The Dodge Family of Des Moines County, Iowa

AUGUSTUS C. DODGE is numbered in among the honored pioneers of Des Moines County, and during his life was among the most noted men. He sprang from good old Revolutionary stock, and the patriotism of his ancestors found an abiding-place in his heart. Henry Dodge and Christiana, (laughter of James McDonald, were married in 1800, a few miles west of St. Louis. Of their thirteen children nine grew to maturity, Augustus C. being the fourth in order of birth. He was born Jan. 2, 1812, at St. Genevieve, Mo., then in the Territory of Louisiana, the oldest settlement on the west side of the Mississippi River, about sixty miles below St. Louis. In that new and sparsely settled country his boyhood days were passed. His father was a man of note, even at that time, and during the struggle with Great Britain, from 1812 to 1815, was in command of a battalion of militia, whose duty it was to keep the Indians at bay. For his services he was appointed Brigadier General of the militia of Missouri Territory. On the return of peace, he engaged in mining and smelting, and in the manufacture of salt. The educational facilities of that region were very scant, and the only school Augustus attended for a few months was kept in a log school-house, in which the light came through greased paper; pencils were made from a bullet beaten into shape and hammered to a point; pens were made with a Barlow knife, and ink from the boiling of butternut bark or gunpowder. Meanwhile the boy gained strength and self-reliance for the struggle of life in which he was to engage.

In 1827 the family removed to the Fever River lead mines. Upon arriving at Galena, on July 4, they found the town in a state of alarm from fear of an. attack from the Winnebago Indians. Henry Dodge was at once waited upon by citizens and asked to take command of forces for the defense of the mining district. Young Augustus wished to join them, and when told that he was too young, appealed to his father, who, giving him a small shot gun, remarked, "Shoot well, my boy."

Upon the restoration of peace, Henry Dodge located at a point about forty-five miles northeast of Galena, to which was given the name of Dodge's Grove. AVhen the Black Hawk War broke out, in 1832, he was Colonel of the militia of Wisconsin Territory, and on the 25th of April was directed by Gen. Atkinson to raise as many mounted men in the mining regions as could be obtained for service against the hostile Indians. In one company then raised Augustus was elected Lieutenant of volunteers, for home protection, and in the battle of the Wisconsin he conducted himself bravely. On the march, or camping out, he was always cheerful and obliging to the men.

During these years the family divided their time between their residence near Dodgeville and St. Genevieve, and Augustus made frequent trips between the two places. In February, 1 837, he visited the National Capitol, where, as the son of a friend of the President, and one who had made a national '

M*- reputation in the Black Hawk War, and through the attention of his uncle, Senator Linn, he enjoyed unusual facilities for seeing public men and observing public affairs. Returning home, on the 19th of March, 1837, he was united in marriage, near St. Genevieve, with Miss Clara A. Hertich, daughter of Prof. Joseph Hertich. Their union was an exceedingly happy one, and to them were born eight children: William J., Marceline M., Augustus V., Christiana, Clara A., Henry J., Charles J. and William W.

In 1838 Mr. Dodge was appointed by President Van Buren, Register of the United States Land Office at Burlington, and removed to this city, which was his home the rest of his life. He made an exceedingly popular officer, often going out of the way to help some unfortunate settler in securing the title to his land. The services then rendered were remembered by the settlers in after years.

On the lath day of January, 1839, Mr. Dodge was appointed, by Gov. Lucas, Brigadier General of the 2d Brigade of the ist Division of the Militia of Iowa Territory. In the fall of that year Missouri laid claim to a portion of Iowa Territory on its southern border, which was the occasion of great excitement. December 11 Gen. Dodge's brigade was called out. On reaching Van Buren County, Gen. Dodge was sent with two others to the encampment of the Missouri militia, and a friendly conference following, an amicable settlement was arranged, and the troops disbanded.

In the summer of 1840, without thought or effort on his part. Gen. Dodge was nominated Delegate to Congress. He m.ade a canvass of the Territory, in company with his Whig competitor, Alfred Rich, and was elected by a majority of 585, receiving many Whig votes. On the 2d of September he took his seat in Congress, and on the 7th of December following, he welcomed his father to a seat by his side, as a Delegate from the Territory of Wisconsin, the first and only instance of a father and son sitting together in the House of Representatives since the foundation of the Government. He served as Delegate until the admission of Iowa into the Union, Dec. 28, 1846, a period of six years of laborious service. In the limits of this sketch a record of this service cannot be given, and the reader's attention is called to the life of Gen. Dodge, by Dr. William Salter, published in 1887.

