Dodge Family Source: History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio and Representative Citizens. Martin R. Andrews, M. S., 1902
Chapter XII - Towns and Townships of the County [Waterford Township]
Pg. 335 - 343

THE DODGE FAMILY

The Dodges of Washington County are lineally descended from Pierre Dodge (or Douge), who came from Normandy, France, to England in the army of William conqueror, and whose descendants were settled in Cheshire and Kent counties, England and came to Massachusetts in 1629. The direct ancestor of the Dodges of Beverly [Washington Co., Ohio] was John Bathurst Dodge, to whom was given a coat of arms and crest (recorded in College of Arms, London,) for valiant service in the wars of Edward I. In America there have been members of the family conspicuous in military and civil live since the first colonization of Massachusetts.

Capt. John Dodge, a portrait of whom appears on a preceding page, engraved from a drawing that was prepared for this purpose, was the head of that branch of the family which has the distinction of helping to establish civilization in the Northwest Territory and Ohio. He was an officer from Beverly, Massachusetts, who had entered the Revolutionary War at an early age and served until its close. He joined the Ohio Company of Associates with the other of his name when it was organized in Boston in 1787.

Following the commission Captain Dodge held in Continental Army, he had executed and undertaking which had a very important bearing upon the ability of these Northwest Territory colonists to arrive in Marietta and the year they did, and for this he received a vote of thanks on his return to Congress.

In order that the treat might be effected for the safe removal of the Ohio Company to the Northwest Territory, it was necessary that someone take the long and hazardous journey into the Ohio valley, to confer with and escort the various chiefs of the tribes owning its lands, to Philadelphia, where Congress was then sitting and where the final arrangements were to be made for the ceding of a tract of country. That Captain Dodge was the officer delegated to this mission speaks in itself of the great confidence reposed in him and of his unusual qualifications. Having been bred to the profession of arms from the time he was a lad, and having accompanied several military and surveying expeditions to distant parts of the new country, he had acquired a knowledge of Indian customs and languages that made him able to approach, and succeed in his mission with them at this perilous time, when to pass into the wilderness of the Ohio and Muskingum valleys, where an almost incessant border warfare raged for rights of possession, was a deed of daring in itself. Captain Dodge was a firm believer in the power of God to protect him, and though, like Eleazer in battle, he "clave unto his sword," he also knew the arts of peace, and the annals of the historical societies recording this mission show it to have been accomplished without one act of bloodshed.

He had a most intelligent, enduring and fleet house called "Dart," as accustomed to the crackle of forest trails, mountain roads, torrents and frontier fare as was his master. On this horse he returned to Boston from Philadelphia after his trip of thousands of miles over the Alleghenies and back. When Captain Dodge again set out for the Ohio country with the colonists he was accompanied by his young wife and child, John dodge, who afterward became the founder of Beverly, Ohio.

While out on this preliminary expedition Captain Dodge made camp one night in the Muskingum Valley, beyond Fort Harmar about 25 miles, near the mouth of what was afterward called Wolf Creek, and found a beautiful fall of water that would afford at that time quite a strong power. He thereupon located the place with a view to its future usefulness. Upon the advent of the Ohio Company at Marietta, Captain Dodge showed this to a relative and a brother officer Maj. Haffield White [see note] and Col. Robert Oliver.

The three officers, Major White, Colonel Oliver and Captain Dodge then formed a partnership, very notable both because of its enterprise and because of its being the first corporation for doing business in the vast territory of the Northwest, since so richly teeming with great industries. They erected at these falls, about one-half mile from the present town of Beverly, Ohio, and Waterford, grist and saw mills, and built nearby a fortification or block-house for the protection from Indian attacks of these connected with the mills.

These mills, according to Dr. S. P. Hildreth and other historians, furnished the bread stuff for the colonists of Marietta for a year or so before any other mills were erected in the Northwest Territory. The products of these mills were conveyed to Marietta in pirogues (a kind of dug-out canoe), and attended by an armed guard. The banks of the Muskingum River at this time were covered with a labyrinth of foliage and vines that furnished a safe hiding place for many an unfriendly red man.

As hostilities increased toward the last outbreak of the Indian wars of this special period, it became necessary to abandon the mills until the close of the war, when they were again put in operation. The millstones used in these mills were of very fine quality and quarried in the Blue Ridge Mountains. At the time of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago the Ohio State Historical Society asked the privilege of exhibiting these in the Anthropological Building, where they were objects of great interest. The stones, in a perfect state of preservation, remained in the possession of the Dodge family of Beverly, and are relics of extraordinary interest, also the gun which was used here and which Captain Dodge brought with him from Massachusetts when he joined the Ohio Company. An accompanying illustration depicts one of the millstones; also the gun referred to, and other objects associated with the family's history.

