Christian Bowman Dodson 1809 - 1891 was the son of Nathan Beach and Huldah Bowman Dodson, born in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania and named for his maternal grandfather Christian Bowman.
From: The past and present of Kane County, Illinois By Henry B. Pierce, Arthur Merrill, William Henry Perrin, W. Le Baron, Jr. & Co
Capt. C. B. Dodson, now the oldest (settler in the county) settled at Clybournville, a mile and a half south of Batavia village, in June, 1834. But Clybournville was only a prospect then, and is only a memory now. No sooner had Capt. Dodson settled than he commenced building the first saw-mill in the county, at the mouth of Mill Creek, and the first store, for trade with the Indians. In the same year, a partnership was formed between himself and Mr. Clybourn, of Chicago, and the settlement at the mouth of the creek was named in honor of Capt. Dodson's partner. Great preparations were made to trade with the Indians, and an old hunter, one Caldwell, from Michigan, was kept in the swamps with the redskins, as an agent. The store was often filled with the skins which were purchased for almost nothing and sold for but little more. A young Indian chief was obtained to stay in the store, for the purpose of teaching the American clerk his language, and for communicating with his own race�as few of them understood the English language well�and Capt. Dodson himself soon learned to speak the Pottowattomie vernacular with nearly as much fluency as his mother tongue. His life has been a remarkably eventful one, both before and after his arrival in Illinois. It required no small amount of courage and determination to settle�almost the only European� amid hordes of the hereditary enemies of the white race, conciliated within a comparatively recent period, and well aware that the government was plotting to cheat them cut of their land. Capt. Dodson was well acquainted with Waubansie and Shabbona, and describes the former as a man of splendid personal appearance, who always carried a long spear as a badge of his exalted position in his tribe. He never spoke the language of the conquering race well, but independently used his own, whether in conversation with his tribe or with others. In 1835, Dodson & Clybourn took a contract from the Government to remove the Indians to Council Bluffs and Kansas. Waubansie lingered upon his hunting grounds, reluctant to go, until many of his friends had left, but was at. length induced to leave at the solicitation of Capt. Dodson. He was the last of his tribe to go, however, and it may be doubted if he would have gone at all, had not the squaws been induced to take their places in the wagons prepared for them, and the journey commenced. Then he followed, and left the valley of Fox River forever. Previous to their departure, Col. Lyon had made an unsuccessful attempt to civilize one of them. The result illustrates the lazy nature of the race. Neuqua, eldest son of Waubansie, was an intelligent young man and a general favorite among the settlers. Ashe wandered into a field one day. where Col. Lyon was at work, the latter staked out a small piece of land plowed and ready to plant, and told him that if he would put the seed in the ground, he should have the entire crop for his trouble. The idea pleased him, and he promised to be on hand the next morning. True to his pledge, he appeared at the time designated, but with him came a dozen or more squaws, with hoes upon their shoulders. Col. Lyon remonstrated, informing him that the bargain was that he should perform the work himself, and intimated that the land was not staked out to afford him an opportunity to give practical illustrations of woman's rights. But in vain was the attempt. Neuqua replied, "Me hunt the meat, squaw hunt the corn," and would not touch a hoe. This chief is said to have raised a regiment of Pottawattomies in Kansas, and assisted the Northern army in Missouri during the late war. The first death in the township was that of a child of one Myers, who kept house for Capt. Dodson in 1834, and the first death of an adult, that of Mrs. Ward, in the Fall of the same year.
Farm Residence of CB Dodson - From: Geneva in vintage postcards By John J. Laukaitis
Christian Bowman Dodson first arrived in the Midwest from Pennsylvania in 1833 and worked as a government contractor in Chicago. With the allure of growing economic possibilities along the Fox River Valley, Dodson headed to an area south of Batavia called Clybournville named after its founder, Archibald Clybourn. There Dodson began work on a sawmill and trading post, but the settlement did not prove prosperous and Dodson returned to Chicago in 1835. Taking two federal contracts as a Removal Agent, one in 1835 and the other in 1837, Dodson returned to the Fox Valley. With the Indian Removal Act in 1830, the defeat of the Sac and Fox tribes in the Blackhawk War in 1832, and the belief in territorial expansion as Manifest Destiny, contractors such as Dodson worked to permanently displace Native American tribes such as the Potawatomi to areas west of the Mississippi River.
