Monadnock Moment No. 158

Era 4: Expansion and Reform - 1800 to 1860

Honest John Dickson

John Dickson, Jr. was born at a farm on West Hill in Keene in 1783. His father, John, Sr., had purchased the property fourteen years earlier. It was here on West Hill that young John passed his childhood years.

In 1808 the Dickson family moved westward to New York State. During the same year John graduated from Middlebury College. He followed his family to New York and studied law for three or four years before setting up his own law practice in Rochester, New York.

John served in the New York state legislature from 1829 to 1830 and was elected to the United States Congress in 1831. He served in Congress until 1835 and it was here that he earned fame. He became known as "Honest John Dickson" because of his work in Congress.

During 1835 John wrote a work on the abolition of slavery. In February of the same year he presented an anti-slavery speech in the U.S. House of Representatives. This speech was the first important anti-slavery speech ever made in Congress. John's talk led to other speeches and considerable debate in Congress on the issue of slavery. Twenty-eight years later, during the Civil War, slavery was abolished in the United States. But Keene native "Honest John Dickson" did not live to see that day. He passed away in Bloomfield, New York in 1852 seventeen years after he made his now famous anti-slavery speech in the halls of Congress.