Newspapers / The State’s Voice (Dunn, … / May 1, 1935, edition 1 / Page 6
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CAPTAIN DAVID DODD By CLAUDE H. MOORE, Turkey, N. C. It has been said that David Dodd came to Duplin County (later Sampson) with the .Holmeses, Kenans,‘"Torranses, and other families about 1735 or 1736. 'He settled in what is now Turkey Township, on the old Fayetteville-New Bern stage road. His plantation joined the Kenan and Thomson plantations. . Tradition says that the old stage coaches made it a custom to exchange horses at Captain Dodd’s. David Dodd married Elizabeth Boykin and had the following children: 1. Elizabeth Dodd, married a Mr. Spell (de scendants unknown, if there were any). 2. Willie Dodd~ married'and had several chil dren (descendants unknown). 3. Nancy Dodd, married John Treadwell and lived in Lisbon Township, Sampson County. Mrs. Carey Parker Jnee Nettie Treadwell) of Clinton, and Mrs. Pearl Murphy Wright, wife of the late Dr. Wright (President of East Carolina Teach ers’ College) are great-granddaughters of this marriage. In 1783, David Dodd sold his tract of two hun dred acres on Six Runs to Phillip Ryland. He sold his tract of one hundred acres* on Little Marsh Branch to Richard Clinton for the sum of thirty pounds. This was part of a patent grant ed to Gabriel Holmes in 1761 and was^sold by him to ,David Dodd on November 7, 1767. In 1788, David Dodd sold his plantation in Turkey Township to George Morisey for five hundred pounds and moved to Lisbon Township. He be came sheriff of Sampson County in 1788. - The North Carolina Colonial Records give the following facts concerning David Dodd. Volume 15, page 728: - David Dodd enlisted in Captain John Summer’s Company, of the first North Carolina Battalion commanded by Colonel Thomas Clark, on March 4, 1776. Volume 20, page 261: 1787—Military officers for the Fayeth District, for Colonel of Cavalry; Thomas Overton and Richard Clinton; Captain, John Willis; First Major, David Dodd; Second Major, John Porterfield. Volume 18, page 441: The House of Com mons appointed David Dodd as a major for the District of Wilmington. .Volume 16, page 3: David Dodd was a mem ber of the North Carolina Assembly for the year .1782.; ■ Volume 14, page 227: David Dodd and Lewis Holmes' represented Sampson County in the House of. Commons'in 1786, Page 9: David Dodd was appointed to the Committee of.Claims of the Houseof Commons. Page 274: “Resolved, that the thanks of the House be extended to Major Richard McKenzie and Captain David Dodd for their upright, spirited and expeditious exertions in ’seizing and bringing to this Town in obedience ’ to the said orders of the 'General Assembly divers persons-'charged with high crimes and mis demeanors against the Credit of the State.” ' Volume 20, page'265; John Hay and David Dodd were members Of the General Assembly from Sampson County in 1785. ; Volume 24, page "752: 1785—An Act was passed by the Assembly to establish an Academy in Duplin to be called Grove Academy, and David Dodd was appointed as one of the trustees for •this institution.,- Page 776: Richard Clinton, David Dodd, Richard Herring, and Curtis Ivey Were appointed to lay out a town on the property of Jesse Peacock to be called Lisburn (Lisbon). .Volume 22, page 3: David Dodd and several others represented Sampson County in Hillsboro Convention of 1788. .Airs. it. n. Wright relates the following stories .about Captain Dodd’s Avar experiences that were .told"to her in early youth. On one occasion, while “Colonel” (he was known as Colonel Dodd but held military rank of Major),Dodd was at home, .some British soldiers came and his wife hid him in a barrel of feathers until they had left. On another occasion, he escaped the British by riding his horse into-a dense marshy swamp where the British did not dare go. This incident .was told to me by Mr. J. F. Faison. It was during the last years of the American Revolution and several companies of British soldiers were stationed in Sampson County and Duplin County. General Kenan heard about two British soldiers by the names of Joseph and Thomas Osborn who were about to desert the Army. General Kenan went to “Colonel” Dodd and told him to go to thp Osborn boys and tell them that he would give them one hundred acres of land if they would"withdraw from the British 'Army. “ColoneTCDodd saw the two soldiers and they accepted-the. proposition. The Osborns set led on their property' which lay in Turkey Township on the headwaters