California Biographies

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

Source:
History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


MOSES DODGE. The possession of a ten-acre ranch two miles west of Fresno has brought 
Moses Dodge a realization of his desire for an ideal country existence and a competence. The 
modern improvements which add to the value of his property are entirely of his own making, for 
when he settled in Fresno in 1884 the ground was an undisturbed prairie, and at present is under 
cultivation to fruit and alfalfa. He is engaged in general farming and some stock raising, in both 
of which departments of country activity he is well schooled. Mr. Dodge was born in Olney. 
Suffolk county, Me., October 4, 1831, a son of Moses and Mary (Leman) Dodge, who had be- 
sides, two older and six younger children, four of whom are living. The family was established 
in America during early colonial times by an ambitious Scotch ancestor, who presumably set- 
tled in Massachusetts. Moses Dodge, Sr., died when his son was five years old, having never 
moved from his native state. He was survived by his wife until her ninety-seventh year. 

Owing to the death of his father, and the large family dependent upon the care of his mother, 
Moses Dodge, Jr., at the age of six years, went to live with a relative in Edgecomb, Lincoln 
county, Me., and was there reared and educated until his twenty-first year. He then went to Bath, 
Me., and learned the ship carpenter's trade, two years later removing from there, but for ten years 
continuing to work at his trade. April 26, 1861, he arrived in San Francisco, after a journey bv 
way of the Isthmus of Panama, thereafter working at his trade for three and a half years, a 
part of the time at Mare Island. In 1865 he returned to his home in Maine and engaged in 
farming near Newcastle, and in 1866 married Esther Glidden, now deceased, who became the 
mother of one son, Walter W., who is married and has one child, Roland, and is a resident of 
Fresno. In 1884 Mr. Dodge returned to the west and bought his present ranch and in 1894 was 
again married, in Fresno, to Laura E. Hoffman, a native of Ohio. Since his return to California he 
has made many friends among his progressive and hospitable neighbors. During his long and 
active life he has derived pleasure from association with the Masons for many years, and now 
holds a demit from the Massachusetts lodge. He is a Republican in politics, and in religion is 
identified with the First Baptist Church of Fresno.