Subject:
Re: question from Barb Dodge
From:
Cpatg47@aol.com
Date:
Sat, 30 Apr 2005 20:00:11 EDT
To:
barbvdodge@dodgeoffice.net

Hi, Barb:

I have not seen this picture before, nor do I know who sent it to you.  Perhaps it was Judy Holthaus (jholt@alpinecom.net), the wife of Jim Holthaus who is a direct descendant of the George Albert Dodge who appears and is identified in the Trustram Family picture.  She hasn't mentioned to me that she had this picture or that she sent it to you, though, so it may not be she who sent it.

However, I did send Norman Dodge the information that Adelia's full name was "Adelia Adeline Gertrude Dodge Gilmore", who was called "Delia", so maybe he used this information to caption the information about "Dellia", Trustram's daughter and wife of George Jesse Gilmore, also a name he didn't have until I gave it to him.

As for the people in the picture and the timeframe, it's taken around 1905, the year that Trustram died, and the age of "Della" (Actually "Delia") Gilmore at that time would have been 52, since she was born in 1853; this woman looks as if she's in her early 50s, so 1905 appears to be a good year.  Her youngest daughter, Mildred, was born in 1898, which would have made her 7 years old in 1905, and the young girl in the picture seems to be around that age.  Yes, that SHOULD be Trustrum at the age of 83, just before he died.  Donald Dodge Pelton of Pullman, WA has told me, however, that Trustrum was kicked by a horse on the left side of his face as a young man and that he ALWAYS wore a hat to cover his face when he had a picture taken.  This is the reason he's wearing a large-brimmed hat in the family portrait on the Trustram Page. This man's face shows no distortion from a horse kick, unless it's not evident in the picture.  Another reason this man could not be Trustram is that he has a very thin face with only a mustache, while the picture of Trustram in the family portrait on the Trustram Page, that was probably taken five to ten years earlier in 1895-1900, shows a much wider face with a FULL beard, something I'm sure he would not have shaven off so soon before his death.  This has to be another man, or someone else's "parents".

I can find no one by the name of Camberlain in our extended Dodge family, so it is my opinion that the man on the left could possibly be an "Ira" (instead of Ida) Chamberlain and that the elderly man may perhaps be his "parents".  Perhaps this picture was taken at an extended family's home with the Chamberlains in attendance.

As for "Philpa Hall, there were two daughters of Trustram and Adeline Dodge who married Halls.  Phoebe Dodge married Edgar Hall and they had three sons:  Francis, Edgar, and Saban Thomas "Sabe" Hall.  Sabe was born in 1879, which would make him 26 at the time of this photo if it were taken in 1905, and the young man in the photo would appear to be around that age, although he does look younger.  Heck, I looked like I was 12 when I was 40, so who knows for sure?  The second daughter who married a Hall was Mary Elaine "Emaline" Dodge, who married Charles M. "Charlie" Hall.  They had one known daughter, Stella, who was also born in 1879, but it's possible that they may have had a younger son.  Could that son have been named "Philip"?  If so, we don't have a record of him.  Charlie and Emaline lived in Texas and it's possible that they may have moved to California, so they or their children may not have been available for this picture if it was taken in Iowa where the Dodges lived.

Sorry I can't give you more information about this picture.  Try writing Don Pelton in Pullman, WA.  He's the descendant of Elmer Dodge and has a lot of information available that I don't.  His address is: dondodpel@aol.com
If he doesn't answer your e-mail I do have a street address for him, but it's in my files and I don't have it right now.

Trustram and Adeline Harvey Dodge Family:

When Judy sent you the picture of the Trustrum Dodge family she asked the question "from Canada or America?".  I have had many long e-mail conversations with Judy, and between the two of us we have come to the following conclusions:, who sent you the picture of the Trustrum Dodge family. 

1.  Trustrum was born in Canada while his parents, John and Phebe Dodge, were living there in 1822.  We do not know why they were living in Canada at the time of his birth, but they and their earlier children were all born on Block Island, RI.  One other son, Jake, was born after Trustrum in 1822, but we don't know if he was born in Canada or not.  According to accounts, Jake lived most of his life in Wisconsin and that's where he died, so one would surmise that he was raised in the United States.  All we know for sure is that Phebe returned to and died on Block Island, so whether the family move to Canada was intended to be permanent, and Phebe moved the family back to Block Island after John's death there (no date available), or whether the move was intended to be only temporary is still up for conjecture.  While Trustrum is technically from Canada, he probably grew up on Block Island.  We believe that is where he was living when he decided to emigrate to the midwest in the early 1850s.

2.  Judy had trouble identifying the names of the children of Trustrum and Adeline in the picture and asked if anyone knew who they might be when she sent the copy of her picture to you.  Turns out, the names were on the back of her picture all the time, only they were written by Jim's mother "backwards" in relation to the order the people appear in the picture, and she didn't catch the clue until I brought it to her attention!  I have the list of names in the correct order as they appear in the picture and will send it to you later.  I have to locate the records first.  It seems to me that I already sent the names in order as they appear in the Trustram family picture to Norman Dodge for him to update on the website, but the page hasn't changed since it was first posted.  Please tell SOMEONE that we have the updated information and the website page needs to be changed, alright?

3.  As I said, Donald Dodge Pelton in Pullman, WA (dondodpel@aol.com) is the "expert" on the Trustrum Dodge descendants. He has given me a lot of information about not only his family branch (Elmer Dodge was his grandfather), but other family lines as well, including my own line from Adelia.  He says "Delia" Gilmore was the great unifier in the Dodge family and his father was very close to her.  I will send all this information to you, as well.