During the Indian War Captain Dodge took this family from the settlement in what is now Waterford township to reside in the block-house in Marietta, where they had relatives. Mrs. Susanna Morgan Dodge, wife of Captain Dodge, like her kinsman, Gen. Daniel Morgan, to whose line she belonged, took a brave and active part in the frontier life of this period. According to the records of the military surgeon who came on periodical visits to Fort Harmar, Marietta, Beverly, the French settlement of Gallipolis, and other points, "there being no physicians in the forts in his absence," Susanna Morgan Dodge "cared for a number of his patients." The gifts which had shown in the society of the East were adapted with saving common sense and courage to the exigencies and sacrifices of life in this new country.

At the mill settlement made in Waterford township by her husband, flax-fields were planted and wheels for the making of thread and looms for weaving were started under her care. A linen garment made at this time is preserved by the Ohio State Historical Society. Twice a week after the establishment of Forts Dean, Tyler and Fry, when she had returned to their place near Beverly, she instructed the children from these settlements in the catechism of the Puritan faith and spiritual essentials. Family worship was maintained by her, and for many generations after her death the custom was still kept up in the same house, her works truly following her.

The Marquis De La Fayette, who had known Mrs. Susanna Morgan Dodge, at the close of the War of the Revolution, when he heard that she had joined the Ohio company, said to an American gentleman: "There will be a Princess in the 'Courts of the Wilderness." Such an impression had this matron who had come to preside over one of the best known homes in the heart of the Muskingum Valley made upon the aristocratic ally of the American cause. Her wedding ring was inherited by Mrs. Susannah Dodge Cook, her granddaughter, of Marietta, Ohio.

Her son, John Dodge, Esq., of Beverly, Ohio, married for his first wife Mary Stone. The eldest son of this union, Dr. Israel Stone Dodge, was for 40 years a prominent physician of Cincinnati and also identified with he medical college there as lecturer. His portrait accompanies this article. She was also the mother of Sidney Dodge, of Iowa, of William A. Dodge, of Christopher Columbus Dodge, of Eliza, of Melissa, and of John Dodge, who died in his youth.

Of the other members of this branch of the Dodge family, one of them Sidney Dodge, moved from Beverly to Iowa and became a leading citizen of Muscatine County. His son, Judge John Edward Dodge, was the youngest judge to sit upon the bench in Nebraska. Another of them became United States Minister to Spain, and still another a member of the United States Senate, a father and son both being in Congress at the same time. Of those of Captain Dodge's branch of the family who were engaged in the Civil War, Maj.-Gen. Granville M. Dodge, the son of his brother, Phineas, from Massachusetts, attained perhaps the greatest distinction, although the army register of the United States contains the names of a number of other relatives directly connected with the Capt. John Dodge branch who have given brilliant military service to their country.

John Dodge, Esq., of Beverly, married for his second wife Nancy N. Patterson, of Virginia. Her family were closely related to the Baltimore Patersons [sic], whose daughter, Elizabeth, married Jerome Bonaparte, and Mrs. Nancy Patterson Dodge bore a striking resemblance to her cousin, Madame Bonaparte. Her father and mother, Mr. and mrs. Patterson, came from Virginia to Waterford at a very early date in the last century, to reside near his wife and daughter, Prudence (who was betrothed to Mr. Stewart, a statesman of Pennsylvania, at the time of her death) in the old Waterford cemetery, who are also buried a large number of the Dodge family.

The sons of Mr. Patterson were all college-bred men, educated in the East. The eldest was Rev. Oliphant Patterson, an eminent Presbyterian divine, who preached over 50 consecutive years in the Ohio Valley and was the author of a number of theological works. He died at Oxford. The other sons were Alfred Patterson, for many years a banker in Pittsburg; Thomas Patterson, a large cotton planter, who lived in Louisiana and Texas, dying in New Orleans; and Ewing Patterson, who entered the ministry, but died in his youth.

The children of John Dodge, Esq., of Beverly, and Nancy N. Patterson, of Virginia, were Patterson Oliphant Dodge and Colina N. Dodge, who married S. B. Robinson, a lawyer of Beverly, also at one time prosecuting attorney of Washington County.