of David 1 homson s Mill Branch. Joseph Osborn’s daughter, Sarah, became the wife of Felix B. Milliard. The Os born name ha§ completely died out in this sec tion of tbe State. ' “Colonel'’ Dodd made his last will and testa ment on August 7, 1813. The bulk of his estate was willed to his wife during her lifetime, and other lands were to become the property of Wil lie Dodd. He gave to his grandchildren, John !'Bolen Dodd, Abner, and Eliza Dodd, one negro slave each. . “Colonel” Dodd’s old plantation home is still standing in Turkey Township in a dilapidated condition. This historic structure is now being used as a barn. The walls have been greatly de faced, but the Southern Colonial architectual lines can still be seen. “Colonel” Dodd died in 1813 and was probably buried in Lisbon Township, [Editorial Note: The above article is very in teresting and informing, but does, not approach the question of whether David Dodd is the ances tor of Dr. W. E. Dodd ,ambassador to Germany. As stated before in these columns, the father of Dr. Dodd, much of his life a plain tenant farmer, I believe, told me that the only tradition of his Revolutionary ancestor that had come down to him was that of his* escaping pursuing British soldiers by leaping into the water and lying hid den with only his nostrils out. That tradition is readily identifiable with the escape into the marsh as told by Mrs. Wright. As further men tioned in the former comment, former Mayor Thomas Murphy of Greensboro, a brother of Mrs. R. H. Wright, mentioned above, told me that Dr. Dodd himself stated positively that he had traced the ancestry back to Col. David Dodd. The Ambassador further stated that David Dodd or his father first settled in the Scotland Neck, so named because of the number of Scotch who set tled there, and that the floods of the Roanoke discouraged some of them,, causing them, includ ing the Dodd family, to move away—the latter to ^what is now Sampson, then Duplin county, If Dr. Dodd is correct, as he should be, being a his torian, the German .ambassador is not only a de scendant of Col. Dodd, but a cousin ©£ [he Tread wells and Murphys, and other Saffipson qounty families. It has been nearly two years since Tom Murphy told me what Dr.,Dodd told him and my recollection may not be perfect. If not, Mr. Mur phy will please set me straight.—Editor]. PERSONAL PARAGRAPHS AND COMMENTS. (Continued from Page Two) out” himself, “It is hard to realize that our gen eration is getting old, and that we must accept the fact it is up to all of us to slow down and let the young men take up the job,” says Will, who it is difficult to conceive of as doing anything of the kind. I afn really ashamed to find myself here hardly able to pull along on low gear while R R. Clark, a dozen ye'ars older, is doing the best Writing of his life; while Governor Doughton, who wpn that title away back before Will Vass attained his majority, is still going strong and his brother talking of running for governor, Re covery seems mighty slow, but I would be so ashamed to be put on the shelf or even die before I am seventy-five (it would be a slander upon the sturdiness of the stock, it seems to me) that I will hope that the body which seemed even so recently stringy that it would still stand the gait oi a youngster will, like my old rord, witn a lit tle patching, by careful diet and much sleep, re cover spme of its wonted toughness and pull through the ten years necessary to bring me up night the period wb<en the forebears as a rule found it time to take out and quit. But it is hard to have to puddle along at a six-mile gait when one has been accustomed to travel at the full limit of speed allowed by the law, and some time overdoing the speed limit, or at least the normal day’s journey. But the younger generation has already just' about taken the field, with or without our con sent. And some of the fellows who have hardly reached fifty begin to look as if they are of re tiring age. But Will Bailey seems to be just getting into his full stride, and I believe he is a year older than Vass. George Paschal is doing as much work as any Kentucky mule should do, like me, thinking that he is made of whitleather. Those fellows who have not been driven by, a nervousness that would aHow no rest, even if nec essity hadn’t been also driving, should hold their ^wonted gait till nearer the end of the journey. The mere facts, of accumulating miie postq steady approach to the end of the journey ar r comparatively little