History: Family: The DOTTERER (DODDERER) Family: Montgomery County, PA Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Thera. tsh@harborside.com USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: Printing this file within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ ____________________________________________________ The following is from The Strassburger Family and Allied Families of Pennsylvania, by Ralph Beaver Strassburger, 1922, pp. 353-374. THE DOTTERER (DODDERER) FAMILY George Philip Dodderer was born in Europe and came to Pennsylvania with his wife Veronica and seven children very early in the eighteenth century. Neither his birthplace nor the date of his arrival in the country has been ascertained. Several years before his death, Mr. Henry S. Dotterer, from whose collection much of the following history as been adduced, made an attempt while in Germany to trace the ancestry of George Philip (Dodderer) Dotterer, and, although he was unsuccessful in finding the record of birth of the American ancestor, there seems to be very good reason to believe that he came from the District of Wuertemburg as the church books of Bonningheim, Buchelberg, Murrhardt, Idestein, and Heilbronn, all in Wuertemburg, show a great many of the surname Doderer, the Christian names, in a number of instances, being identical with those of the American family. The name Dotterer is a very unusual one, and very few of the early names borne by the German emigrants coming to Pennsylvania appear in more varied form upon our public records. It is just as often spelled with a "T" as a "D", a "u" as an "o", while the final syllable is as frequently 'a' as 'er'. In each case we have made it a point to preserve the form as it appears in the original document quoted. A study of the probable derivation of this name may, to a great extent, explain the difficulty English clerks seem to have experienced in recording it. In the Teutonic name system the root meaning affection or fondness is Dod, Tod or Tot, Old German Dodo or Doddo, English Todd or Dodd. When compounded with Hari (warrior) in Old German, the Ninth Century, it became Dothari or with Ric (power), Dothrih. The English forms are Dotry, Doddridge, Dottridge. The earliest record we have concerning George Philip Dodderer is a deed dated December 22, 1722, for a tract of one hundred acres of land lying in what is now Frederick township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, which he purchased of Hans Newes or Nyce. In the deed his occupation is given as that of carpenter. On February 3, 1725, he acquired another tract of fifty acres from the same. He was granted a patent for the two tracts on March 24, 1736. He added another 100 acres to his possessions on May 29, 1734, and a patent for that tract was issued on March 24, 1738. These three purchasese were adjoining tracts, forming a plantation of 250 acres, located on the east and west side of Society Run, in the present Frederick Township, Montgomery County. Up to 1731, the territory comprising Frederick Township was known as Falkner's Swamp, a name give the extensive region drained by Swamp Creek and tributaries within the old limits of Philadelphia County. These early conveyances show a wide variation in the spelling of the name Dodderer. In the first mentioned deeds, he is described as "George Philip Duddra of Falkner Swamp, Philadelphia County, carpenter," while in the patents as "George Philip Totherah." In 1728 his name appears on the records of the Reformed Church as George Philip Totterer. Hans Newes (de Nyce, Nice) was a large landowner who resided in the Northern Liberties, Philadelphia, and never occupied his lands in Montgomery County. Tradition claims that George Philip Dodderer was the first settler on the banks of Society Run, and that the Indians were the only neighbors of himself and family at the beginning. Following are reminiscences handed down from father to son for more than a century and a half, as received from the late Michael Dotterer (born June 15, 1811, died December 13, 1899) who was reared in the vicinity of the old homestead. "Our immigrant ancestor was the very first settler in the neighborhood. When he came there was no road, and he had no horse or wagon. All he had was one or two cows, a sow, and some primitive farming implements. He and his family made their way as best they could, along Swamp Creek and Society Run through the forest. He located a spot later occupied by the capacious barn on the farm of Eli Geisinger. Here, on the west bank of the stream, under the spreading branches of a buttonwood tree, he dug a sort of cave, and covered it with a rude roof of logs and branches, forming a hut, as a shelter for his family. Beside this humble abode a spring issued, and below the run, then much stronger than now, sparkled in the sunshine. The Indians in the vicinity were friendly. They were in the habit of coming out of the deeper recesses of the forest to look at their pale-faced neighbors. They sometimes asked permission to take the settler's little children for the day to let them play with their own papooses; a request which our foreparents feared to grant yet dared not refuse. The natives cared for the little palefaces the same as for their own offspring. They had a way of fastening the children to branches of trees bent down for the purpose, and swinging them to and fro in the air. They fed their children with food prepared in a small wooden trough, carved out of a part of the trunk of a tree; and the white children were fed the same. What this food was composed of our people did not know; but it was harmless. At the close of day the children were brought back unharmed to their parents, and no instance is handed down of bad faith on the part of the