In February of 1837, Christian Bowman Dodson married Harriet Warren. Harriet's parents, David and Nancy Warren, had settled along the DuPage River in 1833, and today the city named Warrenville is a tribute to them. Dodson owned a section of farmland on the east side of the Fox River originally belonging to Andrew Miles and later owned a gristmill where Bennett Mill would later be located.
As one of the early settlers, Dodson participated in the first gathering of "Old Settlers" on August 16, 1872. The meeting that tool place became an opportunity for many early Kane County residents to share their experiences of hardships and achievements, and Dodson became the first president of the organization named the "Old Settlers Association." (Courtesy of Gerald Klemm)
From: Papers in Illinois history and transactions By Illinois State Historical Society - written by Harriet Warren Dodson, wife of Christian Bowman Dodson.
I am the fourth and next sister according to age. Mr. Dodson and myself were married on the 3d day of February, 1837 (47 years ago today, the 2d day of February, 1884) in the sitting room of this old first home we occupied when coming to this State over fifty years ago. Sister Carpenter and myself were the only daughters married in this old home. Mr. Dodson was then a contractor on the Illinois and Michigan Canal. We went to his place a few miles from Lockport to live �after a few weeks in Chicago at the old Saginaw Hotel, kept by our old friends Mr. and Mrs. John Murphy. My first experience in housekeeping was in a newly built log house upon the canal. I was nineteen years of age the July previous, and thought myself quite a competent housekeeper, but when I came to depend wholly upon myself without mother to ask questions of, I found myself deficient in many things when depending upon my own judgment. In the following year (June) Mr. Dodson sold his contract and we moved to Chicago where we commenced living in a new house on Lake Street on the West Side. We remained there until the winter of '38 when our first children (twin sons) Charles and Julius were born. The great financial crisis was the cause of our leaving the city. If Mr. Dodson had not endorsed other men's papers we undoubtedly would be living in the city today, but the property at that time sold at ruinous prices, and what he then let go to satisfy the bank when he had signed a note for an old friend for less than thirty thousand dollars, would now be worth millions. It is only the history of hundreds of others. At the time men supposed to be millionaires one day were bankrupt the next, many now remaining in Chicago similarly situated, put their property out of their hands for a certain number of years, and are now immensely rich. My husband was advised to do the same and after all the papers were drawn up and his lawyer, Mr. Morris, assured him it was a legal transaction he gave it all up and turned over everything to pay for that which he never had, but which the law made imperative. Since that time our home has either been principally in Geneva or on our farm a mile below. The farm life was new to me and in many ways distasteful to me, owing doubtless to inexperience principally, although quite deficient in all modern improvements which seem to make the farmers of the present day much more comfortable and happy. We had seven children, five of whom are still living. One of our twin boys was scalded to death only a week before the birth of our oldest daughter, in ten days he would have been three years old. It was a fearful trial to pass through and made me feel at the time that any mother ought and could be reconciled to the death of a child when dying from natural causes; but when our second boy died from measles it was just the same terrible loss, even if the going was less fearful. Mr. Dodson has since our marriage had the contract for removing the Indians twice to their reservations beyond the Mississippi
River; twice has he been to California to recruit his fortunes. He made money as contractor when young. He had two or three contracts on the Northwestern Railroad. He built the piers and abutments across the river here (in Geneva) upon which the railroad bridge is and which is now being made into a double track; also those upon which the bridge near Sterling, Illinois, now is. He also had the first harbor contract in Chicago, and one or two stage contracts, so that he has been an active business man the greater part of his life; and now we are quietly living alone in our plain simple way in Geneva, our children all away, and I sometimes wonder if on life's record our names shall be placed, where�under success or failure ?
