Pages Tagged With: "John Dickinson Plantation"

‘Simple Machines’ display at the John Dickinson Plantation

Display focuses on the six simple machines (inclined plane, screw, wedge, pulley, lever, and wheel and axle) that constitute the elementary building blocks of which many more-complicated machines are composed.




Blogs celebrate the 250th anniversary of John Dickinson’s ‘Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania’

Written by Robert Natelson for the Volokh Conspiracy and posted on the Washington Post webpage from Oct. 16–20, 2017.




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 […]




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.




Former president of Ghana visits John Dickinson Plantation

Leader in Dover to deliver Delaware State University commencement address.




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 […]




John Dickinson Plantation

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 the “Penman of […]




John Dickinson Plantation Exhibits and Displays

Welcome Center Five Stories: The People and Families of the Plantation “Five Stories” explores the lives of a wide variety of people who lived in the late-18th- to early-19th-centuries on the plantation of John Dickinson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, signer of the U.S. Constitution and “Penman of the Revolution.” Panels […]




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,” […]




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 […]




Newly published book explores the life and legacy of Delaware statesman John Dickinson

Publication a joint effort of the Friends of the John Dickinson Mansion, the Delaware Department of State and the Delaware Heritage Commission.




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.




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 […]




Public outreach aims to engage a new community at John Dickinson Plantation

The division is seeking descendants of those who lived, worked and died at the John Dickinson Plantation in an effort to tell the stories of Indigenous and free, indentured and enslaved people of color who have been overlooked in historical accounts.




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 […]