WIREFRAME ONLY - NOT YET DESIGNED
1736 - 1780
Samuel Dickinson (1736-1780) lived in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where he co-owned a large farm with his older brother Nathaniel (1734-1788) in the town's Mill River district. Neither of the brothers had children and relied on hired and enslaved labor to work the farm and livestock that included 11 horses, 14 oxen, 14 cows, and a large number of sheep. Samuel, Nathaniel, and their father, Samuel Dickinson senior (1687-1761) enslaved several people, including Fortune, Peter, and a married couple, Hagar and Caesar. Nathaniel was an outspoken Tory during the American Revolution. Like many other American loyalists, Nathaniel fled to British Canada , arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1776 before settling in Westfield, New Brunswick, where he died in 1786. In June, 1776 the town of Deerfield voted to confiscate, assess, and rent out Nathaniel's portion of the farm as "he hath joined our unatural Enemies for ye purpose of aidiing and assisting them in subjugating these American Colonies..." Samuel then rented the Dickinson farm and continued to live there until he died four years later, in 1780. The fates of the enslaved people living at the Mill River farm when it was confiscated are unknown.