Dotson,

The Dodson''s of Virginia and West Virginia can trace their
origins to John Dods, who departed London aboard the Susan
Constant on December 19, 1606 along with Captain John Smith. The
Susan Constant, along with her sister ships, the Discovery and
the Godspeed, took the long route around the Canary Islands
arriving on the Virginia coast on may 6, 1607. The ships were
driven inland by a storm and they took refuge in the area that
is now known as Hampton Roads, Virginia. They then sailed up the
James River landing at Jamestown. John Dods was listed as an
labouror on the passenger list for original 105 settlers of
Jamestown. He was also a soldier in the expeditions against the
Indians. John was born in England in 1588 and was 18 years old
when he arrived at Jamestown. He married Jane Dier, one of the
57 women sent to Jamestown from England aboard the ships
Marmaduke, Warwick, and Tiger in 1621, as brides for the single
males at Jamestown; Jane was the youngest of the women and was
said to be 15 or 16 when she arrived in VA. (The source of the
information concerning Jane Dier is from William & Mary College
Quarterly, January 1991 by David R. Ransome, " Wives for
Virginia, 1621")
John and Jane survived the hardships of winter, starvation and
the Indian massacre that took the lives of the majority of the
original Jamestown settlers and went on to prosper as a member
of the Land of Neck community with the status of Original
Settlers . The census taken by the Virginia Company of London in
the years 1624 and 1625 list John Dods and his wife Jane as
living in the Land Of Neck village along with over forty other
individuals. (The Historical Journal, 43, 2 (2000) @@2000
Cambridge University Press. Vilage Tensions In Early Virginia:
Sex, Land, and Status At the Neck Of Land In The 1620s. David R.
Ransome.
It is believed that John Dodds and Jane had two sons and in
naming his sons John probably used the popular practice of the
day, known as patronymics . Patronymics describes the act of
creating a new name for a male members of the family by adding
the suffix son to the fathers name. If this is the case the name
Dodson stood for the Son of Dod.) MARSH AND RELATED FAMILIES
p.55
The third through sixth generations of the Dodson History have
been extensively researched and documented. The primary source
of this information is the two volume publication, The Dodson
(Dotson) Family of North Farnham Parish, Richmond County
Virginia by Williams and Lucas. Published by the Southern
Historical Press Inc. These two volumes are considered to be the
bible for Dodson researchers. (In those cases where reference is
made to this source only the page numbers are listed as it is
the most widely used source for this document.)
When I started to research this branch of the Dodson family I
was faced with an interesting question. Why was this branch of
the family so poorly documented when there was so much written
about the Dodson family? What was discovered led to the
Shenandoah National Park region and an interesting story in it''s
self.
In the mid to late 1800s a spreading blight destroyed the
chestnut trees that were the main source of income and animal
food for the individuals living in the area. In the late 1800s
the U.S. Government made the decision to create the Shenandoah
National Park and to relocate all of the residents who lived on
the land. These situations, added to the already difficult
living conditions that the park area residents endured, created
an impossible living environment and by the late 1800s life in
the park area had become dismissal and uncer tain.
The relocation process was completed in the 1930s but for many
of the fiercely independent Dodsons, living in the flat Lands or
the towns, was not an acceptable alternative. Bell Field Dodson,
who moved to Renick, WV. from the Hazel-Nicholson Hollow near
Syria, Robertson District, Madison County, VA., near Old Rag
Mountain must have seen the move to West Virginia as an
opportunity to continue his independence and to start over. When
he moved to Renick, WV. his brother Rufus moved his family to
Pennsylvania and became a stone mason.
The lack of documentation concerning the Dodsons who lived in
the park region is tied to the independence of the Dodson
Mountain Men of Virginia. While their cousins, living in the
more prosperous areas of Virginia, were expanding their
plantations and their fortunes and moving south to newer lands
in Tennessee, the Dodsons living in the Blue Ridge Mountains
were moving deeper into the hollows and becoming a part of a
developing society that was for the most part, closed to the
outside world. Although they were connected by birth there is
little evidence of contact between Dodsons of the Blue Ridge
area and their cousins in eastern Virginia and Tennessee.
One of the main Dodson family historians for the early
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was the Reverend Elias
Dodson, a great-grandson of Thomas Dodson Sr. Reverend Dodson
summed up the Dodson family by writing that:
He never knew any Dodson to be hung, go to jail or the
penitentiary. They were peaceable, amiable and industrious