Patterson Oliphant Dodge, who inherited that part of the estate of his father which remained of the plain land and hills back of Beverly after Mr. Dodge had laid out the bottom in the town proper, was the only one of Mr. Dodge's sons who remained in his native town until his death. although absent in St. Paul and the West and in New Orleans for extended periods at different times, he was deeply attached to the Muskingum Valley. He took an active interest in agriculture as practice upon his own place. He was a director in the First National Bank, established in Beverly, and one of the principal promoters and owners of an oil refinery built there.

He also, in company with J. B. Bain, built the "Island Mills," then the larges flouring mills in Waterford township. He owned other manufactories at different periods, and iron foundry, a tannery, and also operated a steam ferry between Waterford and Beverly, the rights for which he inherited from his father. Mr. Dodge was a very intellectual, as well as a patriotic man. At the outbreak of the Civil War he offered his services to his country. On account of his then failing health he was not permitted to do service, bu he contributed generously to the fitting out of several military companies. He had been quite an extensive traveler in his own country. He died in the the prime of his life, about 44 years of age, and is buried in Beverly, Ohio.

Patterson Oliphant Dodge, in 1859 had married the youngest daughter of Hon. Silas Heimway Jenison, a statesman who was Governor of Vermont for four terms and an author, residing at Shoreham, on Lake Champlain. The widow of Mr. Dodge, Mrs. Laura Louise Jenison Dodge, now resides with her family on the estate left to her husband. She was educated in the most cultured and exclusive society of the New England of her day, and received additional advantages in the famous France convent of Montreal, Canada, where she was taken by her father, Governor Jenison, receiving afterward also instruction from private tutors. Mrs. Dodge was one of the organizers of the Soldiers' Aid Society at the beginning of the Civil War.

She was one of the original members of the "Ohio Temperance Crusade." She was presided over her household as hostess to a long secession of gusts and friends, with the gentle dignity of the chatelaine of that school manners and morals in which she was so fortunately born and reared. The last of that perfect flower of her generation whose like is not reproduced in the atmosphere of this later day. Her portrait, reproduced from the painting by Rhinehardt, is shown on a near-by page.

Major John Patterson Dodge, eldest son of Patterson Oliphant and Laura Louise Jenison Dodge, was educated for the profession of medicine, practicing several years in Beverly in partnership with Mr. Charles M. Humston [sic] [Humiston] and afterward lived some time in Arizona and California. He was a graduate of Starling Medical College, of Columbus, Ohio, and also attended post-graduate courses there and at the New York Post-Graduate School and Hospital. At the beginning of the Spanish-American War. Mr. Dodge was appointed by President McKinley brigade surgeon with the rank of major, serving until the disbandment of the Cuban and Puerto Rican forces on the staff of Generals Andres, Wade and Coleby. His services in the Montauk Dention Hospital work and elsewhere are given very honorable mention in the report of the Surgeon General, Sternberg, upon the Spanish-American war. His portrait accompanies this sketch.

Jenison Brooks Dodge, second son of Paterson Oliphant and Laura Louise Jenison Dodge was educated in the public schools and college of Beverly, and afterward took a business course at Poughkeepsie, New York. He was been engaged in the lumber and drug business previous to his removal to California. He is a present a resident of Kansas City, being connected with a chemical company. He is the last of the family of Ex-Gov. Silas Heimway Jenison to bear his name.

The daughters of Patterson Oliphant and Laura Louise Jenson [sic] Dodge were Virginia Ve Dodge, who lives at the Dodge place, Beverly, and Agnes Dodge, a young lady who died in 1890. Agnes Dodge was a very gifted musician, her inspirational power being of a high order. She had produced several musical compositions of merit for the piano and banjo, and was also the possessor of a soprano voice of extraordinary quality and scope, that had been cultivated by the best masters. Her early death deprived the world of the fruition of a genius that would doubtless have made a brilliant career for itself.

All members of the Dodge family from the earliest settlement of Washington County have been members of the Masonic order and loyal to its principles. During the time of the disaffection in the United States with Masonry or account of the supposed killing of one Morgan, the Mount Moriah Lodge of Beverly, Ohio, one of the first in the State, was enabled to maintain itself in its proceedings through this period by the courtesy of John Dodge, Esq., who gave up the finest upper room in his house for the use of this lodge. There the members met secretly until public disfavor was removed.

The political faith of the Dodge family has been that of the Republican party since the day of its establishment in 1856. Various members of it have been prominently identified with its work and interests. All have been loyal to its principles.

