John Henry Dodd was the 7th of 9 children - 3rd of 5 boys - born to John Snyder Dodd and Mary Magdalene Crozier on Monday, 20 Jun 1864, in Monroe County, West Virginia (the new state had officially been formed on 20 Jun 1863, exactly one year before his birth - thus he was the first of his branch of the Dodd family to be born in Monroe County, WV rather than Monroe County, VA).

He married Mary Caroline Bragg when he was 19 on Thursday, 21 Feb 1884. They would have 12 children together - Elbert Genings, Other Lee, Burman Sylvester, Pearly Green, Lloyd Hillary, Hessie Gertrude, Lola Effie, Cora Dale (my paternal grandmother), Mary Stella, Amy Sibyl, Basil Corbett and John Henry, Jr - before he lost Mary Caroline, due to postpartum complications after the birth of their 12th child - 1 month and 6 days after John, Jr's birth [she died on Saturday, 25 Sep 1909]. John Henry was 45 at the time of Mary Caroline's death.

John Henry remarried on Sunday, 26 Jun 1910, to Florence E Bowden, at the age of 46. Early the next year he moved most of his children - except the oldest and John, Jr - to the central Florida area where the family were participants in chartering the First Baptist Church of Winter Park, FL. By the 1930 federal census, enumerated on Saturday, 26 Apr 1930, John Henry was again a widower and living with his 4th son, Pearly Green, and his wife in Gabriella, Seminole County, FL.

John Henry married for the 3rd and final time at the age of 66, sometime in 1930, to Elizabeth Doty in Orange County, FL, according to the FL Marriage Collection, 1927-2001. He remained married to Elizabeth until his death.

On the evening of Wednesday, 1 Sep 1943, John Henry got into an altercation with a drunk dairy hand; one Cleveland A Bishop, aka Charlie Bishop; who worked for his son, Basil Corbett, just outside of the dairy barn. Mr. Bishop threw a slightly filled quart bottle of wine at John Henry in anger. The bottle, which had begun its trajectory bottom-first toward John Henry, changed directions mid-flight and hit John Henry in the carotid artery of his neck with the spout of the bottle cutting into him. John Henry died within a short period of time from the massive blood he lost at the scene, as witnessed by several persons including his wife and my paternal grandparents (my paternal grandmother being only one of his children to watch him expire). John Henry was 79 years of age at the time of his death.