Dodson

 As of today, I have traced the Dodson Line back to Charles Dodson, who settled in what was called the Northern Neck of Virginia. As this region was settled, various counties were created, and boundaries and names were changed over the coming years. It appears that Charles settled in “Old Rappahannock County,” which later became Richmond County.

We know approximately when Charles Dodson was born, but we don’t know where, and we don’t know who his parents are. According to a deposition recorded in March 1699, Charles says he is about 50 years old, so born about 1649 or 1650…someplace. I think that someplace was England because Charles Dodson was literate and could write his name. If Charles was born in Virginia in 1650, his family would have to have been wealthy to afford a private tutor to teach their children to read and write. Indeed, judging from Charles’ own children, that didn’t happen…and Charles was a large landowner. Yet his two eldest sons signed their names with a mark. Charles grew up someplace where he received at least some schooling.

Settlement in the Northern Neck of Virginia, shown above as the neck of land that today includes the counties of Westmoreland, Northumberland, Richmond, and Lancaster, began about 1635 when the area was part of York County, one of the original counties formed in 1634. St. Mary’s and St. Charles Counties in Maryland are just across the Potomac River, on the north side of the neck.

Old Rappahannock County was named for the Native Americans who inhabited the area, Rappahannock reportedly meaning “people of the alternating (i.e., tidal) stream.” The county’s origins lay in the first efforts by English immigrants to “seat” the land along the Rappahannock River in the 1640s. The primitive travel capabilities of the day and the county’s relatively large area contributed to the settlers’ hardship in travel to the county seat to transact business and became the primary reason for the county’s division by an Act of the Virginia General Assembly in 1691 to form the two smaller counties of Essex and Richmond. According to the Library of Virginia, old Rappahannock wills are with the Essex County wills, although they have been transcribed and published separately.

Old Rappahannock County was formed in 1656 from Lancaster County. It became extinct in 1692 when it was divided into Essex and Richmond Counties.

Richmond County was formed in 1692 from Old Rappahannock. Land records began in 1692, and probate was instituted in 1699, although many records were lost for unknown reasons.

The first sighting of Charles Dodson is in the Old Rappahannock County deeds in 1679. Of course, then it wasn’t called Old Rappahannock County, just Rappahannock County, and it’s abbreviated several ways within deeds. All documents included are from Old Rappahannock or Richmond County, depending on the date of the transaction, unless otherwise stated.

The North Farnham Parish register tells us that son Thomas Dodson was born to Charles and Ann Dodson on May 15, 1681. This suggests that Charles was married by at least sometime in 1680, if Thomas was his first child. However, it’s probable that son Charles Jr. was the first child, or first male child, of Charles Dodson and Ann, pushing the marriage date back to between 1671 and 1676, depending on when Charles Jr. was born.

Thomas is the only child directly attributed to Charles and Ann in the North Farnham Parish church records, which are known to be incomplete. The rest of the records about Charles’s children are his will written in 1703 and various deeds over the years.

Several years ago, my son Eric and I were in Virginia working on a project. We took the opportunity to explore this region and went to the North Farnham Parish Church, but we saw no signs of grave markers for any Dodsons there.