Born in Herkimer County, New York, December 25, 1811, acquiring what education the common schools of that place and time afforded. In 1832, coming West, he arrived at Dubuque, lured thither by the reported discoveries of rich lead mines. But he found the mining business over done and secured a position as clerk in the post office at Dubuque and afterward as clerk on one of the steamboats plying between that point and the city of St. Louis. He came to Scott County in 1836 and purchased the place where he afterward made his home, about the year 1843. Rising in his business from clerk to master he was subsequently proprietor of a number of boats, prominent among them the “Jas. McKee” and the “Keokuk.” He retired to his farm about the year 1859 with an ample fortune, the basis of which was untiring hard work and an indomitable will. Captain Dodge represented Scott County in the State Legislature in 1852, as a Democrat, a character which he ever uncompromisingly sustained.