G.W. DODD

1867 - Yes, date unknown

• Name	G.W. DODD
  Birth	1867	South Carolina
  Gender	Male
  _UID	28C8591CF5C24F07835121B5192D70A87ABA
  Death	Yes, date unknown
  Person ID	I30272	Carney Wehofer 2024 Genealogy
  Last Modified	26 May 2020

  
  

  Family	Effie Zora MAYES   d. Yes, date unknown
  Children	1. Helen Mayes DODD,   b. 4 Jan 1909, Grant, Choctaw, Oklahoma d. 3 Feb 1995, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (Age 86 years)
  Family ID	F14219	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	26 May 2020

  
  

• Photos		JW Dodd.png
  		gw_dodd_1912.jpg

  
  

• Notes

  FROM Bob Spencer Carney: G.W. Dodd (born 1867) was the baby of a family with 11 children. The Dodds had moved from South Carolina and Georgia to west Tennessee in the 1820's when west Tennessee and west Kentucky were open to large-scale white settlement. G.W.'s father, James M. Dodd, had a substantial wholesale nursery operation in Gibson County, Tennessee. Many Dodd relatives were born and died in that county, especially in the small town of Brazil. Three brothers seemed to have participated in the nursery, and maybe other merchant businesses, with their father '96 James B. (born 1852), Charles G. (born 1862), and G.W. (born 1867). I have a couple of press clippings somewhere recounting that Charles was killed, 1892, in extreme southeast Arkansas or northeast Louisiana, while traveling to sell trees. The second clipping said that the Dodd family recovered the body for burial back in Tennessee and accepted a local decision that the shooting was accidental. G.W.'s wife, Effie Mayes, may have originally been Charles G.'s girl. There was a lot of settlement from Tennessee into Texas and Oklahoma (Indian Territory). I found that G.W.'s uncle, Benjamin Loy Dodd, died 1901 in Roxton Texas, so some westward movement in the family had begun the generation before G.W. G.W. and older brother James B. operated a retail store under the name Dodd Brothers. I've seen advertisement for the store in Monett / Cassville, Missouri. My mother told me that the store had also been in St. Louis. I guess that along with the Bayless family, they were following the railroad and hoping to end up in a future boomtown. Cassville seems to be a common stop on that speculative path. Walmart in Bentonville, Arkansas, is not far away. Those 1900 merchants were on to something but only half a century too soon! I have to assume that the families [both the Baylesses and Dodds were bankers who had lived in Cassville, Missouri] knew each other – business-wise if not socially. I'll have to dig into the stack of letters postmarked "Indian Territory." G.W. Dodd's first stop in Indian Territory was in Grant with a pretty quick relocation to Hugo when a rail route was changed. G.W. was quite an entrepreneur – lumber, banking, some farm ownership and still, a nursery. He was also a land agent for the Frisco Rail selling parcels of right of way to settlers. Somewhere around here is a little brochure he put out, promising potential buyers rapid return on their investment. Grandmother's full name was Effie Zora Mayes. Like the Dodds, the Mayes family started in southern coastal colonies and moved into the newly opened land of west Tennessee and Kentucky. The Mayes settled mostly in Kentucky. Effie and her older sister, Lena Mayes Web, remained very close through life. Combined, the female children of Aunt Lena and Grandmother Effie formed a pretty solid "sorority" throughout their lives, with my mother, Helen, being one of the babies.