and was the presiding
officer of the day, and to his untiring efforts and
advice was much of the success of the celebration

192 TRISTRAM DODGE
due. On that day he delivered an able address,
replete with historical reminiscences, and met hun
dreds of his old-time friends. Since the celebration
he prepared and had printed a pamphlet containing
a record of the commemoration of the fiftieth anni
versary of the settlement of Iowa ; the distribution
of which among his friends he had about completed.
HIS CHARACTER.
General Dodge was a man with a spotless reputa
tion, and during a public career of fifty years not
one breath of suspicion has been uttered against
his name. He was generous to a fault. No one in
need of assistance ever came to his door without
receiving aid. He was noted for his urbanity, and
no one was so humble that he would not stop upon
the street, speak to and shake hands with. His
sympathies were instantly aroused for the op
pressed. He was kind-hearted, magnanimous,
pleasant, and agreeable. In appearance he was
stately and dignified. He possessed a high order
of ability, and discharged his public duties with
a devotion and earnestness worthy of imitation by
modern statesmen. He was a man of accurate
judgment, and possessed a large capacity for labor.
He was honorable and upright in every transaction.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 93
and leaves a spotless record that will forever per
petuate his name in the history of Iowa. He was a
strong advocate of temperance and every measure
for the alleviation of the poor classes. He belonged
to no religious denomination during his life-time,
but attended church regularly. Several days pre
vious to his dissolution he was baptized in the
Catholic faith. To him home was a sacred shrine ;
there he found the greatest joy and contentment.
He was an affectionate husband and a kind father.
His family relations were always agreeable. He was
a man of strict integrity, and charitable to the last
degree, and was a good neighbor. Few men leave
behind them the clean record General Dodge has.
He was known to every person in Burlington, and
his death will cause deep public sorrow.
To Mrs. Dodge, who is an aged lady, and the
General's son, the sympathy of the entire com
munity is extended. Countless friends called at the
residence of the General yesterday evening to extend
their condolence and offer such assistance as might
be in their power to render.
General Dodge leaves three sons, A. V. Dodge,
and C. J. and W. W. Dodge. The former is engaged
in commercial pursuits, and the latter are attor
neys, having built up a splendid practice. The
13

194 TRISTRAM DODGE
General had seven sisters, four of whom are dead.
They were : Mrs. Nancy Kingsbury, Mrs. Elizabeth
Beguette, Mrs. Governor C. H. Clark, Mrs. Vir
ginia Hayden, Mrs. L. Madden, now residing in
California ; Mrs. Mary L. Dement, mother of Henry
Dement, Secretary of State of Illinois, of Dixon,
111. ; and Mrs. S. Truett, of San Francisco. He had
one brother, Henry Dodge, who is dead. General
Dodge had one daughter, who died some thirty-five
years ago.
General Dodge left a will bequeathing all his
property to his wife. It is to be regretted that he
has not left a history of his life, as it has been an
eventful one. It is remarkable that no biography
of General Dodge could be found in any of the
State, county, or city publications, and the one pre
sented this morning is prepared from the memory
of old citizens and a scrap-book which contains
many newspaper articles referring to the General.
It may be possible there are a few errors, but in the
main it is correct. Some one should undertake to
write an extended biography of the General.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 95
BLOCK ISLAND
AND ITS HISTORY.
To the wearied brain-toilers of the cities, courts,
or pulpits, and the scheming merchants ever weav
ing new plans of stupendous effort for gain in new
ventures ; to each and all come seasons when the
overwrought mind, nerves, and muscles must have
repose to insure future activity.
A large class whose taste, or perhaps lack of
reflective taste, are best pleased with the gilded
lounging, and the idle, flirting, affected, and preten
tious butterfly throng of the vast summer cara
vanserai hotels.
But, for those who seek delicious climate in a
home on the rolling, solemn sea ; with every desired
luxury from garden, field, and waves, in bracing air ;
an elixir of new heaven-born life and serene quiet ;
where, undisturbed, one can ride, walk, bathe, fish,
and sail in ever-renewed variety, or study the grand
features of its local history, and learn how it became
such a nursery of heroes and freedom — above all
other summer resorts is Block Island.
Consult any good map, and the beautiful island,
deep rooted in the ocean bed, will be seen lying
due south of the main shore of the central part

196 TRISTRAM DODGE
of Rhode Island, thirteen miles away ; about
eighteen miles north of east from Montauk Point,
and twelve miles from the north shore of Long
Island ; circled round by the open sea, a mass
of treeless, fertile hills and pastures, affording in
every direction views of the wide Atlantic, far as
the eye can reach, always crossed by the ever-moving
steamers and white-winged sailers of the seas.
Rev. Samuel Niles, in his rambling narrative
(a. D. 1700) of the Indian wars, describes Block
Island during his own residence there (1674— 1762).
After detailing the completion of his large stone
house there by Captain James Sands, adds : " In
1689 the island was captured by French privateers,
and on his advice, Mr. Niles, Mr. Sands and family,
with some others, ' took our flight into the woods,
which were at considerable distance, where we
encamped that night. After which the three elder
brothers. Captain John Sands, Mr. James and
Samuel Sands, removed to Long Island and settled
there, each leaving a farm at Block Island, which
they stocked with sheep, and came over once a
year, at shearing time, on Block Island, to carry off
their wool and fit sheep for market at New York.' "
According to the coast survey, its position is in
latitude 41° 08' north, longitude 71" 33' west. It is