John Dodge, Esq., the founder of Beverly and of Beverly College, was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, in the year 1784, and came as a child to live in the block-house at Marietta with his parents during the Indian wars of that period. At their close in the last decade of the 18th century the home where he was reared was built by his father, Captain Dodge, on the left bank of the Muskingum, in what is now the town of Beverly. Although John Dodge, Esq., inherited a goodly estate, he was the promoter of a great number of enterprises in his day which not only added materially to the fortune left him but increased the general prosperity of the region where his family, as pioneers of the Northwest Territory, had cast their lot.

Early in the century it was the desire of Mr. Dodge to advance the educational interests of the community in which he lived; he therefore obtained from the State of Ohio a charter for the establishment of a college, intended by him to be the necleus [sic] of a large institution for classical instruction. He built entirely at his own expense a substantial brick building of three stories well arranged for the purpose for which it was designed in that day, and secured the co-operation of well known educators. The bell placed on this building was from a noted firm of bell makers and is one of the finest-toned in the valley.

In the life time of John Dodge, Esq., he made liberal and frequent gifts to several schools and to the promotion of religious works. His home was a rendezvous for all ministers of Puritan faith who frequented the vicinity where he lived, or who passed through the valley bound east or west. In order that Beverly College might draw to itself strength from outside sources, Mr. Dodge vested the charge of this institution in the synod of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church but not as a sectarian school Benjamin Dana, a friend of the same faith as Mr. Dodge, later co-operated with him toward the support of the college, by giving a tract of land and coal bank, in order that the revenue from these might help maintain the college at Beverly.

The Dodge Park.--- At the time that John Dodge, Esq., founded the town of Beverly, he gave for park purposes a piece of land very beautifully located on a plain in the upper part of the town. It had been a portion of the land grant made his father, Captain Dodge, for his services in the War of the Revolution. It was also a spot held as an Indian conference ground, and he considered that it would be of special interest for the purpose for which he donated it on account of its historic associations. No improvements were made on this however by the town which it received the gift, until within the last decade when the granddaughter of Mr. Dodge, Miss Virginia Ve Dodge, asked the Town Council the privilege of planting it with trees and shrubbery in order that it might be completed in her life time according to the original intention of the donor. Mrs. Dodge was elected by vote of the people, park director. The Park is now very well grown and a great improvement to the town. It was for about 50 years after the gift was made used as a circus ground, common and pasture. Mr. Dodge also gave to the town of Beverly a plat of ground adjoining the lock walls which would answer for a boat landing and serve other purposes of conveniences. Since the government took charge of the Muskingum River improvements, this plat of ground has been kept in a beautiful lawn and has a very slightly little house for the lock keeper and makes an inviting approach to the village.

John Dodge, Esq., also made gifts of land to churches of all the denominations then existing in Beverly on which to erect church buildings. He was the means of making the town of Beverly, which he named for his birthplace Beverly, Massachusetts, the beautiful and famous spot that is now known to be, as a resort and place of residence, in a valley
so widely celebrated for its charms.

Hamilton Brooks, son of Melissa Dodge and Maj. Samuel Brooks, was prominently associated with the business of Beverly previous to the Civil War and operated in company with his uncle, Patterson Oliphant Dodge, the "Island Mills," the larges in Beverly. Following this he moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he has since become one of the wealthiest and most honored men of that place.
[End of article]

Extracted by Debbie Noland Nitsche
June 2007

D. Nitsche, Notes in reference to:

Captain John Dodge's family connnections to Isaac Dodge, Richard Hubbard Dodge, Nathaniel Dodge, Oliver Dodge and Haffield White.

1. Captain John Dodge was b. May 28, 1748, in N. Rowley, Essex Co., MA and d in 1805 in Waterford Twp., Washington County, Ohio. He was the s/o John Dodge (1714-1762) and Bethiah Conant.

2. Captain John Dodge's uncle was Jeremiah Dodge (b. 1716/17). Jeremiah had a son by the name of Isaac Giddings Dodge (b. 1742). Isaac and Capt. John Dodge was first cousins. I believe that this same Isaac Dodge was the one who came to Marietta, Ohio with Gen. Rufus Putnam and 46 (total 48) other pioneers and founded the first town in the NW Territory on April 7, 1788. THE FOUNDERS OF OHIO - By Julia Perkins Cutler (dau. of Ephriam Cutler), 1888. Brief sketches of the forty-eight pioneers who, under command of General Rufus Putnam, landed at the mouth of the Muskingum River on the seventh of April, 1788 and commenced the first white settlement in the North-west Territory. "ISAAC DODGE was the representative in the pioneer band of the large and respectable Dodge family who have for many generations resided in Essex county, Massachusetts. He came from Wenham, but his fate, history has made not record."

