THE DICKSON LETTERS.
In “The Dickson Letters,” compiled and edited by James O. Carr, Esq., of the Wilmington, N. C., bar, appears a comprehensive sketch of the Dickson family, and “An act to erect and establish an academy in the County of Duplin,” the text of the act being as follows:
Whereas, the establishing an academy in the said County for the education of Youth, will be attended with great advantages to the State in general and the County of Duplin in particular:
1. Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly of North Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that Thomas Routledge, James Kenan, Joseph Dickson, Thomas Gray, William Dickson, David Dodd, John James, Israel Bordeaux and James Gillespie, Esquires, be and they are hereby constituted and appointed trustees with full power and authority to receive into their hands and possession all monies and other property which have been or hereafter may be subscribed for the purpose of erecting an academy on the lands lately purchased of Nicholas Hunter in said County, by name of Grove Academy; and the said trustees and their successors shall be able and capable in law to ask for and demand, receive and possess of the several subscribers all sums by them respectively subscribed, and in case of refusal of any of them to pay the same, to sue for and recover by action of debt or otherwise, in the name of the trustees, the sum which such person so refusing shall have subscribed, in any jurisdiction having cognizance thereof; and the monies when collected and received, to be applied by the said trustees or a majority of them towards paying for the lands already contracted for, and erecting thereon a suitable and convenient house, to contract with and employ a tutor or tutors, and to perform every act or thing that they or a majority of them shall think necessary and expedient for the advancement of the said academy and the promotion of learning therein.
2. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the trustees hereinbefore mentioned, shall, previous to their entering on the execution of the trust reposed by this Act, give bond to the court of the County, payable to the Chairman and his successor, in the sum of One Thousand Pounds specie, with condition that they shall well and faithfully account for and apply all gifts, donations, bequests and monies which they may receive of and by virtue of this act for the purposes aforesaid.
3. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that if any of the trustees by this Act appointed shall die, refuse to act or remove away that he cannot attend the duties of his appointment, the remaining trustees may appoint another in his stead, who shall exercise the same powers as trustees appointed by this Act: and when met together within the said County shall have power and authority to elect and constitute one or more tutor or tutors, and a treasurer, and also to make and ordain such rules and regulations, not repugnant to the laws of this State, for the well ordering of the students, their morals, studies and academical exercises, as to them shall seem meet; and to give certificates to such students as shall leave said academy, certifying their literary merit; in general they shall or may do all such things as are usually done by bodies corporate and politic, or such as may be necessary for the promotion of learning and virtue; and the said trustees, or a majority of them are hereby empowered, and shall have lawful authority to remove the tutor or tutors, treasurer or any of them if they shall find it necessary, and on the death, resignation or refusal to act of any of them, to appoint and elect others in the stead of those displaced, dead or refusing to act.
4. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the trustees by this Act appointed, or a majority of them, and their successors, shall meet annually on the first Friday of March in each and every year, or at any other time they may find more convenient, and elect a proper person out of their own body to preside for the term of one year, who may convene the trustees at any time he may find it necessary. Provided always that he shall give ten days previous notice of such meeting and that the President and Treasurer shall be chosen on the said first Friday of March unless in cases of unavoidable accidents.
5. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the treasurer of the said Board of Trustees shall enter into bond with sufficient security to the trustees, conditioned for the faithful discharge of the trust reposed in him by this Act, and that all monies and chattels that shall be in his hands, at the expiration of his office, shall be immediately paid into the hands of the succeeding treasurer; and every treasurer shall receive all monies, donations, gifts, bequests and charities that may belong or accrue to said Academy during his office, and at the expiration thereof shall account with the trustees or a majority of them for the same, and on refusal or neglect to pay and deliver as aforesaid, the same mode of recovering may be had against him as is or may be provided for the recovery of money from sheriffs or other public officers.
