Biographical Sketches of Dodson and Dotson Pioneer Families

Richard Dodson  1731 - 1785

From: Dodson Genealogy 1600 - 1907 by Thompson P Ege

Richard Dodson, fourth son of Thomas and Mary Prigg Dodson, was born in Chester County, Pa., June 26, 1731, and with a brother and sister, William and Hannah, were baptized at the same time, December 3, 1731, by Rev. John Caspar Stoever, Jr., an early Lutheran missionary, who ministered to the scattered people of the several counties in the eastern part of the State. This reference of birth and baptism dates was recently found by the author in a record of baptisms and marriages, as written by Rev. John Casper Stoever, and recently translated from the German (1896) by Rev. J. F. J. Schantz, D. D., of Myerstown, Pa. Said record book is now preserved in the Pennsylvania Historical Society Library in Philadelphia. 

Richard removed about the time or soon after his marriage to Penn Township, Northampton County, Pa., where he purchased and owned land near some other brothers and members of the Rhodes family, relatives of his wife, Susannah Rhodes, granddaughter of John Rhodes, of Derbyshire, England, who came to Pennsylvania in 1682, with Wm. Penn, and took up a large body of land, on which is now the town of Darby, a suburb of Philadelphia, and so named by him from his native shire of England. 

"Barlborough Hall," the ancient baronial home of Rhodes' ancestry in Derbyshire, is still in the possession of descendants, of whom the late Cecil Rhodes, of African and English fame, was one, and of whose beneficent founding of "Oxford scholarships," American students are now participants. 

During the war of the Revolution, Richard Dodson raised a company of militia in Penn Township, Northampton County, Pa., of which he was commissioned as captain, May 22nd, 1775. (Penna. Archives, 2nd Series, Vol.. XIV. Page 555.) His company became part of the famous "Pennsylvania Line," in which he served during the war, and it is thought until after the winter at Valley Forge. About 1780 he removed from Northampton County to Salem Township (Beach Haven), Luzerne County, Pa., and by warrant took up two hundred acres of land, fronting on the Susquehanna River. There he built his home of hewn logs from the forest, and began to farm anew. 

Among his first troubles incident to his new home were those of disputed boundaries and claims between the Connecticut and Pennsylvania settlers, which were finally settled by the Colonial Assembly surveying and defining boundaries and giving each landholder a river frontage of a thousand feet, and so running back from the same. 

'Indian raids were frequent, and their depredations were severe. In one of these raids their oldest son, John, of about eighteen years, was killed. He was buried on the Beach Haven farm, near the river. 

In the late fall of 1784, in another Indian incursion, they were driven from their home and their house was burned, with all its contents, family records, deeds and papers. The father was breaking up some new ground for spring planting, some distance from the house. The mother noticed a skulking Indian near. She at once sent one of the young children to warn the father. He sent the child back to have the 
mother send the children one by one to the spring, as if to get water, and last of all, she herself followed with infant in arms. (Said infant became the grandmother of the author.) Meanwhile the father hid his horses in a thicket of bushes, joined them and hastened to their boat at the river, wherein to make their escape. When about the middle of the river they saw their home in flames, the Indians dancing around it, and hurling feather beds in the air. They crossed to Wapwallopen, where they found such shelter as best they could, and with but their scanty clothing for a protection, passed the night. 

In the morning the father ventured back, found his horses, and recrossing the river with them, began their refuge journey through the Wapwallopen Gap, and over the mountains to relatives and friends in Northampton County. 

From the hardships and exposure of the war and the recent toil and experience of loss and journey Richard sickened and died in the next year. The mother was left with quite a family of young children. These were compelled to find homes with friends and strangers. The widow's main dependence being her oldest son, Joseph, then about nineteen years of age, who became the practical head of the family, and with whom the mother made her home, surviving her husband until 1815. As soon as they could, when Joseph became of age, they returned to Salem Township and took up their claim. They found other claimants for it, and a dispute between two such for its unlawful possession. The court finally awarded it to one "Lockhard" on condition of his paying the widow Dodson's claim, a large portion of which land is still in the Lockhard possession (Case of Lockhard vs. Kuhn and Kern (Bound Mss. Proprietaries, Pg. 579) July, 1790). Joseph then finally took up a large tract of eight hundred acres in Union Township, Luzerne County, about 1796, having then married.