3. Artist sketch photos of Captain John Dodge; Israel Stone Dodge; Laura Louise Jenison Dodge & Major John Patterson Dodge (Spanish American War) - These photos were in the same book as the article above. (Andrews History)

4. Haffield White's daughter, Lydia married Ephriam Dodge on Sept. 6, 1794 in Wenham, Essex Co., MA.) Ephriam Dodge was the s/o Jacob Dodge (1715/16-1792) and Elizabeth Crowell, both b. In Wenham and died in Beverly, Essex Co., MA.  Haffield White's name also appears on a list of Negro Deaths in Wenham, Essex Co., MA, compiled by John Slaughter from Early Vital Records of Massachusetts. Other DODGE names on this list includes: Capt Jacob Dodge, Richard Dodge, RICHARD HUBBARD DODGE [see more about him below], Josiah Dodge, Edwin Dodge, Skipper Dodge, William Dodge, Benjamin Dodge, Peter Dodge. (all of these Dodge's are related)

FOUNDERS OF OHIO - By Julia Perkins Cutler (dau. Of Ephriam Cutler), 1888

Brief sketches of the forty-eight pioneers who, under command of General Rufus Putnam, landed at the mouth of the Muskingum River on the seventh of April, 1788 and commenced the first white settlement in the North-west Territory.

"MAJOR HAFFIELD WHITE was appointed by the directors of the Ohio Company Commissary and conductor of the first party of pioneers who left Danvers, December 3, 1787, and shared with them the labor and suffering attending the long march over the snow-clad mountains of Pennsylvania. He was a soldier of The revolution, and “served as a Lieutenant in HUTCHINSON’S Regiment; and as Captain in PUTNAM’S (5th) Regiment, and rendered distinguished services at the Battle of Lexington, at the crossing of the Delaware, at Trenton, Hubbardton, and at Saratoga,” and was made a Major at the close of the war. He was a Member of the Society of the Cincinnati. Major WHITE owned hree shares in The Ohio Company. He was robust, active, and prompt in the execution of business.

During the first year after his arrival at Marietta he continued to act as steward for the company, and also built for himself a house in Campus Martius. The next year, with Colonel Robert OLIVER and Captain John DODGE, he erected Mills on Wolf Creek, which were the first ever built in Ohio. On the breaking out of the Indian War, these mills being in a very exposed situation were abandoned, The owners taking refuge at Marietta. On the return of peace he settled on land He owned near the mills. These also eventually became his property. Major WHITE was a useful citizen noted for his industry and integrity. He died December 13, 1817."


"PELETIAH WHITE, son of Major Haffield WHITE, came to Marietta April 7, 1788. He married Susan WELLS, the sister of Joseph WELLS, a fellow-pioneer. During the latter part of the Indian war Mr. WHITE served as a ranger or spy. He Inherited his father’s estate, was an elder in the Presbyterian church, and a most Estimable, Christian man."

5. The Richard Hubbard Dodge that is mentioned in #4 of these notes, had a brother, Nathaniel Hubbard Dodge (b. 1737/38). He removed to Hampton Falls, Rockingham Co., New Hampshire with his wife Sarah "Sally" Dodge (b. 1746 & d/o Richard Dodge & Mary Thorne) where his oldest son, Nathaniel Hubbard Dodge, II (or Jr.) was born in 1763. His younger brother, Oliver Dodge (b. 1766) was also one of the 1st 48 settlers of the Northwest Territory.


THE FOUNDERS OF OHIO - By Julia Perkins Cutler (dau. Of Ephriam Cutler), 1888
Brief sketches of the forty-eight pioneers who, under command of General Rufus Putnam, landed at the mouth of the Muskingum River on the seventh of April, 1788 and commenced the first white settlement in the North-west Territory.


"OLIVER DODGE, one of the original pioneer party, came from Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. He owned a share in the Ohio Company, and was, during the war, at Campus Martius. He joined the colony in Adams, in the spring of 1795, and in the company with the Coburns, Davises, and others, began to level the heavy forest which then covered the land. He lived one year alone in a large, hollow sycamore tree. In 1800 he married Mrs. Nancy (Devol) Manchester. He left, at his death, a valuable farm to his only son, Richard Hubbard Dodge. Oliver Dodge's only daughter, Mary Manchester, became the wife of the Hon. Perley B. Johnson, M. D. Of McConnelsville, who in 1843-5, represented his district in Congress."