Document - Historical information/data - Historic Dodd Road - 1/1/2016HISTQRIG
There are countless fascinating
stories associated with the development
of our nation. History books can paint
vivid pictures of the people and events
that define who we were and what
we've become, but there is something
uniquely valuable about being able to
reach out and touch a piece of living
history. Historic trees are like living
calendars. The last surviving witnesses
to the events that helped shape our
country and create our history. Like
many historic trees and the places they
grow, there is an important interaction
that exists between natural and man--
made features. The tree we are
nominating for the National Register of
Historic Trees is no exception. Bearing
only thirteen age rings in the year
18537 this 160 year-old Bur Oak was
allowed to stand as a new territorial
road was literally carved around it. The
road originally known as the Mendota -
Big Sioux River Route, was one of five
U.S. military roads that Minnesota
territorial congressional delegate, Henry
H. Sibley requested appropriations for
in 1850. However, congress was
reluctant to give all the requested aid to
the new territory. Thus, the reason for
building the Dodd Road, the way it was
constructed and the subsequent events
in that connection, form a most
interesting chapter in the early history
of Dakota County, the state of
Minnesota and our nation.
Captain William B. Dodd, who built
the Dodd Road, was born in 1811 in
Montclair, New Jersey. This illustrious
pioneer came to Minnesota in 1851 and
settled on a claim of 160 acres, which
later became the town site of St. Peter,
Minnesota. In a history of St. Peter and
its founders, published by the St. Peter
Herald, Captain Dodd was described as
a "picturesque figure, a splendid
specimen, stalwart, rugged and a
bulwark of strength among the pioneers
of the town." Ironically, the very same
description could be applied to the
Dodd Road Oak we are nominating for
the National Register. The article stated
that Captain Dodd was not a foot --loose
adventurer when he came to
Minnesota. He had mastered the trade
of machinist and was a trained civil
engineer when he left his home in New
Jersey. There is little evidence that he
was active as a machinist or in civil
engineering except for the major
undertaking of the building of the Dodd
Road. At St. Peter, he was remembered
chiefly for his promotional activities,
pioneer services and his qualities as a
soldier. Captain Dodd led a St. Peter
militia unit in the 1850's. He also acted
at times as United States Marshall. Dodd
was present at the signing of the Treaty
of Traverse Des Sioux in 1851, when
the U.S. obtained much of southern
Minnesota from the Sisseton and
Wahpeton Dakota. This event was
immortalized in Francis D. Millet's
6x 10 -foot oil painting, The Treaty of
Traverse Des Sioux. Millet's 1905
canvas was made from the sketches of
Frank B. Mayer, who had attended the
1851 treaty signing. The painting hangs
over the fireplace in the Governor's
Reception Room in the Minnesota State
Capitol. Local lore, recorded in the
pages of a book entitled, Old Rail Fence
Corners, recounts a story about Captain
Dodd by Mr. J.C. Bryant, as follows:
"Captain Dodd was considerable of a
mimic and an actor. During a political
campaign, he took the platform against
a certain Tom Corwin of Ohio, who was
considered a great political orator. On
one occasion Corwin was the first
speaker, and to emphasize his speech,
he danced about on stage, gesticulated
freely and made a great impression.
When Mr. Dodd's turn to speak came,
he arose, and without a word, gravely
gave a pantomimic reproduction of the
orator's acts and gestures. Then he sat
down amid roars of laughter, that
completely spoiled the effect of his
opponents speech."
In regard to the building of the Dodd
Road, The St. Peter Herald stated that it
is significant that Dodd possessed the
temerity to undertake the construction
of the Dodd Road, especially when the
undeveloped state of the area, which
the road penetrated, is taken into
consideration. At the time the road -
building project was undertaken, some
20,000 emigrants had moved to the
lands west of the Mississippi, before the
ratification of the Sioux Treaties ceding
the lands to the government. The
federal government was just beginning
to build some military roads in the then
Minnesota Territory, but settlers in
areas up along the Minnesota River had
no way of getting their surplus produce
to St. Paul except on the Minnesota
River, which was navigable only part of
the year. In 1852, several of the settlers
decided to take the initiative in building
a road to St. Paul if the agents of the
federal government remained dilatory.
Captain William Dodd of St. Peter and
Auguste L. Larpenteur of St. Paul (also a
name familiar to folks in the Twin
Cities) solicited funds and organized a
road -building party with one surveyor,
ten laborers and two teams. During the
spring of 1853, they cut a road through
the woods and open country from Rock
Bend (as St. Peter was then known) to
St. Paul along the drainage basins of the
Minnesota and Cannon Rivers. They
completed the work in 109 days. This
road was little more than a rough trail,
65 miles long, but it made travel
possible to St. Paul throughout the year.
The completed road to Mendota and on
to St. Paul included several miles of
construction through Dakota County.
While the Dodd Road was under
construction, Army representatives in
Minnesota became interested in the
possibility of obtaining supplies at the
mouth of the Big Sioux River, near
where Sioux City, Iowa is now located.
In May 1853, Captain Jesse L. Reno,
was ordered by the U.S. Bureau of
Topographical Engineers to begin an
immediate survey of the route. Captain
Reno's orders were transcribed, in part,
as follows:
05 May 1853 Washington
"The object of the survey to which
you have been assigned, is to determine
the route of a good road from Mendota
on the Mississippi to the junction of the
Big Sioux with the Missouri. The road
should be carefully surveyed in courses
and distances and the center line
marked with wood pickets... one
hundred feet will be assumed as the
general width of the road, except where
peculiarities of locality render a less
width proper... the duty must be
completed this season... "J.J. Ahem, Col.,
Corps, T.E.