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 97
about eight miles long, of irregular shape, and about
three miles wide.
" Circled by waters that never freeze.
Beaten by billows, and swept by breeze,
Lieth this Island of Manissees."
The visitor arrives at its harbor and breakwater, to
stay the surging Atlantic (the recent Government
work), just south of the old harbor and Clay Head,
and not far above the commanding South Light, in
full view of Beacon Hill, the church, and pleasant
homes of the islanders ; and as he walks the cliffs
will have broad ocean views of ever varying life.
The visitor may find many days of invigorating
exercise, rambling in this fine air and scenery, over
the island, its shores and waters ; but he will, per
haps, seek his leading interest in the study of its
history in its unique ancient records, with the excel
lent Town Clerk, Ambrose M. Rose, Esq.
We record gratefully our obligation to this vener
able contemporaneous Record — almost unexampled
in this country — for some of the original material of
the following historical sketch of the island, its dis
covery, title, and settlement.
For the massive breakwater, new harbor, the
beautiful and commanding South Light-house, as

198 TRISTRAM DODGE
well as for the grand " Ocean View Hotel," whose
palatial proportions first greet the visitor, the island
and the public are indebted to the well-directed
energy and public spirit of the Hon. Nicholas Ball.
He is a native. His ancestor, Hon. Peter Ball, arriving
on the island from England early in the eighteenth
century, was prominent in the General Assembly of
the Colony of Rhode Island, and in 1735 obtained
the first pier for the island. His present representa
tive, whose maternal ancestor and wife are of the
family of the original settler — Tristram Dodge — has
become, by his true beneficence and large-hearted,
sagacious, and untiring enterprise, ju.stly the fore
most citizen of Block Island. Besides these promi
nent works, to him is also due the life-saving station
and the submarine cable to the main-land.
He has for eighteen years — from 1854-72 — con
tinuously, and often by unanimous choice, repre
sented the island in the Assembly and Senate of
Rhode Island. No history or description of the
island would be complete without this imperfect
tribute. Block Island, from its discovery, in 1614, by
Adrian Block and Hendrick Christiansee ; where
they built a fort and a few houses (sailing in their
yacht — length 64^ feet, breadth iii< feet — the

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 1 99
" Onrust," or Restless, the first vessel built at New
Amsterdam, through Hurl Gate and the Sound to
Boston, and discovering Long Island to be an
island) remained in possession of its native Narra
gansett Indians, who called it " Manissees," which
is alleged to mean " Little God." Block Island was
named on Dutch maps after this voyage "Adrian's
Eylandt " and " Block's Eylandt." A skipper from
Massachusetts, Captain Oldham, and his crew,
having been massacred by the Indians, whose re
pute was generally peaceful, and Oldham doubt
less provoked the assault, Endicott and Underbill,
with their force of one hundred men, landed and
severely punished the Indians; whereby Massachu
setts Bay claimed title to the island, to which the
Indians yielded and paid tribute.
In the year 1658, Massachusetts Colony granted
it to Endicott, Bellingham, and associates, but no
settlement ensued.
In 1660, John Alcock, M.D, of Roxbury, apprized,
so runs the record, Thomas Terry, James Sands,
and other associates in his land schemes, that he
knew of an adjacent island that could be bought for
;£'400, and that if they would divide this sum and
all expenses they might share the profits, on con
dition of paying him twenty-five acres or .^5 for

200 TRISTRAM DODGE
one-sixteenth. His proposal being accepted, they
took an assignment of the title of Endicott and
his associates, and at a meeting at Alcock's house,
September, 1660, appointed Peter Noyes and
Thomas Faxun (called " knowing men ") as survey
ors, to lay out the island in lots for the settlers: of
whom sixteen engaged and paid all expenses of
building, jointly, a barque at Braintree, and equip
ping the same ; which, however, made too slow
progress for Simon Ray and Samuel Dering, who
built a " shallop " at their own cost. In April,
1661, the " shallop," navigated by William Edwards
and Samuel Staples, sailed from Braintree to Taun
ton, and there received its fifteen settlers and their
families. Thomas Faxun having proceeded with
the surveyors previously.
What a rare sight now would be that old
" barque," so heavy and slow ! and that " shallop,"
so swift and sure !
We might compare the " barque " with the
" Mayflower " in size and capacity ; and marvel at
the number of the Plymouth Pilgrims, with the
crew, freight, etc., that we are annually trumpet-
called to hear from the modest New Englanders.
Without the least parade of exile, covenant, or
form of government for Church or State, the set-

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 20I
tier owners of the island, of ample resources, quietly
sailed away from New England's arrogant exclusive-
ness, to establish in their favored island, a truly free
State and Church, which never sought to impose
restrictions on others.
In the very ancient parchment-bound Town Rec
ords of New Shoreham, or Block Island, familiarly
called " The Old Sheepskins " and legally the " Evi
dences of Property," appears the following record :
" Memorandum in the year of our Lord 1660, as
followeth :
Mr. John Alcock, physician in the town of Rox
bury in the colony of Massachusetts, being con
nected with Mr. Thomas Faxun, Peter George,
Thomas Terry, Richard Ellis, Thomas Dering,
Simon Ray, all of Braintree, with sundry persons
belonging to other towns.
Mr. John Alcock, acquainting them of an island
that was to be sold, namely. Block Island, which
might make a situation for about sixteen families ;
and also declaring the price to be four hundred
pounds ; and that, if they would be concerned with
him proportionally towards the creating a planta
tion on Block Island, he the aforesaid John Alcock
would then proceed in the purchase thereof ; grant
ing him for his trouble and pains, five pounds for a

