John Dickinson was my 7th great-grandfather. He was an officer during the War of Independence. Home to John Dickinson, known as the "Penman of the Revolution" because his writings helped inspire colonial opposition to Great Britain. Sized, cropped, and adjusted for use by John Osborne, Dickinson College, March 10, 2010. John Dickinson was born into a slaveholding family in 1732 in Maryland and continued to maintain his ownership of human beings well into his adulthood residing in Pennsylvania and Delaware. Dickinson and Slavery also tells the story of Northern slavery through the eyes of white Dickinsonians, including the college’s earliest leaders. He was a militia officer during the American Revolution, a Continental Congressman from Pennsylvania and Delaware, a delegate to the U.S. Dickinson’s founder, Benjamin Rush, and namesake, John Dickinson, both spoke out publicly as abolitionists, and they emancipated their own slaves. Constitutional Convention of 1787, President of Delaware and … Dickinson owned slaves even though Quakers strictly believed in the equality of all people. This created moral problems for him as sentiment in those places, especially in Quaker-dominated Pennsylvania, turned against slavery. ATTENTION: Our partners at the John Dickinson Plantation are now offering tours by reservations on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He was a "Gentleman Planter" in colonial Northampton County, North Carolina. 1787 || John Dickinson poses a difficult question. Please visit their website for the most up-to-date information. John Dickinson John Dickinson was a member of the First and Second Continental Congress and worked with Thomas Jefferson in writing the Declaration of Independence. Courtesy of: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. John Dickinson himself, also known as the 'penman of the Revolutionary War,' is said to haunt this plantation. The John Dickinson Plantation was home to a variety of people. Today, it tells the stories of the tenant farmers, indentured servants, free and enslaved Black men, women, and children who lived, worked and died on the plantation. Depicted content: Slavery; Image type: engraving. John Dickinson (November 15, 1732 [November 4 (old style)] – February 14, 1808) was an American solicitor and politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Wilmington, Delaware. Courtesy of: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. This is another line of my family that may go back to early Quakers. Reports here include the sound of a quill pen writing on parchment in his den and his bed mysteriously gets all messed up in the afternoons, as if he has taken a nap. Depicted content: Slavery; Image type: engraving. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and was elected President of Delaware and President of Pennsylvania. Sized, cropped, and adjusted for use by John Osborne, Dickinson College, March 10, 2010. Many online trees trace my John… ... "Journey of a Slave from the Plantation to the Battlefield - Number 4, The Parting… https://home.nps.gov/frst/learn/historyculture/jdp-history.htm A year after the Philadelphia Quakers barred any members from owning slaves Dickinson conditionally manumitted (set-free) his slaves. There was certainly a Quaker John Dickinson who married a Rebekah Powell in 1724 in Talbot County, Maryland. The condition, though, was ten more years of slavery (he actually set them all free in nine years).