Biographical Sketches of Dodson and Dotson Pioneer Families

Samuel Dodson  1738 - 1795

From: The Luzerne legal register, Volume 12 By George Brubaker Kulp, Pennsylvania. Supreme Court

Rosamond L. Dodson Rhone, a daughter of Osborne Dodson, of the township of Huntington. Mrs. Rhone is a descendant of Samuel Dodson, who, in 1780, was a resident of Penn township, Northampton county (now Mahoning township, Carbon county), Pennsylvania. At that date, with a settlement here and there, it was the frontier of Pennsylvania, and not far from where Fort Allen (now Weissport) was erected. 

Her great grandfather, Joseph Dodson, located in Huntington township, Luzerne county, on the farm where he died, in 1851; and in that township her grandfather, Samuel Dodson, and her father, Osborne Dodson, were born and buried. 

She was born in Downieville, Sierra county, California, during the residence of her father in that State, while acting as a civil engineer. An incident occurred in connection with the Dodson family while they were residents of Northampton county that is worth relating here. 

Benjamin Gilbert, a Quaker from Byberry, near the city of Philadelphia, in 1775, removed with his family to a farm on Mahoning creek, five or six miles from Fort Allen. He was soon comfortably situated, with a good log dwelling house, barn, saw and grist mill. The Gilbert family, consisting of eleven persons, were alarmed about sunrise on the 25th day of April, 1780, the year after Sullivan's expedition, by a party of eleven Indians, whose appearance struck them with terror. To attempt to escape was death. The Indians who made this incursion were of different tribes or nations, who had abandoned their country on the approach of Gen. Sullivan's army, and fled within command of the British forts in Canada, promiscuously settling within their neighborhood, and, according to Indian custom of carrying on war, frequently invading the frontier settlements, taking captive the weak and defenseless. They made captives of the Gilbert family, consisting of Mr. Gilbert, his wife, three sons, two daughters, two daughters-in-law, a servant, and Benjamin Gilbert, son of John Gilbert, of Philadelphia. Abigail Dodson, a daughter of Samuel Dodson, first above mentioned, aged fourteen, lived with her father on a farm about one mile distant from the mill, and who came that morning with grist, was also captured. 

The Indians proceeded about half a mile, and captured the Peart family, consisting of three persons. The forlorn band were dragged over the wild and rugged region between the Lehigh and Chemung rivers, while their beds were hemlock branches strewed on the ground and blankets for a covering. They were often ready to faint by the way, but the cruel threat of immediate death urged them again to the march. They reached Niagara on May 25. Abigail Dodson was given to one of the families of the Cayuga nation, and was finally surrendered to her relatives at a place now known as the city of Detroit, Michigan, after having been in captivity about three years. In September, 1780, occurred what was then called the Scotch (now Sugarloaf) Valley massacre. A company of thirty-three men, under Captain Klader or Myers, had come up from the southeastern part of the State, crossing over Broad and Buck mountains, passed down through the ravine southeast from Conyngham, and halted at the spring, now owned by the Conyngham Water Co., north of the road and west of the Little Nescopeck creek where it crosses the Butler road, on the east side of Conyngham. Feeling, no doubt, a degree of safety, the little band set their guns around a tree, and were refreshing the inner man with the pure water from the spring. While thus employed, they suddenly found themselves separated from their trusty old firelocks by a band of Indians, with here and there a heartless Tory among them. The enemy had come down through the same ravine, and, taking the troops at such disadvantage, completely discomfited them. The Indians took thirteen scalps, and all the survivors were made prisoners. They then burnt several buildings, and escaped to Niagara. The massacre occurring after the capture of Abigail Dodson, she obtained her information from a prisoner in Canada, whom the savages spared and turned over to the British, and she told the story as here given. She afterwards married Peter Brink, of Huntington township, and lived to a good old age.

The mother of Mrs. Rhone is Lucy Miller Dodson, nee Wadsworth, a granddaughter of Epaphras Wadsworth, a Revolutionary soldier, who located in Huntington township, near Town Hill, in 1794. He was the first blacksmith in the township, and was also the pioneer horticulturist, having set out an orchard on his lot in 1799, in which most of the trees are still in bearing, and afford a good quality of fruit. Mr. Wadsworth was quite an extensive land operator for those days, and was a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as was also his son, Epaphras, her father.