Degree Recipient

Biographical Details

Date of Birth: November 1, 1807

Birth Location: Lincoln County, KY, USA

Graduation Year(s): 1834

Degree(s) Earned: Bachelors

Date of Death: December 7, 1886

Death Location: Bloomington, IN, USA

Life Experience

James Findlay Dodds received his early education in the schools of Lincoln County, Kentucky. When he was thirteen, his family moved to Bloomington, Indiana, where he completed his education. In 1825 at the age of seventeen, he began attending the newly opened Indiana State Seminary. He appears in Indiana College’s very first catalogue of 1831. He labored nine years for his bachelor’s degree from what would become IU, obtaining it in 1834.

Newly graduated, Dodds became a teacher in the preparatory department of Indiana College. In 1837, he was elected professor of mathematics. He later studied medicine and received his M.D. from the Louisville Medical College. He studied and practiced medicine with Dr. Mitchell of Corydon, Indiana, then moved to Bloomington and practiced medicine there for the rest of his life. From 1862 to 1882, he was an examining surgeon for the pension department.

Dodds died in December 1886. On the day of his funeral, his wife died of a lingering illness. A funeral for both was held two days later with two hearses driven side by side. Theophilus Wylie (Presbyterian minister, college professor, and cousin of IU’s first president, Andrew Wylie) wrote that this unusual funeral service in the Presbyterian Church was “peculiarly solemn.” Both were also buried in the same grave.

Marriage and Family

In 1834, the same year as Dodds graduated, his father, Samuel, died.

Dodds was the elder brother of John Finley Dodds.

Dodds’ brother William also attended IU, coming to the brand-new seminary in 1825 at age thirteen. William dropped out of school, married, and had ten children. He became a tanner and eventually postmaster.

Dodds and his four brothers all had the same middle name of Findlay or Finley.

Two days after the Christmas of 1838, Dodds married Mary Wylie, daughter of IU’s first president, Andrew Wylie. They had eight children.

Interesting Anecdote

Dodds’ son-in-law, Theodore Rose, graduated from IU and became the city attorney of Muncie.

References

1. archive.org/stream/genealogyhistory00colb/
2. Banta (1889) 
3. Bloomington Republican Progress 12/22/1886 
4. Connectedbloodlines.com
5. Findagrave.com
6. Wylie