natives. "The Dodderers had several pigs, which were objects of much curiosity to the Indianas, who had never before seen any. They came down daily to the settler's clearing, bringing with them acorns for the sow and her family. To gain the good-will of his savage neighbors, our ancestor thought it politic to present them with a pig, which they carried off with delight. One day, Father Dotterer thought he would go up into the forest and see how the Indians were living. He found, to his surprise, the squaw seated on the ground in the sun nursing both her papoose and the pig, the child looking distrustfully over at its rival, but the pig quite contented in its adopted mother's lap. "At this early date the nearest grist mill was on the Wissahickon, some thirty miles away. The settlers were in the habit of sending to the mill the Indians, who went over the ground very rapidly. For a piece of tobacco, they would carry a bag of grain to the mill, starting in the evening, and returning with the meal the following morning." [From "The Dotterer Family", Henry S. Dotterer, pp 23, 24.] In March, 1725, George Philip Dodderer and two of his sons signed a petition to the County Court of Philadelphia, praying that the road recently laid out leading from what was then Farmers Mill but afterwards Pennypacker's Mills (near Schwenksville) be extended to George Wanner's Mill on Swamp Creek. This is now the Skippack Pike, or Great Road. According to Mr. Dotterer, on May 12, 1740, George Philip Dodderer took the oath of allegiance to the King of England and by signing the declaration became a subject of Great Britain. The Dotterers were attached to the Reformed Church, first as members of the Falkner Swamp Church, George Philip Dodderer being in 1728 one of its first officers, and as such signed the letter addressed to the Reformed Church authorities at New York asking for the ordination of John Philip Boehm and his recognition and retention in the ministry. This request was complied with, but soon after he withdrew his support of Rev. Boehm and joined the small congregation at Skippack who accepted the Rev. George Michael Weiss, the opponent of Mr. Boehm, as their pastor. May 10, 1730, he signed, with others, a petition to the church authorities in Holland, asking for the withdrawing of the recent ordination of Mr. Boehm. May 19 following, as an elder of the Skippack congregation, he signed a paper authorizing Rev. George Michael Weiss and Elder Jacob Reiff to proceed to Europe to collect money for the Reformed Congregation in Pennsylvania, a project that was strongly opposed by Mr. Boehm. This controversy led to the final disruption of the Skippack church and the congregation scattered. About the year 1736 we find the name of George Philip Dotder in the list of the heads of families belonging to the New Goshenhoppen Reformed Congregation. George Philip Dodderer died November 6, 1741, on his farm in Frederick Township, having made his will just a short time before he died. An inventory of his real and personal property was made by John Nyce and Henry Stettler, two of his neighbors. Among the items enumerated was a sword, a most unusual article to be found in the possession of these early Palatine emigrants. It was no doubt brought from Germany by George Philip Dodderer, and it would seem to appear that he had been engaged in active participation in at least one of the many wars which infested the Fatherland and which was the cause of so many leaving their homes in the beautiful Rhineland to find a more peaceful habitation in America. Veronica, widow of George Philip Dodderer, survived her husband less than eleven years. She died October 20, 1752. Her will which was written in German, was dated June 8, 1751, and proved December 9, 1752. As she had omitted to name an executor in her will, the Court appointed Michael Dodderer, her son, administrator of her estate. The inventory of the estate was exhibited March 2, 1753, showing a valuation of just over 87 pounds. After paying various debts, etc., there was 27 pounds left for distribution to the heirs. On the back of the mother's will is a declaration signed by the three sons, each writing his name in a neat legible manner, but curiously each spelling the family name differently: Michel Dotterer, Barnabas Dodderer, Conrad Duddarer. George Philip Dodderer bequeathed to his youngest son, Conrad, the homestead plantation on condition that he pay to the other heirs certain sums of money after the death of the mother, Veronica. Conrad seems to have fulfilled this part of his father's will to the satisfaction of the other heirs for they each and every one signed a deed of release to him in full satisfaction of their share of the father's and mother's estates. Children of George Philip and Veronica Dodderer: 1. Michael Dodderer, born May 1698 in Europe; died January 21, 1781, in Montgomery County, PA; married Anna Maria Fischer. 2. Hieronimus Dodderer, born about 1701 in Europe; died November 1727 in Montgomery County, PA; married Catherine Mesel. 3. Barbara Dodderer, born about 1706 in Europe; died July 24, 1738; married Jacob Markley. 4. Bernhard Dodderer, born about 1706 in Europe; died October 5, 1782 in Northumberland Co., PA; married, 1st Gertrude ______, 2nd, Christina Elizabeth Dewees. 5. Anna Elizabeth Dodderer, born December 25, 1709 in Europe; died August 28, 1779 in Montgomery County, PA; married 1st, Michael Zimmerman, who died March 1741, 2nd in 1741, Jacob Kurr, who was born February 3, 1712; died March 25, 1797, buried at Boehm's Reformed Church, Montgomery Co., PA. 6. Conrad Dodderer, born September 1712; died January 1801 in Montgomery County, PA; married in January 1732, Magdalena Schweitzer; buried at Falkner Swamp Reformed Church, Montgomery County, PA.