202 TRISTRAM DODGE '
sixteenth part or twenty-five acres of land as an
equivalent, and to be at equal proportional payment
for said purchase in manner and form as followeth :
Twenty-five pounds for every sixteenth part ; the
remainder of the payment for to be paid in coun
try pay, such as the country afforded ; and accord
ingly timely notice was given unto all those that
might think convenient for to be concerned with
the erecting the concerns aforesaid, for to make
their personal appearance at the house of Mr. John
Alcock, August the seventeenth, 1660 ; then and
there accordingly was forthwith attended by those
hereunto subscribed,
Mr. John Alcock, M.D., Simon Ray,
Thomas Faxun, Felix Wharton,
Peter George, Hew Williams,
Thomas Terry, John Gluffer,
Richard Ellis, Edward Vorse,
Samuel Dering, John Rathbone,
and according to the aforementioned premises
forthwith agreed with Mr. John Alcock for the pay
ment of said island proportionably as above men
tioned ; and also a consultation for which way to
proceed concerning the erecting a plantation on the
aforesaid Block Island, considering the remoteness

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 203
thereof both by land and sea, and could not be set
tled without great charge ; whereupon some of our
company began for to decline ; still the remainder
proceeded in the management thereof as noted ; all
and every person that was concerned with land on
Block Island should be at their equal proportion
of all charges belonging unto the settlement there
of. Whereupon for the premising and settlement
of Block Island it was agreed upon that whose
name here subscribed Mr. James Alcock, Felix
Wharton, Hew Williams, Thomas Terry, Samuel
Dering, Simon Ray, all of them agreeing forthwith
to build a barque for the transporting of cattle
to said island for the settlement thereof. Thomas
Terry, Samuel Dering, Simon Ray,, procuring the
hull for to be'built ; Mr. John Alcock, Felix Whar
ton, and Hew Williams for to provide the sails, and
riggings, and accordingly proceeded in the manage
ment thereof. Further, for the better and quicker
transporting of passengers, considering that there
was no harbour, Samuel Dering and Simon Ray
built a shallop upon their own cost and charge for
the promoting and settling of said island, and by the
end of the year 1660 the barque and shallop were
finished for the same purpose before mentioned,
and William Rose, first master of the barque for

204 TRISTRAM DODGE
the employment that the barque was built for, and
William Edwards and Samuel Staples undertaking
to sail the shallop around the Cape, and for to meet
the passengers at Taunton, there to take them
in and sail for Block Island. In the year 1661 the
barque set sail for Braintree. In the beginning of
April, for Block Island. The shallop received its
passengers at Taunton, namely :
Thomas Terry, Duncan Williamson,
Samuel Dering, John Rathbone,
Simon Ray, Edward Vorse,
William Tosh, Nicholas White,
Thormutt Rose, William Billings,
William Barker, Trustarum Dodge,
David Kimball, John Ackus,
William Cahoone, (Thomas Faxun had pro
ceeded with the surveyor).
" Memorandum in the year of our Lord 1661.
Further settlement of the Plantation of Block
Island. " Notice was given unto all the proprietors to
assemble themselves at the house of Felix \\^har-
ton, in Boston, the first Tuesday in September,
1661, there to consult and agree upon some able

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 205
and knowing man to survey the island, that every
purchaser might have his proportion, that he or
they might improve it to the best advantage they
could ; Mr. John Alcock propounding unto the as
sembly thereof, a man that he knew for to be an
able proved surveyor, one Mr. (Peter) Noyes, of Sud
bury ; forthwith the assembly accepted Mr. Alcock's
proposal, and forthwith it was voted that Mr. Noyes,
Mr. Faxun, an able knowing man, that they should
go to Block Island and by lot divide unto every
man concerned his due proportion as near as they
could ; and so accordingly they did proceed in the
managing thereof according unto direction of the
purchasers and proprietors of said island that took
it into consideration at the time of this assembly,
and agreed upon, that there should a quantity or
portion of land be laid out for the help and main
tenance of a minister, and so continue forever, and
accordingly Block Island was surveyed and lotted
out proportionally unto the purchasers by Mr.
Noyes and by Mr. Faxun, as doth appear by the
surveyor's works in the plot and draught of said
island, measured and bounded unto every purchaser
according to proportion by lot as followeth :
" The North part of the island by lot :
" Mr. Richard Billings, lot i.

206 TRISTRAM DODGE
" Samuel Dering, lot 2.
" Nathaniel Wingley, Turmot Rose, lot 3.
" Edward E. Morse, John Rathbone, lot 4.
" Thomas Faxun, lots 5 and 6.
" Richard Ellis, lot 7.
" Felix Wharton, lot 8.
" John Glover, lot 9.
"Thomas Terry, lots 10 and II.
"James Sands, lot 12.
" Hew Williams, lot 13.
" John Alcock, lot 14.
" Minister's land, lot 15.
" Peter George, lot 16.
" Simon Ray, lot 17.
" Western part of the island as by lot divided :
" Thomas Faxun, lots i and 2.
" Nathaniel Wingley and Turmot Rose, lot 3.
" Thomas Terry, lots 4 and 5.
" Felix Wharton, lot 6.
•John Alcock, Physician, lot 7.
" George S. Ray, lots 8 and 9.
" South-east part of the island :
" John Rathbone and Edward, lot 10.
"Richard Billings, lot 11.
" Richard Ellis, lot 12.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 207
" Hew William.s, lot 13.
"John Glover and James Sands, lots 14 and IJ.
" Samuel Dering, lot 16.
" The other small divisions by lot divided unto
every purchaser by proportion.
" The above written on both sides being a true
copy abstracted out of the old Book of Records of
Memorandum for the first settling of Block Island
by me. " November 29, 1695,
" Pr. Nathaniel Mott,
"Town Recorder."
Upon this title did these settlers embark all their
means and Hves ; no other title was obtained either
of Indians or Dutch, whose cession by treaty with
England in 1664 came opportunely. These early
settlers and proprietors of Block Island, unlike all
other American colonists, sought no royal charter or
authority from Europe, as their basis of title ; and
they took possession of their purchase and remained
in quiet enjoyment for three years of their respect
ive lands ; undisputed sovereigns ; until the negotia
tion of Roger Williams induced their formal and
voluntary adhesion to his new colony. The specu

