J. Collins Dickson

biography

Dickson, J. Collins, coal merchant, Meadville, was born March 26, 1824, in Hayfield Township, on the same farm which his grandfather, James Dickson, bought in 1794 and settled on in 1796, purchasing a tract of 800 acres for 20 cents an acre. Our subject was the third son of Joseph Dickson, and spent his youthful days on the farm and engaged in the saw and grist-mills owned by his father and grandfather. His education was limited to that obtainable at the log schools of that period. When seventeen his parents moved to Meadville, and for twenty-six summers he ran on the canal and for all but three years owned his own boat. Since 1871 Mr. Dickson has been in the coal business. He has been twice married, first in 1858 to Mary Sterrett, who died in 1872, and in the fall of the following year he was again married, on this occasion to Katie E. Wilson, and the fruit of this union is one child—Nevin R. Mr. and Mrs. Dickson are members of the Park Avenue Congregational Church. In politics he is a Republican. The father of Mr. Dickson, Joseph Dickson, is now living in Meadville at the advanced age of ninety-five years, having lived in the county since May, 1794.

History of Crawford County, Pennsylvania: containing a history of the county, its townships, towns, villages, schools, churches, industries, etc., portraits of early settlers and prominent men, biographies, history of Pennsylvania, statistical and miscellaneous matter, Chicago: Warner, Beers & Co., 1885, page 732.