The Tristram Sr. Line:

I have done a lot of exploring of the Tristram Dodge line on my own over the past few months, and have discovered that Tristram Sr., who was born in England ca. 1607, was a fisherman in Newfoundland at the time he moved to the Massachusetts Bay Colony around 1640. When the Massachusetts Bay Colony decided to extend its charter to Block Island, Tristram Sr. and his family were among those who first settled the island in 1661.  He was not a property purchaser, but was hired by the charter purchasers to set up a fishing industry on the island, and he became the first in a long line of Dodges who ran the island's fishing industry through the years, an industry that lasted until the mid 1930s.  The Dodges have been on Block Island since the first day of its settlement and are still a major name on the island today.

Tristram Jr. and his brothers took over his role as fishermen, as did his sons and their sons.  In the meantime, others from the Massachusetts Bay Colony eventually settled Block Island and became fishermen, farmers or merchants.  Since many of these settlers were descended from Mayflower passengers, it is only natural that family lines would cross and that the Dodges would marry into one or more Mayflower family lines.  One of these families was that of Thomas Mitchell, the son of Experience and Jane Cooke Mitchell, who sold his land in Plymouth, MA and moved to Block Island in 1669.  Thomas became a sea captain, supposedly a fishing boat captain, after his arrival on the island.

One of the news flashes I sent Norman was the fact that I have discovered that Trustrum's family is descended from Francis Cooke, a passenger on the Mayflower.  That hasn't appeared on the website, either.  Trustrum's great-grandfather, Nehemiah Dodge, married Mary Mitchell in 1731, who was descended from Experience Mitchell and Jane Cooke. I discovered this fact during a visit to the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City, which is only 15 minutes away from our home in Bountiful, UT.  I found a book entitled "Rhode Island Descendants of the Mayflower" and there, in all their glory, were listed Nehemiah Dodge and his wife, Mary Mitchell Dodge.  Their son was Mark Dodge, and his daughter was Phebe Dodge, who married John Dodge, a grandson of Nehemiah's brother, Nathaniel Dodge Jr. (it is a VERY small island!).  Mary was the granddaughter of Captain Thomas Mitchell, grandson of Francis Cooke of Mayflower fame.  John and Phebe's son was, of course, Trustrum.  Ergo, the Trustram Dodge family that is depicted in the picture that Judy Holthaus sent you is descended from Francis Cooke who came over on the Mayflower!

Anyway, my wife and I just returned last night from a trip to Holland, England, and Block Island in search of our Mayflower ancestors.  We found the French Huguenot church in Leyden, Holland where Francis Cooke and his wife, Hester Maheiu, were married in 1603, and also the house where they lived as members of the Separatist Church in Leyden between 1611 and 1620 when Francis and his son, John, left for the New World on the Mayflower.  Hester Cooke and her children, including their oldest child, Jane Cooke, arrived in Massachusetts on the ship "ANN" in 1623.  On board the ANN was also Experience Mitchell, who was to wed Jane in 1627, and whose son, Captain Thomas Mitchell, was to move to Block Island in 1629.  We followed their tracks from Leyden to Norwich, England, back to Leyden, and then to Massachusetts.  The Mitchells are also a prominent family name on Block Island to this day.  In fact, there are so many Dodges and Mitchells on Block Island today, all descended from the original Dodge and Mitchell families, that it makes one's head spin to read the phone book or to visit the town cemetery!

We took the ferry to Block Island and immediately looked for signs that would lead us to Tristram Dodge and his family once we started driving our car around the island.  We found the first historic marker almost immediately at Cow's Cove on the north end of the island where the settlers first set foot on Block Island in September 1661.  We found many more markers the next day, including the one that marked the location of Tristram's family home near the Old Harbor.  One interesting item, though:  His name is not listed as "TRISTRAM", but TRUSTRUM, according to all the markers.  Dodge Family records should be examined to determine the correct spelling, but I would assume that if Block Island records show the name as Trustrum, that is probably the name as it was written and recorded back in 1661.

I made one other "coup" while on Block Island:  I found the gravestone for Phebe Dodge in the New Shoreham Town Cemetery.  It lists her parents as Mark and Penelope Dodge and her husband as John Dodge, but it does not list a date of death for John.  This would indicate that John is not buried with her and that he died earlier in another location other than Block Island, perhaps in Canada as we discussed earlier.  The date of death is also different from what I have in my records, so I'll have to check the photo I took of the gravestone more closely to verify it.  My records say she died in 1863, but I could have sworn the date on the gravestone was 1884, which would have made her about 92 instead of 71 when she died.  It was a cold, windy, rainy day on Wednesday when I did my searching in the cemetery and all I had time to do was to take a quick picture and get back into the warmth of our car before I froze to death or was drowned by the pelting rain.  Ah, the hazards I endure for the sake of family history!

Give me a day or two to collect the Trustram children's names in order of appearance for the family picture and other information and I'll send it along with my blessings.  As of TOMORROW I am officially retired from Delta Airlines (two years early retirement as a captain), so I will have plenty of time to help you with the Trustram line in the future.  Just let me know what and how much you need and I'll do my best to gather the information for you.

Best to you and your family...my membership is due renewal next month so look forward to my Paypal payment then.

Regards,
Pat Gilmore
Bountiful, Utah