208 TRISTRAM DODGE
lators sold out at profit to the settlers who had no
other deed than the survey and map of 1660; only
one copy whereof, and very imperfect, is now extant
on the island, and with Mr. Simon Ray Sands,
copied for his grandmother.
The sixteen settlers entered into possession of
their allotments ; and here have ever since remained
undisturbed by the natives, or the several wars of
the colonies and States. When, in 1664, Rhode
Island was chartered by Charles II., they elected to
become part, and not of Massachusetts ; and those
settlers, by Delegates James Sands and Joseph
Kent took the oaths as Freemen of Rhode Island,
as appears hereby :
Rhode Island Colonial Records, 1664-77.
(Prov. 1857), printed by order of the General
Assembly, vol. xxi., p. 58. " At a General Assem
bly of the Collony of Rhode Island and Providence
Plantation, assembled Rhode Island, the fourth of
the third month (" May ") so-called, 1664, and in the
sixteenth yeare of the raygne of Charles the Second,
King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, etc.
" Whereas (recital that it hath pleased the King
to grant a charter to the colony), wherein Block
Island is expressly nominated as part of this colony.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 209
" That by these messengers : James Sands,
Thomas Terry, and Joseph Kent, the inhabitants
of Block Ishnd have declared unto this Assembly
their professed obedience to his Majesty said royal
pleasure. (After settling form of government, oaths of
allegiance and office to be subscribed and filed),
proceeds :
" Whereas Mr. James Sands, of Block Island,
being freeman in this Collony or Corporation of
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, etc., to
gether with Joseph Kent, of Block Island, hath
presented their humble petition to this Court, being
the Generall Assembly of this Collony, in behalf
of Thomas Terry, Peter George, Simon Raye, Wil
liam Harris, Samuel Dearing, John Raurbone, John
Davies, Samuel Staple, Hugh Williams, Robert
Gutney, William Tosh, Tallman Rose, William Car-
house, Tristrome Dodge, John Clark, Joseph Kent,
and William Barker ; inhabitants and housekeepers
at Block Island aforementioned, desiring that the
forementioned inhabitants may be admitted freemen
of this Collony aforesayed, and being demanded,
if they the said James Sands and Joseph Kent did
know that all the forenamed persones weare men of
peaceable and good behaviour, and lykly to prove
14

2IO TRISTRAM DODGE
worthy and hopefull members of the Collony, they
answered ' Yea,' where upon the Court on caution
and instructions given to the sayd petitioners, have
accepted and admitted all the sayd inhabitants
aforementioned, to be free of the sayd Collony, or
soe many as shall give under their hands in writting
according to the instructions aforementioned."
It is not a little strange to remark \.h.e providential
preservation of this island ; alike from the Puritan
intolerance of Massachusetts ; the monarchical ambi
tion of conquest of the French, its first discoverers,
under Verazzano, so zealous to plant the lilies and
the Church in the new world, on his discovery,
naming it Luisa, for the king's mother, when, in
1524, he described it to Francis I. accurately in geo
graphy, " and as full of hills covered with trees, well
peopled, for we saw fires all along the coast " : —
And also, from the energy of the Dutch West
India Company, that claimed title to all Long
Island, and vigorously attacked the Cow Bay set
tlers ; as well as from any sympathy with dynastic
changes in England, or much activity in our own
Revolution ; yet the island commands Long Island
and its Sound, as well as Narragansett Bay.
Its first settlers were Baptists, and the only

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 211
church building and society on the island is of the
Baptists, and so has been from the beginning of its
history. This first church was organized (October 3, 1772)
by Thomas Dodge, Hannah Dodge, and six others
(eight in all), Thomas Dodge, Deacon. The first
pastor was Rev. David Sprague; second pastor.
Rev. Thomas Dodge ; Deacons, Oliver and Tristram
Dodge. This church constituted itself, and adopted
its own Articles of Faith.
It was created and still flourishes in the true
spirit of independence and freedom of religious
conviction, after the model of Roger Williams.
From early in the last century the island has
been treeless, and yet very fertile, with its fine
manure of sea-weed and peat, and now there is only
one young orchard here, and tree planting has
scarcely begun.
The settlehient of Block Island, in 166 1, is of
much interest to the reflective student of the well-
springs of our national and family history. It must
have been by reason of the general ignorance of
geography that, although the colonists of Massa
chusetts Bay were active sailors and traders with the
colonies of Connecticut, New Haven, and Hartford,
and the Dutch of New Amsterdam ; although Mas-

2X2 TRISTRAM DODGE
sachusetts, in 1636, through the organized raid of
Endicott and Underbill, and their little army, had,
according to the existing theory, obtained and
asserted political sovereignty over the island as part
of its soil ; yet the island, with its advantageous po
sition and resources, was wholly unknown and unex
plored beyond the landing-place of their expedition ;
and although the Dutch Admiral Block, with Com
mander Hendrick Christiansee, had, in 1614, sailed
around the island, landed, explored, fully described,
discovered, and took it into possession for Holland,
erecting a fort and some dwellings thereon in the
same voyage in which he fully discovered Long
Island; sailing around it and fixing its geographical
position, prominent points, and coast-line ; — upon
•jvhich voyage of first discovery, the Dutch had uni
formly asserted paramount title and sovereignty to
all Long Island, very efficiently by their West India
Company of 1624, whose Directors-General were
vested with full civil and military powers as Gover
nors of the New Netherlands at New Amsterdam,
on the Island of Manhattan; — neverthless, the island
remained unoccupied by any Europeans before 1661.
It is not a little strange, when, over a century pre
vious, the adventurous Frobisher and Raleigh had
penetrated, the one to the regions of the Arctic

