Enhanced digital spreadsheet offers redesign of Plantation Stories Project
The public will soon be able to explore information on a handful of the free and enslaved people who lived, worked and died at the John Dickinson Plantation through an enhanced online spreadsheet that is part of a larger Plantations Stories Project.
Pathways to expand access to John Dickinson Plantation in 2023
Next year, the public will get new access to the John Dickinson Plantation thanks to a pathways project that will connect the site to the St. Jones Reserve.
Burial Ground Identified At John Dickinson Plantation
Archaeological research at the John Dickinson Plantation, Dover, Delaware, has led to the identification of a burial ground at the John Dickinson Plantation. The burial ground was found during archaeological fieldwork on March 9, 2021 and likely holds the enslaved individuals and other African Americans who lived, worked, and died on land owned by the […]
John Dickinson
A Great Worthy of the Revolution John Dickinson is known as “The Penman of the Revolution” because he was able to put on paper the thoughts and ideals which formed the foundation for our brand new country. John Dickinson was a man trained by scholars. He used his knowledge to think for himself. His pen […]
Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania
Background The start of John Dickinson’s career as the “Penman of the Revolution” began with a political pamphlet titled “The Late Regulations” which expressed Dickinson’s thoughts on the Revenue Act (Sugar Acts) of 1764 which raised taxes on sugar. Many Americans, including John, felt Parliament was threatening the rights of the colonies and the “Acts,” […]
Photo Gallery: John Dickinson Plantation
Plantation Tours
Tours of the plantation enable visitors to compare and contrast lifestyles of the wealthy Dickinson family with those of tenants, poor whites, enslaved individuals and free Blacks residing in Kent County during the 1700s and early 1800s. School tours complement Delaware’s Social Studies Standards. A special thematic demonstration (weaving, hearth cooking, etc.) can be scheduled […]
Tour the John Dickinson Plantation
It was January 18, 1740 when Samuel Dickinson, a wealthy Quaker tobacco planter and merchant of Talbot County, Maryland moved his family to the plantation on Jones Neck, southeast of Dover, Delaware. John Dickinson was seven years old at the time. Over the next 68 years, until his death in 1808, John Dickinson split time […]
Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania: To the Inhabitants of the British Colonies
Penning A Revolution Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania John Dickinson’s most famous contribution as the “Penman” and for the colonial cause was the publication of a series of letters signed “A FARMER.” Dickinson’s thoughts concerning the new Townshend Acts were published in most of the colonial newspapers as well as abroad in England and […]
John Dickinson Plantation
Follow us on: The John Dickinson Plantation was home to a variety of people. We share the stories of the tenant farmers, indentured servants, free and enslaved Black men, women, and children who lived, labored, and died on the plantation. John Dickinson was a framer and signer of the U.S. Constitution and was known as […]