It is now named Dodds Monuments and is Greene County’s oldest continuing business.
Dodds was born in Roxburgh County, Scotland, on Feb. 19, 1837. He was one of the eight children of George and Isabel Dodds.
In Scotland he received a common parish school education. At the age of 10 he began working on the farm in the summer and attended school in the winter. His father died while the children were young.
At age 17 Dodds decided to learn a trade. He spent two months learning to be a blacksmith.
Then, his brother, Andrew, who had been in the U.S. for three years and was in the marble business, asked him to join him. He told Dodds some of his friends would visit in Scotland soon, and he could travel back with them. In 1854 Dodds and his mother walked 10 miles to an aunt’s house. He left Scotland on the Glasgow, a steamship, on a trip that took 17 days.
After he arrived in New York City, Dodds took the train to Cincinnati and lastly another steamer to Madison, Ind., where he was met by his sibling. Dodds trained under his brother and became a skilled artist in drawing on marble.
In 1859 Dodds moved to Yellow Springs and went into partnership with his brother in the marble business.
He married Lizzie Ferguson on Oct. 17, 1861, in Madison, Ind. They had a son, Fremont, the following year.
The family moved to Xenia in 1864 and relocated the business there.
In August of 1865 Mrs. Dodds visited her mother in Madison, Ind. While there, she gave birth to a daughter. Both died and were buried in the Madison cemetery.
Dodds remarried Mary E. Brown of Xenia in 1866. They had six children.
After several partnerships and name changes Dodds continued the company on his own. He usually had a work force of from 12 to 15 men. The business imported Scotch granite. Subsidiary companies with quarries were located in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Dodds Monuments is located in a building built in 1905-06. The materials were bought from the 1904 Saint Louis World’s Fair. It also contains restored stained-glass windows from a chapel at the Bergamo Center in Beavercreek.
Mary Dodds died in 1913 and George in 1914. Both are buried in Woodland Cemetery, Xenia.
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