In his sketch of the Dickson Family the author says: Simon Dickson was born in England about the year 1607, or 1608. He was a stern English Puritan, an ardent adherent of Oliver Cromwell, and served faithfully as an officer in the Parliamentary army during that fierce struggle between Parliament and the King; his official rank, however, is unknown to us. After the Revolution was over, as a reward for his services, he received a grant of four hundred acres of valuable land within two miles of Dromore, in the county of Down, Ireland. Here he settled and had a numerous offspring, but the exact number of his children is unknown. At the restoration of Charles II, the land grants of the Cromwellian administration were annulled, and Simon Dickson became a tenant on the same land he had previously owned.
“Simon Dickson was the father of Joseph the first, who was the father of Joseph the second, who was the father of Michael, who was the father of John.” Joseph the second lived to be ninety-four years old, and Michael passed his eighty-fourth year.
John Dickson was born in Ireland about the year 1704 and died in Duplin County, North Carolina, on the 25th day of December, 1774, just at the beginning of the American Revolution. He emigrated from Ireland to the State of Pennsylvania in the year 1738 and settled in Chester County, where he resided several years and had two sons born to him, Michael and William. He then moved to Maryland, where he remained only a short while, and leaving there he came to Duplin County between 1740 and 1745. Upon his death in Duplin, in 1774, he left surviving him seven sons and one daughter, whose names are given in order of their age, as follows: Michael, William, Robert, Joseph, Alexander, Edward, James and Mary.
Michael Dickson moved to Georgia just before or after the Revolution, where it is said he has many descendants, though no definite information about them can be obtained.
William Dickson, the second son of John Dickson, and the writer of the Dickson Letters, was born in Pennsylvania about the year 1740, and came to Duplin County with his father when quite a small boy. Upon arriving at manhood he took an active part in public affairs and during Revolutionary times he was the foremost man in his county as a leader in civil affairs, while his compatriot, Colonel James Kenan, was at the head of all military operations. It is probable, almost certain, that he entered the army as a regular militiaman under Colonel Kenan, and served through the entire war. His educational advantages were very limited, and a family tradition tells us that his school days were comprised within a space of three months. Notwithstanding this, he was a man of broad ideas, mature judgment, and profound wisdom; and he discussed political affairs with an intuitive knowledge and foresight that were remarkable. His comments on the American form of government (then an untried theory) in his letter of 1790, his reasons why North Carolina adopted the federal constitution, his prediction that “the southern states will not receive equal benefit in the government with the northern states” and that the North would eventually demand the emancipation of slavery (and this written seventy years before the Civil War)—all these are ideas worthy of a statesman and found conception in no ordinary mind.
He was a man of wonderful native ability; but was modest to a fault, and seldom in his letters to his cousin in Ireland does he even refer to the services he rendered in the Revolution. Tradition has it that he was for forty-four successive years clerk of the court in Duplin County; but the writer has not examined the records for a verification of this tradition further than to find that he served in this capacity for quite a long time. He was a delegate to the first provincial congress, held at Newbern on the 25th of August, 1774; to the second provincial congress, held at Halifax on the 3rd of April, 1775; to the third provincial congress, held at Hillsboro on the 21st day of August, 1775; and to the fourth provincial congress, held at Halifax on the 12th of November, 1776, which framed North Carolina’s first constitution. He also represented Duplin in the House of Commons in 1795. It is told of him that when Cornwallis’ army marched through the county on its way from Wilmington to Virginia he concealed the records of the county in an iron pot in Goshen Swamp to prevent their destruction by the British. He died in 1820, an honored and highly respected citizen.
Robert Dickson, the third son of John Dickson, moved to Virginia at the close of the Revolution, but returned to Duplin about 1784, where he made his permanent home. He has many descendants in North Carolina, chiefly in Cumberland County. He was a justice of the peace for Duplin for a number of years, and served as a member of the House of Commons in 1777, 1784, 1785, 1786, 1787 and 1788.
Joseph Dickson, the fourth son of John Dickson, emigrated west about the close of the Revolution; but, being dissatisfied, soon returned to his native county, where he reared a large family consisting of one daughter, Anne, and eight sons. He served in the capacity of Register of Deeds and also as county surveyor of Duplin, and represented his county in the House of Commons in 1780 and 1797. Anne Dickson, his oldest child and only daughter, married James Pearsall, many of the descendants of whom now reside in Duplin and adjoining counties. Later in life Joseph took his entire family of eight grown sons, together with other Dickson relatives, and moved to Tennessee in quest of large landed estates, a desire for which had become common in the family. Dickson County, Tennessee, takes its name from a member of the Duplin family.
