Person

Joshua Giddings Dodge

An older man wearing a black suit sits in a chair with a small child wearing white on his lap.
Abolitionist and businessman

Massachusetts Historical Society

Quick Facts
Significance:
Businessman, abolitionist, Boston Vigilance Committe member, Superintendent in Freedmen's Bureau
Place of Birth:
Hamilton, Massachusetts
Date of Birth:
January 26, 1813
Place of Death:
Arlington, Massachusetts
Date of Death:
March 19, 1904
Place of Burial:
Arlington, Massachusetts
Cemetery Name:
Mt. Pleasant Cemetery

An abolitionist and businessman, Joshua Giddings Dodge served on the Boston Vigilance Committee.

Born in 1813 in Hamilton, Massachusetts, Joshua Giddings Dodge moved with his family to West Cambridge, later known as Arlington, in 1830. In the late 1830s and early 1840s, he lived in Weathersfield, Illinois where he took up farming. Upon his return to Massachusetts, Dodge worked as an engineer. Later he joined the firm of Alfred A. Childs as a gilder and dealer in “in paintings, engravings, picture frames, looking glasses, etc.” Dodge worked here for about twelve years. During this time, in 1853, he married Mary Herrick and they had four children.1

In 1832, Dodge first met William Lloyd Garrison and other leaders of the burgeoning abolitionist movement. He soon immersed himself in the movement and became a prominent figure in the Greater Boston abolitionist community and beyond. For example, when he moved to Illinois, Dodge led a small religious colony where “he advocated his antislavery convictions” despite much local opposition. When he returned to West Cambridge, he took on several leadership positions in the Middlesex County Anti-Slavery Society over the years. He also frequently donated to various abolitionist groups including the New England Anti-Slavery Society and the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.2

Following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, Dodge joined the third and final Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization that assisted freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad. Like his business partner Alfred A. Childs, Dodge appeared on Austin Bearse’s “Doorman’s List” of members, rather than the official broadside published by the Vigilance Committee. Bearse watched the door at committee meetings and only allowed known supporters in.3 According to Vigilance Committee records, Dodge donated funds several times in the 1850s to support the work of the organization.4

During the US Civil War, Dodge served as a superintendent in the Freedmen’s department in South Carolina and Florida. Following the war, he moved to Iowa to resume farming for a few years. By 1870, however, he and his family moved back to Arlington (formerly West Cambridge), where he spent his remaining years. He credited his longevity and good health to his “strictly temperate life” and vegetarianism.5

Dodge passed away at age 91 on March 19, 1904 and his remains are buried at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Arlington.6 One obituary remembered Dodge as:

an associate of William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and other leaders of the antislavery movement, and he was best known through his identification with that movement.7

Footnotes

  1. Joseph Thompson Dodge, Genealogy of the Dodge Family, of Essex County, Mass. 1629-1894, (Madison: Democrat Printing, 1894), 245 Genealogy of the Dodge family, of Essex county, Mass. 1629-1898 : Dodge, Joseph Thompson, 1823- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive; Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data: Town and City Clerks of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital and Town Records. Provo, UT: Holbrook Research Institute (Jay and Delene Holbrook); The National Archives in Washington, DC; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group Number: 29 Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: West Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts; Roll: 324 Page: 350a, Ancestry.com; 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, 1009 rolls); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29; National Archives, Washington, D.C.; “His 91st Birthday,” Boston Globe, January 28, 1904, 2
  2. “His 91st Birthday,” Boston Globe, January 28, 1904, 2; “Middlesex Country A.S. Society,” Liberator February 18, 1848, 3; “Middlesex County Meeting,” Liberator, April 22, 1853, 3; “Stoneham,” Liberator, April 6, 1849, 3
  3. “Pledges,” Liberator, June 7, 1850, 3; February 4, 1848, 3; February 2, 1849, 3; July 19, 1849, 3; September 6, 1850, 3; February 1, 1850, 3; August 9, 1850, 3; June 15, 1849, 3; June 8, 1855, 3; June 6, 1851, 3
  4. Austin Bearse, Remininscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, (Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880), 3; Dean Grodzins, "Constitution or No Constitution, Law or No Law: The Boston Vigilance Committees, 1841-1861," in Matthew Mason, Katheryn P. Viens, and Conrad Edick Wright, eds., Massachusetts and the Civil War: The Commonwealth and National Disunion (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015), 73, n.57. 
  5. Francis Jackson, Account Book of Francis Jackson, Treasurer The Vigilance Committee of Boston, Dr. Irving H. Bartlett collection, 1830-1880, W. B. Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives, https://archive.org/details/drirvinghbartlet19bart/page/n3/mode/2up; May 16, 1851 and May 1859.
  6. Joseph Thompson Dodge, 245; “His 91st Birthday,” Boston Globe, January 28, 1904, 2
  7. "Joshua G. Dodge Dead,” Boston Globe, March 20, 1904, 10; Ancestry.com U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. Original data: Find a Grave. Find a Grave®. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi. U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current - Ancestry.com
  8.  “Joshua G. Dodge Dead,” Boston Globe, March 20, 1904, 10

Boston African American National Historic Site

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Last updated: July 8, 2024