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 213
Circle, and the other to Virginia, in the " South
Sea," following the lead of Cabot ; when constant
trade was maintained to the East Indies and the
Carribbean Islands; and no distance deterred the
equally adventurous Hollanders, who were already
planted in Java and South America ; and were keen
in their search around the globe, over whose sea
they claimed and exercised supreme dominion, for
advantageous colonial settlement ; that this lofty
and fertile island, in constant sight from the main
land, as well as from Long Island, and commanding,
by its position at the entrance of the Sound, its
whole commerce, as well of Long Island as the
main shore ; should have been suffered by the Dutch
to lapse from their sway, and their original title of
discovery and possession be yielded to oblivion ;
and that the English skippers, on their frequent
voyages along the Sound, and enterprising English
emigrants had never ventured to its shores ; and at
such a late period, this near neighbor to the colonies
was almost wholly unknown and only occupied by
its aboriginal Indians. The plain solution is that it
was providentially reserved for a settlement unex
ampled in all history ; for a pure democracy and
entire religious and civil freedom, its leading charac
teristic to the present day.

214 TRISTRAM DODGE
This grows more marked as we study the history
of the great maritime nations of that age. In the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Spain was the un
questioned Mistress of the Seas; and, from the era
of Columbus, Pizarro, and Cortes, with Portugal and
Holland, had founded vast empires in Asia, Africa,
and America ; Holland early became their success
ful rival, and then England and France emulated
their search for new lands and productive colo
nies. This spirit of maritime adventure, so conspicuous
in England during the reign of Elizabeth ; became
under her Stuart successors, more generally organ
ized and constant; and, as with the Huguenots of
France, was the chosen refuge from oppression,
attracting their best spirits. The second generation
of Massachusetts colonists only followed herein
the policy of their ancestors ; by emigrating to new
soil from the intolerant bigotry of the authorities
at Plymouth, Boston, and Salem, and their equally
restricted Colony of Connecticut.
Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1658, by patent
granted the island absolutely as their private prop
erty, free of all claims of sovereignty, to John
Endicott, Richard Bellingham, Daniel Dennison,
and William Hawthorne. Their title of absolute

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 215
fee simple was, in 1661, acquired through Dr. John
Alcock, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, by the sixteen
original settlers in like full estate, as their own ab
solute private property, of which they became and
continued undisputed sovereign proprietors.
The island was not insignificant and therefore
unvisited. Of about the area of Manhattan, with
fertile soil and abounding in the harvest of the seas ;
its first settlers, like the " Lotos Eaters," would go
home no more ; they remained and reared their
families in content, and their descendants still own
and occupy the island. Save for this providential
reserve, some of the striving European colonizing
nations would have covered its hills with fortifica
tions like Malta, Rhodes, or Gibraltar ; or, in America,
Quebec or Louisburg, to become a sanguinary bat
tle-ground. The first settlers of 1661, with their families,
numbered thirty, and the Indians were estimated
at four hundred, of peaceful, industrious habits.
In 1700, the whites had increased to two hundred,
and the Indians declined to three hundred and fifty
in number, and steadily failing. In 1800, there were
only sixteen Indians to seven hundred and fourteen
whites, and from 1860-76 only one Indian — last of
the Warrior Narragansetts — is returned with eleven

2l6 TRISTRAM DODGE
hundred and forty-seven whites ; and that solitary
representative has since disappeared.
It appears elsewhere of record that the above
petition of Sands and Kent had been referred to, and
reported favorably by, a committee, of which Roger
Williams was Chairman ; and doubtless the same
master spirit induced their mission and negotiations
with the islanders.
In 1672, it was incorporated as the Town of New
Shoreham (from the ancient town in Sussex, on the
coast nine miles west of Brighton), otherwise Block
Island, and its officers, elected 1676, were:
Peter George, Head Warden or Justice Supervisor.
Simon Ray, Deputy " "
James Sands, Adjutant " "
Robert Guthreg, Town Clerk.
Turmot Rose.
Wilham Tosh, Constable.
Tristram Dodge, Sen. Sergeant.
And this Act of Incorporaton is substantially in
force to this day.
From the recent official list of voters in New
Shoreham, R. I., entitled "A list of all persons that
possess property to the amount of one hundred and
thirty-four dollars and over, who will be qualified to

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 217
vote in all legal organized town meetings on all
questions in said town, under article second, sec
tion first of the Constitution."
The total of such qualified voters is 183 ; of whom
the " Dodges " named are 34, the most numerous of
all the families there ; succeeded by the " Little-
fields," with 33 names.
At the ordinary ratio of one-sixth, the above
would assume a resident population of at least 204
Dodges ; at the date of this poll, or over one-sixth
of the total population of the island.
From the beginning — now over two hundred and
twenty years ; the settlers steadily increasing, have
by their marine enterprise visited every navigable
sea in their staunch, double-ender schooners ; with
large inland and foreign trade, through their fisher
ies ; and yet no village has ever existed there ; no
foreigners have ever joined their community ; which
is unexampled for unity of religious faith and polit
ical convictions.
The contented islanders awaited till 1832, or 162
years, before they had a local post-office ; and 220
years, or till 1880, before the first daily mail came by
a steamer. Although well educated, by their excellent public
and other schools long established, and the busy

2l8 TRISTRAM DODGE
islanders have long visited all seas ; yet, never has
there been a newspaper or magazine printed there ;
telegraph, railroad, lawyer, or physician settled on
the island.
They are content, busy like the Hollanders, and
too thrifty to waste their brief time in looking after
the affairs of others.
They show many of the distinctive traits of Hol
land ; in their sturdy battle with the sea in its rage
— so fierce upon their bleak shores ; as well as the
proverbial Dutch constancy, frugality, and, untiring
industry ; with the simplicity, honesty, frankness,
and genial tolerant hospitality of the rural natives
of Northern Vermont.
The islanders by their position are a distinct, un
mixed race ; of sterling virtues ; which their de
scendants should be proud to emulate.
COW NECK, LONG ISLAND.