Alexander Dickson, the fifth son of John Dickson, following the dreams of his brothers, and searching for fortunes elsewhere, emigrated to Virginia about 1781, and afterwards to Maryland; but returned in 1784 and took up his permanent abode in Duplin, where he accumulated considerable wealth. He died leaving no family, and bequeathed his property, as an educational fund, to the poor children of his county. This fund has commonly been known as the “Dickson Charity Fund”; but, through years of mismanagement and ill-directed investments, it has almost come to naught, and like most bequests of this kind has not served the high purpose for which it was intended.
Edward Dickson, the sixth son of John Dickson, had no ambition for political honors, but was one of the foremost and most prosperous citizens of Duplin. He married and reared a family in Duplin, and there was no man more highly esteemed and respected. His oldest daughter, Rebecca, married Rev. Jacob Williams, by whom she had a daughter, Ann, who married Dr. Stephen Graham, a noted physician of Duplin County in his day. Sarah Rebecca Graham, daughter of Dr. Stephen Graham and Ann Graham, and sister of the late Stephen Graham of Kenansville, married Owen R. Kenan, and, as a result of this union, left the following children: Thomas S. Kenan, of Raleigh; William R. Kenan, of Wilmington; James G. Kenan, and Annie Dickson Kenan, of Kenansville.
James Dickson, the youngest son of John Dickson, spent his entire life in Duplin County. He married twice and had fifteen children, eight boys and seven girls. We are told that as a reward for military services he received large grants of land in Tennessee from the United States Government; but we have no information as to what services he performed, and William Dickson in one of his letters says none of the brothers except himself actually took up arms and joined the army. He may have rendered some services in the war of 1812, but we have no direct information on this point. However, James Dickson owned large estates in Tennessee and his three oldest sons, Edward, William and Alexander, emigrated there in the early part of this century and took possession of them. Robert Dickson, the youngest son of James, married Mary Catherine Sloan, and was the grandfather of the writer.
Mary Dickson, the only daughter and youngest child of John Dickson, married William McGowan at the age of eighteen, and she has many descendants in this and other states. She was the great grandmother of Benjamin F. Hall of Wilmington.
The first three letters, which are made a part of the publication, and the fourth, which is an extract taken from an old copy of the Fayetteville Examiner, were written by William Dickson to his cousin, Rev. Robert Dickson, a Presbyterian clergyman, at Narrow Water, near Newry, Ireland; and are printed for their historical and literary value. The fifth letter was written by William Dickson to Linda Dickson, his niece, who was at the time visiting her older sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson, of Charleston, S. C., and is printed to show the character of the writer in his domestic relations.
The originals of the first three letters are still in existence and bear on them the marks of having served their mission as a messenger of good news to a far-away cousin. Years after they were written, two young men, the sons of Rev. Robert Dickson, we think, came to this country, and in order to identify themselves brought the original letters with them. One of the young men was drowned, the other returned to Ireland, and the letters fell into the hands of John Dickson, of Cumberland County; and the family of the late Robert K. Bryan, Sr., of Scott’s Hill, N. C., and the Evans family of Cumberland County, who are descendants of the Dicksons, have carefully preserved them.
The fourth letter, or rather extract, is taken from an old copy of the Fayetteville Examiner, and the original cannot be produced, but there is conclusive evidence that it is genuine.
John Dickson, the father of William Dickson, had a brother by the name of William Dickson, who moved from Pennsylvania and settled in the Western part of the State, where he died on the first day of January, 1775. We have no record of his family, but it is reasonable to suppose that he was the father of General Joseph Dickson, of Lincoln County, who rendered valuable service in the Revolution, and was Congressman about 1800.
In editing these letters the writer has preserved intact the wording and phraseology of the original manuscript, but has made some slight changes in regard to capitalization, spelling and punctuation, and this has been done only for the purpose of making them conform to our modern usage in this respect, and where the change would in no way impair the sense or expression of the originals.