Wayne County, NC - Heritage Series

Reprinted with permission of the Mount Olive Tribune and cannot be 
reproduced without permission. 

                   Captain David Dodd - A Patriot

"Our Heritage"
By Claude Moore

 A generation ago, the old residents were still relating stories about
Capt. David Dodd and his experiences during the American Revolution. In
fact, his old home was torn down less than 10 years ago. Everyone here 
remembered it as the home in which General Cornwallis stayed overnight
in the spring of 1781 near the Duplin Courthouse, enroute from Wilmington
to Virginia.

 Capt. David Dodd was born around 1741, possibly near Scotland Neck in
Halifax County. His family came originlly from Scotland, settled in the
low lands of the Roanoke River and after several seasons of flooding, the
son, David, settled in Duplin County (now Sampson.) 

 In 1767, he purchased a track of land from Gabriel Holmes and built a
house in the Dutch Colonial style. This was located on the Old New Bern
Road about two miles slightly to the northeast of Turkey. He married 
Elizabeth Boykin.

 Dodd very early embraced the American cause in the Revolution. We find
him on the Duplin Committee of Safety on March 4, 1776, he enlisted in
Capt. John Sumner's Company of the First North Carolina Battalion commanded
by Col. Thomas Clark. In May 1776, he transferred to the 4th North Carolina
Regiment. His neighbors and contemporary officers of the Revolution were:
Lt. Col. James Kenan, Major James Moore, Lt. Col. Richard Clinton, Lt.
Hardy Holmes, Capt. James Thomson and others. In 1811, Capt. Dodd at his
home was interviewed by a writer and some of his stories which he told
have been preserved.

 Capt. Dodd was much sought after by the British because of his daring
raids on the enemy. One story goes that the British came to his home and 
surrounded it before he could escape. He was a small man so his wife hid
him in a barrel of feathers and in the search, the British passed the
barrel unnoticed. Later, Capt. Dodd was in a skirmish with the Tories near
Clinton on Hwy 403 at what is now Bradshaw's Pond. A friend of Dodd's, 
John Thomson, was killed in this battle.

 After the Revolution, Capt. Dodd represented Sampson County in the General
Assembly in 1785, 1786, and 1787. He was a member of the Convention which
met in Hillsboro in 1788 to consider the ratification of the Federal
Constitution. He voted with the majority against ratification. In 1785,
Dodd served on the board of trustees of Grove Academy in Kenansville. In
1787, he was appointed as major in the North Carolina Militia.

 In 1788, the legislature passed an act to create the town of Lisburn, to
be located in south Sampson near where Six Runs and Great Coharie Swamp
form Black River. The town was laid out and Dodd was one of the first 
commissioners. At this time, he sold his plantation near Turkey to George
Morisey who had married Mrs. Jane Kenan Love. 

 Lisburn began to decline when the Wilmington and Weldon was built 1836-
1840. Capt. Dodd lived in the town until his death in 1813.

 David and Elizabeth Dodd had three living children at the time in which
he made his will in 1813. They were: Willie; Nancy who married John
Treadnoll; and Elizabeth who married a Mr. Spell. He left 14 slaves, a
mill and a tar kiln. Capt. Dodd has a number of descendants in North
Carolina. The late Mrs. Nellie Treadwell Parker of Clinton and the late
Mrs. Pearl Murphy Wright (wife of Robert H. Wright, President of East
Carolina University) were among the descendants.

==============================================================

USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free
information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial
entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material.
The electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit 
or for presentation by other persons or organizations.

Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes 
other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file 
contributor, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of 
this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb 
Archives to store the file permanently for free access.

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Guy Potts <gpotts1@mindspring.com>

==============================================================