Dodge, Lewis

Born: 1821-01-21 Vermont

Died: 1886-06-03 Chicago, Illinois

Flourished: 1839 to 1886 Chicago, Illinois

Lewis Dodge, grocer and house carpenter, was born in Barre, Vermont and attended school there. By 1850 he was living in Chicago, where he enjoyed a long career as a carpenter and was active in civic and political organizations. Dodge was a charter member of the Odd Fellows Excelsior Lodge Number 22 in about 1847, and served as the lodge’s treasurer for over a decade. He held several offices in the Mechanics’ Institute of Chicago in the 1850s, serving variously as secretary, librarian, and as a director. Dodge was also a foreman of volunteer fire engine company. Politically, he was a Republican, and he was active in Republican organizations such as the Chicago Young Men’s Republican Club and a local company of Wide Awakes. In religion, Dodge was a Universalist. He married Fanny Eastman in 1849 and the pair had five children.

Richard Sawyer Currier, comp., Genealogical History of the Dickey Family (Montpelier, VT: Capital City, 1935), 256-57; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Ward C, Chicago, Cook County, IL, 331; A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago (Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1884), 1:230, 520; Chicago Daily Tribune (IL), 8 January 1858, 1:4; 27 January 1858, 1:5; 25 October 1860, 1:9; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 29 September 1858, 1:2; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 10, Chicago, Cook County, IL, 88; The Sunday Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), 6 June 1886, 20:6; Gravestone, Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum, Chicago, IL.