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.