Richard Dotson

Richard Dotson 1752 - 1847

From: RICHARD DOTSON (1752-1847) and his Descendants by James M. Dotson and Barr Wilson, 1992 

Richard Dotson was born in Frederick County, Virginia, 1752. As a young man he moved to the southwestern part of Pennsylvania, then under Virginia�s control, where 
he lived as a frontiersman until the end of the Revolutionary War. While there, he served in the 1774 Lord Dunmore campaign against the Indians, down the Ohio River 
and on to Fort Charlotte at present day Chillicothe, Ohio; while on this campaign he was undoubtedly introduced to the western section of Virginia where he later settled. 
He served during the Revolutionary War as a soldier defending the forts in the southwestern Pennsylvania area. Some of his older children, whose mother was Mary, were 
slaughtered by the Indians; their son William survived. By the conclusion of the war, Virginia had given up to Pennsylvania, her claim to the disputed territory southwest of 
Pittsburgh to conform with an extended Mason-Dixon line. At this time Richard removed back to Frederick County. The next several years were spent in Shenandoah, 
Loudoun, and Hampshire Counties, Virginia; he may have resided for a short time in the state of Maryland. His first wife Mary had died and he remarried a Mildred (Millie) 
Miller. Richard and his oldest son William were each enumerated as �head-of-household� during the years 1798-1799 in Hampshire County, Virginia. 

Shortly after 1800, Richard brought his family to the Greenwood Area of present day Doddridge County, WV, where he built his cabin on a six hundred tract of land 
granted to him as assignee of a Isaac Pryon. His two older sons William and Emanuel were each given part of this tract where they established households of their own. As 
shown in the1810 Federal Population Census, all three Dotsons (Richard, William and Emanuel) were enumerated separately as �head-of-household�, in what was then Wood 
County. Shortly after 1810, Richard�s second wife Millie died. He then married Naomi Villers Gregg, a widow of George Gregg who had built a mill at the JUG on Middle 
Island Creek near Middlebourne. 

About 1820, Richard moved to Tyler County, where he acquired land by deed and grant in the Hugle Run area; this location was only a few miles northeast �across the 
ridge� into what was then Tyler County (now Doddridge). Richard�s wife Naomi died ca. 1826-27. His son William remained in the Greenwood area; Emanuel moved to an 
area of Arnold Creek then in Harrison County.

By 1830 Richard, who was getting up in years by then and again a widower, had moved in with one or another of his younger sons (Joseph in Tyler or Elisha in Wood 
County), with whom he was shown residing in the 1830 census. The 1840 census showed him by name, as a Revolutionary War pensioner residing with his son James in 
Tyler County. The younger sons with whom Richard was associated in his land dealings after 1820 included Zachariah, Elisha, James, Joseph, Thomas, and Richard, Jr. 

Richard died in 1847 and is buried in a marked grave in the Arnold Creek Cemetery in Doddridge County.