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Captain Reno's party was organized at
St. Louis and ascended the Missouri
River to Council Bluffs, Iowa, then
marched overland to the mouth of the
Big Sioux River. From the present site of
Sioux City, the surveying party traveled
in a north- easterly direction through
northwest Iowa, and southwestern
Minnesota, reaching Mankato July
2 5th. From there, Captain Reno led his
party eleven miles down the eastern
bank of the Minnesota River until he
struck the Dodd Road. With few
exceptions, Reno's party followed this
newly cut road- a portion through the
"Big Woods"- to Mendota, where the
detachment arrived on August 201h.
While traveling on the Dodd Road,
Reno's men made only the
improvements necessary to get the army
wagon through. Captain Reno
computed the distance of his survey
(from what is now Sioux City to
Mendota) at 279 miles; 224 through
prairie country, 40 through thick
woods, and 15 through Oak Openings.
Captain Reno's field books, including
his surveying notes and journal, (the
originals which are housed in the
National Archives) describe in detail the
terrain surrounding this road "newly
cut-out" by Dodd and his crew:
"...it materially assisted our survey
and enabled us to get through the "Big
Woods" several weeks sooner than we
would have otherwise done without
this, our only guide among this
unexplored labyrinth of lakes and
marshes."
In the 6th and final division of their
survey, along the route where the Bur
Oak still stands, Reno described the
country as "...gently undulating and
the soil rich, occasional groves of Oak
relieve Its otherudse monotonous
appearance, and afford charming sites
for residences ...from the prairie we
entered the Oak Openings ..Interspersed
u th small lakes..." Captain J.L. Reno,
August 1853.
The alignment of the Dodd Road
through this portion of Dakota County
has deviated little from its original
construction in 1853. The most
fundamental piece of our early
territorial history has received
continuous use for 147 years. Yet, it is
the relationship between the tree that
stood before, and the history of the road
since, that gives us reason to reflect.
Historic trees are like that. Harbingers
of time, they are truly learning trees,
causing us to reflect on the times,
people and events they have survived.
Some were famous, a few infamous,
most ordinary. Once open, the road was
instrumental in the formation of so
many of the communities and
townships found along its route. Our
community of Eagan was no exception.
It's no coincidence that by 18 5 3, the
same year Dodd finished the route,
settlers rushed in swallowing up the
rolling hills and fertile fields that would
soon be known as Eagan. By the end of
1853, virtually all the land in Eagan
was claimed, one full year before the
filing of such claims was legal.
The year 1860 was a significant one
for our nation as well as the township
of Eagan. The country was poised to
elect a new president by the name of
Abraham Lincoln and our nation was
on the verge of a Civil War. On 03
April 1860, the first meeting of citizens
to organize the township of Eagan was
held at the home of Michael Comer.
Comer's house was located near the
present day intersection of Diffley and
Dodd Roads. The co-founders of the
town, including William Diffley and
Patrick Eagan, no doubt passed the 20
year-old Bur Oak on their way to the
meeting. By this time Dodd Road had
become an important stagecoach route,
which facilitated the need for the
opening of the Wescott Inn, a popular
rest stop for weary travelers, it was also
the venue of early political conventions
in the area.
Another bit of folklore involving
Captain Dodd was conveyed by Mr. J.C.
Bryant who recalled:
"When certain men in the state were
trying to steal the Capitol from St. Peter
for St. Paul, Captain Dodd is said to
have traveled on foot from St. Peter to
St. Paul (along his road and past the Bur
Oak) between sunrise and sunset, in the
interests of St. Peter. This feat would
seem to be a physical impossibility, but
it was a story current in St. Peter when I
was a boy. It is a matter of history too,
that all the attempts to save the Capitol
were futile, and the indomitable
Captain Dodd had his long walk in
vain."
By August 1862, Eagan Township
was two years old, Minnesota was
celebrating its fourth year of statehood
and our nation was in the midst of a
war that had divided us in two. Here in
Minnesota another bloody and tragic
war was about to erupt. According to
Kenneth Carley's, The Sioux Uprising of
1862, the Dakota Indians, hemmed in
on a narrow reservation along the
upper Minnesota River were frustrated
by broken treaties, angered by dishonest
agents and traders and near starvation
because of crop failure and late annuity
payments. Led by Little Crow, they
attacked the Redwood and Yellow
Medicine agencies and all whites living
on their former lands in southern
Minnesota. White civilians and Military
Units, commanded by Henry Sibley,
defended their towns and forts. Captain
William Dodd was no exception. Before
dawn on August 19, 1862, a messenger
was dispatched to St. Peter where he
awakened Captain Dodd, who wasted
no time in sending men to gather
volunteers in other communities. Dodd
arrived the next day in New Ulm with
over one hundred men and was
appointed second in command to
Charles Flandrau of Traverse Des Sioux.
Captain William Dodd was killed in
the second battle of New Ulm on August
237 1862. He was leading citizen -
soldiers beyond a barricade when he
was shot by the Dakota. In a tribute that
was printed after his death, the
Minnesota Statesman, published at St.
Peter, stated: "...too much cannot be
said of Captain Dodd's personal bravery
and general desire to perform his duty
manfully ... no man fought more
courageously or died more nobly ... let
his virtues be forever remembered, he
was a hero of the truest type."
Captain Dodd is buried behind the
Church of the Holy Communion on
Minnesota Avenue in St. Peter.
The present day stewards of the
Dodd Road Bur Oak are Les and Lynne
Bordsen. They support and welcome the
nomination of this tree to the National
Register of Historic Trees. It is worthy of
recognition and our best conservation
efforts. Dodd Road bears not just the
man's name but his mark as well. The
Bur Oak was silent witness to it.