David Curtis Dodge (1832 - 1920)

Born 7 Nov 1832 in Howlett Hill, Onondaga, New York, USA

Ancestors

Husband of Susan C. (Montgomery) Dodge — married 6 Dec 1854 in West Onondaga, Onondaga County, New York

Husband of Mary E. Alta (Bacon) Dodge — married 1 May 1884 in Camillus, Onondaga, New York

Descendants

Died 16 Mar 1920 at age 87 in Syracuse, Onondaga, New York, USA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Diane Flynn [send private message]

Biography

David Curtis Dodge, often known as Curtis, perhaps because his father's name was also David, was born on November 7, 1832 in Howlett Hill, Onondaga, New York, USA. He was the son of David S. Dodge and Silda Colvin,, widow of Seneca Howlett. David Curtis Dodge married Susan C. Montgomery circa 1856. She died on 1 Feb 1880 bearing her eleventh child.

The family of Curtis Dodge and Susan C. Montgomery of the town of Onondaga had been visited all too frequently by unbearable heartbreak. One of their sons, namesake of his grandfather David S. Dodge, had died in infancy. Their barn, full of the year’s harvest, had burned in 1876. There was little insurance, so the couple was forced to take a mortgage the following year. The Long Depression which began in 1873 no doubt contributed to their economic hardship.

Soon after Susan died, Erastus Loomis, the man who held the mortgage, foreclosed on their farm. In desperation, David allowed his motherless newborn daughter to be adopted by a well-to-do Syracuse printer, John Parker Fralick and his wife Sarah Jane Van Antwerp whose only child, Leonard, an infant, had died the preceding August. The other children put it more bluntly: their father “gave away” their little sister – and they apparently never forgave him because several of his daughters and granddaughters gave their daughters the same name as that lost baby sister: Leona.

There was yet another burden for the Dodge family: in 1848, Curtis’s older sister, Sarah M. Dodge, had married Charles P. Cowles, a nurseryman. This couple had three children. In 1865, the probate papers of Sarah’s father David S. Dodge, established a committee (conservatorship) because Sarah was “of unsound mind.” Sarah and Charles Cowles's children remained in Charles’s household, while Sarah lived with her family. The nature of Sarah’s mental affliction has not yet been learned.

Susan’s parents, George Montgomery and Almira Gunn, had experienced similar sad events. They, too, had apparently lost their farm in the town of Onondaga because they moved to the notorious slum that was Syracuse’s 7th Ward. In their old age they were forced to work as servants in a private home. Because all four of their children had died, there were no longer any dutiful and loving children to care for these aged parents. Their eldest son, John P. Montgomery, died of typhoid fever in 1854 in his 21st year; Susan, their first daughter died in 1836 at age 15 months; the next daughter, also named Susan – Susan C., who married at the age of 17 David Curtis Dodge, died in 1880 in child birth; the fourth child, Oscar Montgomery, married and produced one daughter before dying “a violent” [though unspecified] death in 1867, according to his probate documents.

Susan C. “Susie” Dodge, the sixth child of Curtis David (aka David Curtis) Dodge and namesake of her mother, Susan C. Montgomery, was born c. 1872 in the town of Onondaga. Little Susie Dodge, age 8, was found in the 1880 Census, but other records for her – marriage, death, burial or census were elusive. Eventually marriage, death and sometimes burial information for all of her other siblings was found, but for a long time, Susie was the only child whose fate had not been learned.

Susie was a 3-year-old toddler in Curtis and Susan’s household in 1875; she had seven other siblings, ranging in age from 18 to 1. Although there was no domestic or farm workers living in their home at the time of this census, the older children almost certainly served those functions: John was the 18-year-old who could help with the farm work, while Flora, age 16, Nellie, age 14 and Emma, age 12 could help their mother with household chores such as food preparation and preservation, cooking, baking, laundry, housecleaning, sewing and tending the younger siblings. There were always plentiful chores to be done on a family farm in the 19th century, some of which might include feeding the farm animals, milking the cows, churning the butter and gathering the eggs.

In 1875, one of Curtis’s farms* encompassed 150 acres, 110 of which were improved (cultivated). Forty acres was in woods and timberlands. His farm was valued at $10,000 and the farm buildings at $800. His stock was valued at $800 and his tools at $176. He raised winter wheat, oats, spring barley, Indian corn, potatoes and apples. He had 2 horses, 2 heifer calves, 2 working oxen and 5 milch cows who produced 700 pounds of butter. There was 1 pig, and $8 worth of poultry.

The other farm was even more productive: it was worth $14,000 and was comprised of 200 acres. The same crops were grown, with comparable yields. There was a good deal more livestock, 15 milch cows and 1600 pounds of butter production, 4 horses, 5 pigs, and $25 worth of chickens.

So, life for the Dodge family appeared to be good and prosperous in 1875. There were eight healthy children and two thriving farms.

Susie Dodge was no longer living when her father, David C. Dodge died of pneumonia in 1920 because she was not mentioned in his obituary. Of David’s twelve children, only seven remained alive in March, 1920: daughters Carrie, Grace, Flora and Abbie Pearl; sons George and Lawton. Leona was still living as well.

It was not until early in 2011 when researcher Diane Wilson Flynn found several very descriptive articles on fultonhistory.com that chronicled the sad circumstances of Susan C. Dodge’s death in 1895.

She had died by her own hand a week before Christmas 1895 by taking strychnine. She was 24 years old.

David m. 2nd, at Camillus, NY, on 1 May 1884, Mary Alta (Bacon) Gardner. They had one child, Abbie Pearl Dodge, known as Pearl.

David was the only grandparent his great-granddaughter Marguerite Hanifan (b. 1910) ever knew. She remembered visiting him and his 2nd wife several times as a child. He teased her, calling her "Oleomargerine" instead of Marguerite and took her to pick berries on his property on Cumberland Avenue in Syracuse. She remembered her step-greatgrandmother trimming David's big bushy eyebrows one afternoon when she was visiting them. A photograph of David Curtis Dodge in a Syracuse newspaper when he was age 84 confirmed that his eyebrows were dark and very bushy. Marguerite said that she loved her Grandpa Dodge very much but that her mother didn't like him because he slapped her when she was a child. However there is plentiful evidence that the reason David Curtis Dodge was disliked by his children and grandchildren was primarily because he gave away his eleventh child.

After David Curtis Dodge passed away from lobar pneumonia at age 87 on Tuesday, March 16, 1920 in Syracuse, Onondaga, New York, his loving great-granddaughter Marguerite was not allowed to go to his funeral on the following Friday (which was held at his home as was often the custom) because her parents said she was too young (age 9) to attend. One son and four daughters had predeceased him; he was survived by five daughters and two sons, although the child who was given up for adoption was not mentioned in his obituary.

David was buried at Oakwood Cemetery, Syracuse. His memorial has photos and links to those of family members.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ Find A Grave Memorial # 108752386 David Curtis Dodge.

• Birth and Death: Dodge, David C., Death certificate, (Registered No. 803), Death Certificate-information given by his 2nd wife, Mary E. (Bacon) (Gardner) Dodge.

See also:

• diflynn@aol.com Diane Wilson Flynn