Dickinson Family Papers(1778–1845)

• MS 2001.9
• 28 items

The Dickinson Collection contains a total of 28 pieces, including one letter from Edmund B. Dickinson (?–1778) and several letters from his collateral descendants that document their attempts to obtain land grants and pensions for Dickinson’s military service in the Revolutionary War. The letter from Dickinson was written to his sister Lucy while at Valley Forge, and he makes reference to the newly established alliance with France. The collection contains a letter from Senator Henry Tazewell, a famous Virginia politician. Transcripts are available for many of the documents in the collection. Colonial Williamsburg also has a portrait of Edmund Dickinson, which was probably drawn in the 1770s. The portrait is housed in the Department of Collections.

Edmund Dickinson was a cabinetmaker in Williamsburg, Virginia. He was born in Norfolk, and although it is unclear when he moved to Williamsburg, he was listed as an employee of Anthony Hay in 1764. Hay operated a shop on Nicholson Street [Block 28, Building 72] that passed into the hands of Dickinson in 1771. Dickinson made furniture for prominent Virginians such as Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, and he advertised in The Virginia Gazette on several occasions. He was elected captain of recruits from the District of York on February 4, 1776. He served in the 1st Virginia Regiment, reaching the rank of major in October 1777. He camped with the army at Valley Forge and died at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. George Washington specifically mentioned Dickinson’s death in his personal correspondence. In a letter to Governor Patrick Henry on July 4, 1778, General Washington stated that the loss of Major Dickinson “ought much to be regretted by his friends and Countrymen as he possessed every qualification to render him eminent in the Military line.” Although Dickinson was a bachelor at the time of his death, he was survived by his five sisters: Agnes Dickinson, Lucy Dickinson, Judith Farrer, Elizabeth Warren, and Mary.

Lucy married Robert Gibbons after her brother had died. Louisa Gibbons, the daughter of Lucy and Robert, married William Smart. William Robert Smart (b. 1827) was their son. It appears that Lucy and Robert Gibbons were responsible for initiating the claim to Dickinson’s military pension and land grants. In 1798 Senator Tazewell regretfully informed the Gibbons family that only the direct descendants of soldiers (wives and children) were entitled to military benefits from the Revolution. William Smart continued the claim in 1832. The governor of Virginia eventually awarded Dickinson’s heirs land in addition to the land bounty that had been granted in the early 1780s.

Although it has been over two hundred years since Major Dickinson died, the Smart family continues to memorialize him. Miss Althea Smart, the granddaughter of William R. Smart, donated the Dickinson Collection to the Mary Ball Washington Museum in Lancaster, Virginia in 1991, and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation subsequently acquired it in 2000.

Articles based on the collection have appeared in Colonial Williamsburg: The Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Spring 2001, “Portrait of an Artisan ” by Harold B. Gill, Jr. (pp. 15–20) and in the Colonial Williamsburg Interpreter, Summer 2006, “Uncommon Merit”: Edmund Dickinson in the American Revolution" by Ed Wright (pp. 3–9).

Inventory

• Browse items in this collection
• View Virginia Heritage Project finding aid