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John represented the fourth generation of his family
to have lived in the colonies, and spent his childhood
on the family plantation near Dover, Delaware. The Dickinsons
prospered, acquiring thousands of acres of land in Maryland
and Delaware, and John studied law in England and in
Philadelphia as a young man.
His political career was extensive. He was elected to
the Assembly in the lower counties of Delaware in 1759,
and as a legislator, represented Pennsylvania at the
Stamp Act Congress and the Continental Congress until
leaving in 1776 for military service.
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Perhaps the most prominent writer and politician in the
years leading up to the Revolutionary War, Dickinson preferred
a non-violent unity with England rather than a hasty revolution.
He believed the colonies were illprepared to hold their
own if and when British rule had been thrown off. But
when the majority of colonies had voted in favor of the
Declaration of Independence in July of 1776, and news
came of British troops arriving in New York, Dickinson
(a colonel of the First Philadelphia Battalion of Associators)
and his men were the first to leave for New Jersey in
defense of the newborn nation.
He
also served as a Delaware Congressional Delegate in
1779, was elected President (equivalent to Governor
at that time) of Delaware in 1781, and was the President
of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania from
1782-1785. He had the honor of writing the first draft
of the Articles of Confederation, and was a Delaware
Delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
Later
in life, Dickinson became a staunch advocate for the
manumission of slaves and the free education of those
without means to afford any. He donated land for the
establishment of the Brandywine Academy, and funded
the Wilmington Academy, to which he served as a trustee.
Though not a member of the religious Society of Friends,
or Quakers, Dickinson was involved with the Wilmington
and Kent County Friends, and their humane ideals contributed
strongly to his moral philosophy. Religious, but not
affiliated with any particular sect, Dickinson believed
that the differences that divided religions would one
day be dispersed, and the people would unite under "one
head".
After
retiring from the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania
in 1875, John moved to Wilmington with his wife, Mary,
and two daughters. They rented a house on Market and
9th streets, and later purchased a plot on Market and
Kent (now 8th street). Dickinson continued to be politically
active, though in his later decades of life he was forced,
out of ill health and a desire to escape the political
turmoil that had abounded during his years, to refuse
numerous appointments to high ranking political positions.
Upon
his death in 1808 at the age of 75, Dickinson was buried
at the Wilmington Friends Meeting House. The act symbolized
his beliefs in the moral foundation of the Society of
Friends, and contended during his life that the only
discrepancy that kept him from officially joining that
religion was their opposition to violence even in an
act of defense against a hostile enemy. His grave, and
a plaque in his honor, are housed on the grounds of
the Wilmington Friends Meeting House at the corner of
4th and West streets in the Quaker Hill Historic District.
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For
more information on John Dickinson, read Milton Flower's
biography, on which this text was informed.
Flower,
Milton Embick. John Dickinson, conservative revolutionary.
The University Press of Virginia. 1983
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