His primary education was gained at the Philadelphia Academy, in the home of the Rev. Robert Smith, D.D., at Pegnea, and in his father's home, tutored by the Rev. Samuel Armor. In 1780 he began the study of medicine, graduating on March 21, 1782. Two days later he lost his father and came into his inheritance of half the estate. A year later he disposed of his Pennsylvania interest to Isaac Dutton and started for Charleston, South Carolina, with the expectation of settling there.
Floor plan of house
Armed with letters of introduction to General Washington, Colonel Fitzgerald, and Colonel Lyles, he stopped en route in Alexandria "to call upon a female relative" and to present his letters. He got no farther. "Influential persons" caused him to abandon his plans and remain in Alexandria, where the recent death of old Dr. Rumney left an opening which Dr. Dick filled for better than forty years. Alas, for the belles of Alexandria! In October 1783, Dr. Dick married Miss Hannah Harmon, the daughter of Jacob and Sarah Harmon of Darby in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Two years after beginning his professional life in Alexandria, he pulled a tooth for one of the Mount Vernon house servants, and the following entry taken from Washington's diary for February 6, 1785, tells the results which do not seem to have been entirely satisfactory:
Sunday, 6th, Doctr. Brown was sent for to Frank (Waiter in the house), who had been seized in the night with a bleeding of the mouth from an orifice made by a Doctr. Dick, who some days before attempted in vain to extract a broken tooth, and coming about 11 o'clock stayed to Dinner and returned afterwards.[142]
So far as Washington's diaries show, Dr. Dick never crossed the threshold of Mount Vernon again until fourteen years later on a raw, cold day in December when the snow lay thick on the ground, he was sent for by Dr. Craik to attend Washington in his last illness. It was Dr. Dick who advised against additional bleeding and it was he, who, when Washington's last breath escaped, walked to the mantel and stopped the hands of the clock. This clock, with arrested hands, stands today in the George Washington National Masonic Memorial in Alexandria.
On March 28, 1788, Dr. Dick was offering a reward of eight dollars for a runaway servant:
I will give the above to any person who will secure in Alexandria Gaol a Negro fellow named Ned, who ran away from me about three weeks ago. He is between thirty and forty years of age, about 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high and was formerly the property of Mrs. Clifford of whom I bought him. Having a wife in Maryland, belonging to Mr. Samuel H. Bean, I imagine Ned will be inclined to make a nightly resort to her quarters. His winter clothes were made of a mixed cloth of a gray color and it is probable he will be found with a soldier's old napsack upon his back in which he carries his provisions.
Dr. Dick was one of the founders of the Alexandria Masonic lodge, to which Washington belonged. In 1791 he was Worshipful Master when the cornerstone of the District of Columbia was laid. Arm in arm with the President of the United States, who acted as Master, Dr. Dick led the procession with George Washington in 1793 at the laying of the cornerstone of the Capitol. This same year, as Master of the lodge, he solicited the President to "set" for the portrait by William Williams, which still graces the lodge room. In 1794 he commanded a company of cavalry raised in Alexandria and under "Light Horse Harry" Lee marched into Pennsylvania to help quell the famous Whiskey Rebellion. In 1795 he was superintendent of quarantine, an office he held for many years. In 1798 he was appointed coroner; in 1802, justice of the peace.