John Dickinson papers

1774-1802

John Dickinson (1732-1808) was an American lawyer and politician. Dickinson authored a series of essays published as Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, the Articles of Confederation, and drafted the Olive Branch Petition with Thomas Jefferson. He served as a delegate from Pennsylvania to the First and Second Continental Congresses, and as president of both Pennsylvania and Delaware. The papers consists of letters, 1774-1788 and 1802, from Dickinson; the transcript of an undated address given after his election as president of Pennsylvania; and several autographs. The letters generally relate to political and administrative issues, and include one dated 1774 to Charles Morrison urging him to write his associates in Boston to "avoid Blood or tumults." Other recipients include the Executive Council and Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the Governor of Connecticut (Jonathan Trumbull), diplomat Arthur Lee, Mathew Carey, and John Vining. One letter to Noah Webster, dated 1786, discusses Webster's writing.