 His maternal grandfather was Marcellus Hartley, a merchant who died in 1902 and left his grandson as heir to $60 million (approximately $ today) at the age of twenty-one, while he was attending Columbia University and living with his grandmother, Frances Chester Hartley, at 282 Madison Avenue in Manhattan.In 1903, Dodge graduated from Columbia University, where he was president of his class, manager of the track team, and coxswain of his class crew (sometimes referred to as college rowing).Upon his graduation, he and his maternal aunt, Helen Hartley (Mrs. George W.) Jenkins, presented the Hartley Hall dormitory to Columbia.