The First General Asserably- of the State of Iowa was not able to agree upon the election of United States Senators, but the Second Assembly, Dec. 2. 1848, elected Gen. Dodge and George W. Jones. Mr. Dodge drew for the short term, ending March 4, 1 849, and was at once re-elected for the term ending March 4, 1855. As seven years before the son had welcomed the father to a seat by his side in the House of Representatives, so now the father, who had entered the Senate on the 23d of the previous June, as one of the Senators from the State of Wisconsin, greeted the arrival of his son in the Senate Chamber. This was an unprecedented occurrence. It was also noteworthy that Augustus C. Doilge was the first person born west of the Mississippi River to become a Senator of the United States. He w.as congratulated by Mrs. Fremont, wife of Gen. Fremont, who said: "General, I am sure that you will be the best behaved man in the Senate, on the ground that a dutiful son will be exceedingly decorous in the immediate presence of his father."

The time in which Gen. Dodge served in the United States Senate was an exciting one in the historjof the country. He favored the Compromise Bill of 1850, but voted against Jefferson Davis' proposition to make void the prohibition of slavery that had existed under the Mexican law, and extend the Missouri Compromise Line of 1820, so as to authorize slaverjnorth of it, and he voted for the admission of California under her constitution prohibiting slavery. Mr. Dodge served as Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, and favored the passage of the Homestead Bill. In the Kansas-Nebraska struggle of 1854, he followed the lead of Stephen A. Douglas. One of the best speeches delivered in the Senate in favor of the organization of Kansas and Nebraska under the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and sneeringly spoken of as "Squatter Sovereignty," was by him. In answer to Senator Brown, of Mississippi, who said, "There are certain meni.al employments which belong exclusively to the negro," he replied: "Sir, I tell the Senator from Mississip[)i, I speak it upon the floor of the American Senate, in the presence of my father, who will attest its truth, that I performed i and do perform, when at home, all of these menial services to which the Senator referred in terms so grating to my feelings. As a gener.nl thing 1 saw my own wood, do all my own marketing. I have driven teams, horses, mules and oxen, and considered myself as respectable then as I now do, or as any.Senator upon the floor."

On the 8th of February, 18.55, Mr. Dodge resigned his seat in the Senate, and on the following day President Pierce nominated him to be Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Spain. He was confirmed, and served with great credit to himself and the General Government until the summer of 1859, when he returned home and made the race for Governor of Iowa on the Democratic ticket, but could not overcome the strong Republican majority. The following extract is from Salter's Life of the General:

"Withdrawn the rest of his life, for the most part, from official station, Mr. Dodge retained to the end his interest in public affairs, and his unswerving devotion to the Democratic party-, of which he remained a recognized leader. On several occasions his name was presented as a suitable candidate for the highest offices in the Nation, but he himself never aided or abetted any movement to that end. In 1872 he advocated union with the Liberal Republicans, and the election of Horace Greeley for President. In 1874 he was elected Mayor of Burlington by a spontaneous movement of citizens, irrespective of party. In 1875 he served, by appointment of Gov. Carpenter, on a commission to investigate alleged abuses in a reform school at Eldora, and aided in introducing a more humane discipline into that institution. An juden friend of j'outli, he was a frequent visitor at schools, and gave help and cheer to many in their struggles for an education. He sustained the cause of tem-,jerance in vigorous addresses, discountenanced the drink haliit by consistent example, and looked to the invigoration of man's moral sense for the suppression of intemperance; not to prohibitorjlegislation. At meetings of pioneers and old settlers he was an honored guest, and never wearied in commemorating their exploits and labors. He presided over the semi-center.nial celebration of the settlement of Fowa, on the ist of June, 1883, at Burlington, and gave surpassing dignity and zest to that occasion. It was a sight that can never be looked upon again to see that illustrious pioneer of Iowa, at the age of more than threescore and ten, pour forth from his capacious, accurate and ready memory, treasures of information concerning the beginning of the commonwealth. He seemed as if inspired with a religious zeal to snatch from ol)livion the memory of our founders for the instruction of after times. A few months later came the fatal sickness and the final hour. He died on the 20th of November, 1883, in the bosom of his family, sharing the consolation of religion, his last words, 'Bless the Lord."

AVe know that every reader of this work will be pleased to see the portrait of this eminent man shown upon a preceding page, and will treasure the volume from that fact. No other man did greater honor to Des Moines County than Gen. Augustus C. Dodge.

As printed in the source¹. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.

WILLIAM WALLACE DODGE, a prominent lawyer of Burlington, Iowa, and the present State Senator from the Ninth Senatorial District, was born in Burlington, April 25, 1854. His father was the late Gen. Augustus C. Dodge, of whom a sketch is given elsewhere in this volume. His grandfather, Gov. Henry Dodge, was the first Governor of Wisconsin and also served as United States Senator from that State.