Since i860, purposelessly disguised, in the pre.
tentious name of Port Washington, a sea-port — not
of entry — without docks, village, or hotel — or even
definite bounds ; the little settlement has but scant
interest to the driving crowd of traders from all
lands that throng the metropolis with their weary

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 219
strife for the dollar, and like Bunyan's Muckworm,
are ever bent downwards raking over their little
compost-heap ; and will not pause to look up to the
long vista of history about this pleasant neighbor,
nor learn its golden lessons.
Some, however, may be interested by family ties,
old associations, or antiquarian taste ; and for such
these pages are offered.
Cow Neck and Cow Bay are upon the north shore
of Long Island, about thirty-five miles east of the
city of New York, and about one hundred and
thirty miles by the usual course west of Block
Island. Cow Bay, about one mile wide and a half mile
in depth, extends on the west from the point of
Great Neck ; due south of which and on the bay
lies Manhasset, or " Little Cow Bay," as formerly
called; and on the east, from Sands Point on the
Sound along Plum Beach, Dodge Island, Dodge
Pond and Mill Dam to the main shore.
Cow Neck is the elevated land around Cow Bay
on the west, and Hempstead Harbor on the east ;
including Sands Point on the Sound ; Plum Beach,
Dodge Island and Pond, Cornell's mill, dam, and

220 TRISTRAM DODGE
residence, and the ancient estates of Thomas Dodge,
and Petrus Onderdonk: comprising all the land
from the hills to the shore on both sides of Hemp
stead Harbor, and originally contained 6,ooo acres.
Since 1784, on the division, it is in the township
of North Hempstead.
Sands Point derives its name from the purchase,
December 25, 1691 : and deed to John Sands (son of
Captain James Sands of Block Island) from Richard
Cornell, of Rockaway, and his wife of 500 acres of
land at Cow Bay, L. I., which included this point.
Cornell held under a grant from Governor Dongan
in 1686.
Mr. Sands resided there till his death in 1712 : in
his house still standing : which remained in his fam
ily till about 1765, when it passed to Benjamin
Hewlett with the existing family burial-lot.
By the successful discovery, voyage, and landing,
claiming for the House of Orange in 1614; of
Adrian Block and Hendrick Christiansee, which
was followed by their settlement at " Breukland "
Amersfort (New Town), New Utrecht, Gowanus,
etc., on the western extremity, and scattered settle
ments on the north shore : Long Island was right
fully Dutch territory, and the Dutch claims were
vigorously asserted.

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 221
But in 1635 Charles I., for value, and probably
in contented ignorance of its actual situation, ex
tent or importance ; and of the existing Dutch pos
session by valid title ; by patent granted all Long
Island to Alexander Earl of Stirling and Devon,
who, through his agent James Fassett, became the
source of title subsequently to many farms and
lands on the eastern end.
In 1640 these titles came into conflict according
to Governor Winthrop in his Journal, April 4, 1640.
" The inhabitants of Lynn finding themselves
straitened, looked out for a new plantation, and
going to Long Island they agreed with Lord Stir
ling's agent, one Mr. Fassett, for a parcel of land
near the West End and with the Indians for their
right. The Dutch, hearing of this, and making
claim to that part of the island by a former pur
chase of the Indians, sent over to take the place,
and set up the arms of the Prince of Orange upon a
Tree," and gives a copy of the original agreement
with Fassett and several of Lynn, dated April 17,
1640, and of a deed from the Indians, dated Decem
ber 13, 1640.
Thompson's History of Long Island, vol. i. p. 40,
gives a more detailed narrative.
" A few English emigrants from Lynn, having

222 TRISTRAM DODGE
contracted with the agent of Lord Stirling for a
parcel of land upon Long Island, undertook a plan
tation on the west side of Cow Neck, and near the
head of Cow Bay, afterwards called Howe's Bay ;
from Lieutenant Daniel Howe, Conductor of the
expedition, and sometimes Schout's Bay, from such
officer being sent to arrest settlers. Dutch Gover
nor directed Secretary van Tienhoven, with the
Under Sheriff and twenty-eight men, to go to the
Bay, and meet the intruders ; they brought six men
to Nieuw Amsterdam, who being examined, con
fessed that they came from Lynn under direction
of Mr. Fassett, agent of Lord Stirling."
These settlers, of whom no list is preserved,
were not baffied, but allowed to remain, doubtless
by acknowledging the paramount authority of the
Dutch ; as an additional muniment of title : and
thereby were expressly included, and reaped the
benefit of the treaty of settlement and amity be
tween the Governor of the New Netherlands and
the Indians of Long Island, signed by six Sachems,
dated I2th March, 1656, which is expressed to ex
tend to and include all the English as well as the
Dutch people within their jurisdiction and to the
Dutch lines.
(Hempstead Town Records, Book A, page 40.)