concern, but I should"™ n to have to.be “toted” over the last miles p Will Vass, who. brought the only surviving pUt leigh bank through the troublesome period serves to take the next fifteen years as eas he pleases and to enjoy his fill of “sunshin^.S terbacker.” ne and “One Can Walk Further Than He Can Run.” The very next letter I pick up after that of Will Vass’s is one from Rev. G,eo. R. !Merreli who when Vass and I entered college was a senior and quite an elderly one at that, being over thirty years of age. He is now an octogenarian living in retirement with his still charming wife at Gulf. Referring to my being ordered on low gear, Brother Merrell quotes President Charles E. Taylor of Wake Forest as stating for the bene fit of those who were too eager to get to their goal that a man can walk further than he can run. Brother Merrell has had to take it slowly for quite a number of years because of deafness but he is making a good, long “walk” of it. I had occasion .to quote, one of Dr. Taylor’s aphorisms sometime ago, and I am thinking that if we fellows could have had more of Dr. Tay lor’s own pithy philosophical deductions we should have been benefiitted more than bv the study of either, of the four philosophical text books in his course. It Almost Pays' One to Be Sick In Order to Get Some Delightful Boquets. Here is a card from one of my contemporaries in the school roomv Forty-three years ago J. A’. McArthur was teaching at Kenansville, I be lieve, Clifford at Warsaw, and I at Burgaw. Later over in Robeson I .found J. A. teaching at Red Springs. I hadn’t seen him since till the day of that protest tax meeting at Fayetteville four years ago. He was, jand is, living with his brother a few miles from Fayetteville, still a bachelor. Here is part of his recent message: “You are working too hard. Have enjoyed your editorials. A "prominent leader says you are the brightest writet*. in ti^e state,”—It’s, fine to hear such nice things, .however bad the speaker’s judgment he in the case at issue. And here is a line or two from that great jurist and good friend, Justice Heriot Clarkson, who is so good as to say : “It would be a calamity if you could not continue 'the State’s Voice. It repre sents the highland hest ideals for North Caro lina.” And along with that chewing word came a check that sends the good Justice’s subscription away ahead. And rny good friend former Lieutenant-Gover nor Elmer Long writes /equally cheeringly and sends a three-year subscription. It has been such good words and the subscription money received that has helped to make it possible to get through cheerfully and without finding the larder becom ing as lean as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard during several weeks spent largely in hed, for the bed apd the typewriter, are mighty, close neighbors, and the former is calling me now for its turn. But not all the- cheer has come from written missives—some of the. fipest ladies in the world have been charming callers. And I catch sotne interesting informaiton from them. Here, only two hours ago, curiosity led me to ask Mrs. J. C Jones what her maiden name was and I heard that she was a Warren county Macon. And, °* course, my next word was: “Then you are some of Nat Macon’s stock?” And she is—a great granddaughter of the great commoner’s brother. I believe I have already overrun my allotmen^ of two pages for these chats about people, yet there are more notes here I should like to PeeP into before I quit, but mustn’t. O it is not so bad being an invalid for a few weeks. Even t e demonstration of the love and loyalty of ones own folk when you cannot help yourself ^ a revelation, even if you had less than no reason o doubt it before. According to the. best authorities, 36,000 deaths last year were directly traceable to liquor. This is an increase of .6,000 over the previous year. The property loss, from wrecks and ot e wise amounts to, almost two billions of dollar» and yet people cry. for. more liquor. Liquor responsible for .fifty p*r cent or more of our a cidents. .The brewers of America have rtcenvJ. boasted, that.; “Working men and their larnl. are the mainstay in expanding the consump1 ,of liquor in.AmfTiea?’gome. people wis _ put .the bottle .tp the mouths of the working to the .degradation of his family and the des tion of his life/
The State’s Voice (Dunn, N.C.)
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May 1, 1935, edition 1
6
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