William Wallace Dodge received his literary education at Notre Dame, Ind., taking a scientific course and graduating in the class of '74. He then entered the law department of the State University of Iowa, graduating in June, 1876. He had the honor of being chosen president of class-day exercises on that occasion, June 19, and was awarded the literary prize offered by the Burlington bar to the graduating class for the best written argument on a given thesis of law. Immediately after taking his degree, Mr. Dodge entered upon the practice of his profession in his native city, in company with his brother, Charles J., under the firm name of Dodge <fe Dodge. By his brilliant talent, high moral character and close application to business, he has won a prominent position at the bar.

Mr. Dodge is an earnest Democrat, and seems to have been born with a natural instinct for politics, in fact it might bo said to be hereditary with him. His father and grandfather before him were eminent statesmen and Democrats of the old Hickory t3'pe. Both were members of the United States Senate at the same time (the only instance in the history of the country where father and son sat side by side as members of that body) one from Iowa and the other from Wisconsin. Mr. Dodge began reading and talking politics in his youth, and made his maiden campaign speech while in company with his father at the little town of Franklin, Lee Co., Iowa, during the Presidential campaign of 1870, since which time he has taken an active part in ever local and national campaign, speaking from the stump, serving on committees, presiding at conventions and working at the polls. He was chosen Captain of the Cleveland and Hendricks Club during the campaign of 1884, served as Chairman of a number of Democratic County Conventions, and as Delegate to local and State Conventions. At the Democratic State Convention, held at Des Moines, Sept. 1, 1837, he had, for a young man, the distinguished honor of being chosen Temporary Chairman of that organization, and performed the duties of his position with dignity and dispatch. During many years of indefatigable effort in behalf of his party, Mr. Dodge never sought, nor would he accept, public office till the fall of 1884, when his friends induced him to accept the nomination for State Senator, when, as if to prove the exception to the rule, that a " Prophet is never without honor save in his own country," he was elected by a majority of 934 over a popular Republican candidate, who

1 r men had the advantage of age. political experience, and the prestige of a good soldier record. It was charged that, while Mr. Dodge possessed superior ability and unquestioned integrity, he was guilty of the heinous crime of being a young man, and was lacking in legislative experience. The first fault, his friends claimed, time would remedy; and the latter he could more quickly overcome by placing him where the necessary opportunity existed. His course in the Senate has fully- justified the most sanguine expectations of his friends and constituents. His introduction of important bills, and able management in securing their adoption, soon proved his lack of experience no serious hinderance to his usefulness, while his eloquent and logical speech in favor of the impeachment of State Auditor Brown attracted general public attention. His many course in rejecting the so-called "$216 salarygrab," and his sensible speech opposing it, was consistent with his high sense of honor, and was generally approved by his constituents. He was the first to introduce a bill in the Iowa Legislature on the subject of child labor, designed to prohibit the employment of children under fifteen years of age, in factories, mines and work-shops. Mr. Dodge has made the subject of that bill, and the laws of other States and countries in regard to the same, a special study\ His correspondence in relation to the subject has been voluminous and varied, until he was well qualified to be the champion of that worthy cause. He was the first to advance the idea of making the Iowa Eegistry law an issue in politics, and predicting the bad effect of its enforcement. The subsequent amendments of the law fully justified his views.

Mr. Dodge is a most indefatigable worker in whatever he undertakes, possessing intellectual faculties of a high order, and, with studious habits, his abilities, both natural and acquired, are such as attract attention and command respect. Nature has happily endowed him with a fine physique, a good voice and a gift of oratory. Quick in perception and correct in analysis, his conclusions are logical and convincing. While next to the youngest member of the Senate, Mr. Dodge has won a place in the foremost ranks of the legislators of the State. His name has already received favorable mention as a future candidate for Congress, and it is only a question of time when this talented young lawyer will be found following closely upon the footsteps of his illustrious ancestors in the halls of the National Congress.

Near the close of the session of the Twentysecond General Assembly of Iowa, he was appointed one of two selected from the Senate, to act on the committee of five appointed to investigate certain charges that had been preferred against the State University of Iowa. The investigation began on May 15, 1888, ended July 20, 1888, and to his credit be it said that he was the most faithful member of the commission, not having lost a day from his labors. This is but an additional evidence to his fidelity to public duty.

As a representative of the younger generation, but one who has already made his mark among the distinguished men of Des Moines County% we gladly present to the patrons of the Album an excellent portrait of Mr. Dodge.

As printed in the source¹. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.