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 223
But in 1643, Hempstead alleged that she made a
purchase of all their lands from the Indians, though
no deed is extant or pretended.
And so, in 1656, Hempstead puts on record (in
her own books, by her clerk) : —
lb. p. 43, well written in English, a Confirmation
"by the Indians of Mansapage, Mericoke, and
Rockaway, and all the rest of y" Indians that doe
claim any rights or interests in the purchase that
Hamsteede bought in the year 1643, and w'^'' is in
4he boundes and limits of the waste Tract of Land
concluded upon with the Governor of Manhattans,
as it is in this paper specified " (with formal cove
nants of confirmation and for quiet enjoyment).
Signed by several Sachems, and by their " tokens "
or emblems.
Next follows on the old Hempstead Records
(p. 45), in the (" English ") receipt of the Indian
Sachems; the " Generall Boundes of the Lands that
Hempstead claimed to have bought of the Indians
in 1643, viz. : "Beginning at a place called Matta-
garetts Bay ; and soe running up on a direct line
North and South, from North to South ; and from
sea to sea, to the Boundes, running from Hemsteede
harboure, due Easte, to a poynte of trees, adjoin-

224 TRISTRAM DODGE
ing to the lands of Robert Williams, where we left
marked trees, the same line running from sea to
sea. The other line beginning at a marked tree
standing at the East ende of the greate plaine, and
from that tree running upon a due South line, and
at the South Sea by a marked Tree made in a neck
called Mackactchoung, and from thence upon the
same line to the South Sea."
Within above spacious, — free and easy, —
" Boundes " of the wilderness, — by its sons —
Hempstead always claimed to include, and exer
cised jurisdiction over the region of Cow Neck.
Certainly — if Hempstead ever bought of the In
dians — it were impossible to refute their claim on
these " Boundes " : — evidently of their own prepara
tion. The Sachems, with ponderous titles and emblems,
disappear; and the Town Sages of "Hemsteede"
feeling securely intrenched by these wordy and
windy documents, so solemnly recorded at full
length, proceeded to set apart the undefined region
of Cow Neck ; as the Common of pasture for the
Town; where the cows, sheep, etc., of its residents
could roam throughout the season ; having been
duly marked by their respective owners, and these

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 225
marks, being recorded annually in the Town Rec
ords ; whereby they were to be safely returned to
winter quarters. These marks are frequently and
fully recorded ; and probably this is among the
earliest examples of the introduction here of the
ancient English local custom of common of pastur
age. This was, of course, the origin of and established
the name of the region as Cow Neck or Cow-pasture
Neck. Of the Hempstead Records, it is appropriate to
say that the extant Records from Book A begin
with 1657 and seem continuous. A book of the
Records from 1644-57 is lost. This is called the
lost "worm-eaten" book.
It is hard to refrain the thought, that if really
Hempstead had any valid Indian title in 1643, its
own Records would surely have set it out at length ;
and the only missing volume could not have con
tained it, or it would have been as carefully pre
served as its successors. No copy of the entries in
this volume is extant.
Is it unjust to those so long past away, after our
experience of their ability in making wild Indians
speak to their purpose ; that they thought it most
15

226 TRISTRAM DODGE
prudent to put out of sight their own record — and
entries coeval ; that would defeat all pretence of
valid Indian title in 1643 ?
Much stranger things occur daily and happened
then. Besides the solemn records of the marks upon the
pasturing herds on Cow Neck, and frequent repe
tition of the name incidentally as a locality, the
first specific entries I find in these Records are
in Book B, page 52 : " Firman Haring is to burn the
Cow Neck this year 1665 ; and is to have 12 shil
lings in good pay for his payens."
April I, 1681, page loi.
" At a towne held at Hemsted there was Lett to
Danill Beadel the Cow Neck called y° Raybridg
for ;£'oi.oo.oi."
" Hemsteed, April the 23d, 1669" (p. 179), "at
a General Town Meeting, and by major vote, it is
ordered and agreed upon, that all those that have
fence at the Cow Neck shall have right in the Neck
according to the fence which he makes for pasture
land, and if ever hereafter the Cow Neck shall be
lotted into particular allotments, then every man
shall have a proportion, according to the fence that
he maketh, and none to have right but only those
who have fence theare ; and further it is ordered,

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 227
that no man shall put any more cattle there than
they have made fence."
The affairs of Cow Neck and Hempstead pass
unrecorded, and doubtless in tranquillity, until the
Town Meeting of the 15th of December, 1683,
when "John Codman, Jackson, and Searing, are
chosen to go to New York, to agree with Mr. West
concerning their land at Cow Neck, to try for an
arbitration ; if not, the town will pay the money
and proceed according to law."
This entry, brief and abrupt, seems the first
knowledge that the solemn Supervisors had of this
valid and paramount title of John West.
John West, who in 1676 was settled in New
York City, married Anne, daughter of Attorney-
General Thomas Rudyard ; who, from his services as
Governor of East Jersey, became Attorney-General
of the Province of New York, and served as such
1684 and 1685, when he was appointed Governor of
Barbadoes. John West, in 1680, was Secretary of the Ducal
Province of New York. In 1661, he had obtained a
grant of this land from the Dutch Governor (No.
538).

228 TRISTRAM DODGE
This patentee had held the indisputable para
mount title of all their lands at Cow Neck during
all this period, in which they had been busy getting
up their records.
No further mention hereof appears; doubtless
they found it most convenient to submit rather
than " proceed according to law " ; and that discre
tion was the better part of valor against a patentee
of such potent connections, and official rank ; and
they agreed upon a suitable compromise.
Much coveted Cow Neck and all the " Hemsteed "
lands were covered by another patent, making the
third sovereign grant of all their undefined Indian
mythical title.
On the i6th of November, 1644, his "High
Mightiness " William Kiefft, Governor and Director-
General of the Nieuw Netherlands, by direction of
his employers, exercised the original, rightful, and
supreme authority over Long Island, of the States
of Holland, by issuing his Patent of that date to
Robert Fordham and six other Englishmen (one of
whom had been employed to build the church in
the fort at Nieuw Amsterdam), and unto their heirs
and successors, or any they should join in associa
tion with them, " for all the land, with all the havens,
harbors, rivers, creeks, woodlands, marshes, and all

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 229
Other appurtenances thereunto belonging, upon and
about a certain place called the Great Plains, on
Long Island, from the East River to the South
Sea, and from a certain harbor known by the name
of Hempsted Bay, and westward as far as Matthew "
(Martin) " Garretson's Bay ; to begin at the head
of the said two bays, and to run in direct lines, that
they may be the same latitude in breadth on the
south side as on the north, and as far eastward";
but with a condition, " in case the patentees and
their associates shall procure one hundred families
to settle down within the limits of five years after
the date hereof ; and if the patentees cannot within
five years procure one hundred families to settle on
said lands, they shall enjoy, ratum pro rata, land
according to the number they shall procure ; giving
full authority to build a town or towns, with fortifi
cations, and erect a temple or temples to use and
exercise the Reformed Religion, which they profess,
with the ecclesiastical discipline thereto belonging ;
and with full power and authority to erect a body
politic, or civil combination among themselves, and
to nominate Magistrates, to be presented to the
Governor for choice and appointment, &c., &c.
Reserving as rent the tenth part of all revenue that
shall arise from the ground manured (or cultivated)

230 TRISTRAM DODGE
with the plow or hoe — gardens and orchards not
exceeding one Holland acre excepted."
This liberal grant of a principality, with independ
ent government and church and perpetual dominion,
embraced the present limits of Hempstead and
North Hempstead, extending across Long Island,
north to south at its widest, and in breadth east
and west about eight and one-half miles.
The towns of Jamaica and Flushing, afterwards
patented in like terms by Governor Kiefft — the lat
ter in 1645 — are on the west, embracing now a part
of the land originally granted to Hempstead.
In 1647, under this patent, allotments of land at
and about Hempstead were made to sixty-six pro
prietors, whose names and antecedents are elabo
rately stated in the careful " Early History of
Hempstead," by Charles B. Moore, Esq.
None of these allotments appear to have been
made on Cow Neck, which still remained, although
under new masters, common of pasture, and only
began to be separately granted by the town from
about 1670.
Thomas Dodge, of Block Island, born in 1684,
grandson of Tristram Dodge, one of its sixteen
original settlers of 1661, settled at Cow Neck, and

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 23 1
doubtless erected the antique homestead on Dodge
Pond, where his descendants still live. There he
died, 1755. His lands appear on the Map of act
ual Survey of all the lands on Cow Neck (L. I.)
"by I. G. Clowes, Surveyor, dated 1695," now at
the homestead, by the name of " West's Patent,''
and run from the present western line of the lands
of William Miles, deceased, to the mill of Cornell.
_ Thomas Dodge, the original settler of the name,
had not yet come at the date of Clowes' map. He
was settled there pursuant to his deed of January
II, 1719, to Tristram Dodge, his brother, shortly
before that date. The conveyance to Thomas
Dodge is not of record at Hempstead, but by his
deed to his cousin, Samuel Dodge, of Hempstead,
dated " 5 George I. and the year of man's salvation
1 71 8," of a farme att Hempstead of fifty-nine acres
" and twenty-six square rods, or one-third lacking
five acres of that farm that was Samuel Clowes,
bounded eastwardly partly by Thomas Dodge afore
said, and partly by Tristram Dodge, and westerdly
by Rigbell Mott ; westerly by other lands laid out
upon gate right, and northerdly by the land belong
ing to the heirs of John Carle, deceased ": it is
plain that, prior to 171 8, Thomas and his brother
Tristram Dodge were settled on Cow Neck, and that

232 TRISTRAM DODGE
Thomas acquired land at an earlier date (perhaps
about 1 710) from Samuel Clowes.
By the ancient records of New Shoreham, R. I.
(Block Island), copied in 1695 by Nathaniel Mott,
Town Clerk, it appears, viz. :
" Thomas Daudge, son of Thrustarum Daudge,
born January 23 of January, 1684."
" Samuell Daudge, son of William Dodge, Sen.,
born September 19, 1691."
These grandsons of the first settler were first
cousins ; their fathers being brothers.
By the time of his legal majority, or twenty-one
years, Thomas may be presumed to have acquired
land there, viz. : from about 1705-IO, and his cousin
Samuel from about 1712-20.
From these have descended many very numerous
and well-known branches of the family in the city
and State of New York ; whose generations have,
like their ancestors, planted new lands at the West
and risen to much social and official eminence ; pre
senting a good record in the Colonial and Revolu
tionary Wars, besides that of 1812, and the late
Rebellion. The Dodges settled at Cow Neck after the Motts
and Clowes ; but they can show an unbroken pos-

AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN AMERICA. 233
session of near two hundred years in their ancient
house, that has tranquilly looked upon the convul
sive struggles of this long period ; an extraordinary
example of constancy in ancient foot-prints : during
centuries that have witnessed the ceaseless move
ment of nations into new lands, and their transfor
mation in laws, customs, and manners.
Adjacent to their land, between it and the an
cient Manor of Onderdonk, is the old cemetery,
called after the name of the Onderdonk Manor — the
Flower Hill Cemetery : on its beautiful and com
manding hill, overlooking the Bay and main shore.
The ground had been immemorially a burial-place ;
but in 1786, by deed of Daniel and Aertje Rapelye
to Adrian, Peter, and Hendrick Onderdonk, Martin
Schenck, Ann Rapelye, Thomas Dodge, Andrew
Hegeman, Sen. and Jr., and Albert Hegeman,
Sen. and Jr., and their heirs ; Flower Hill was ex
pressly conveyed by due bounds to the above fami
lies, for their use as a family burial-place forever.
Here, in ranks — separated — lie the generations of
the dead. Andrew, son of Thomas Dodge, who died
1762 at 28 years, is the eldest. There are in all
fifteen grave-stones of the Dodges, down to Richard
of 1873.