Charles Dickinson (historical figure)

Charles Dickinson (1780-May 30, 1806), was a 19th century American and nationally famous duelist. An expert marksman, Dickinson's dueling career included 26 kills before it was ended at the hands of future President Andrew Jackson.

[edit] Life

Born at Wiltshire Manor, Dickinson grew up in the Grove community of Caroline County, Maryland. He was a successful planter, renowned duelist, and a popular socialite. Dickinson owned a house in Maryland for 13 years.

[edit] Death

Jacksons' political opponents convinced Dickinson to insult Jackson's wife, assuming Jackson would not survive. At a party near Hillsboro, Maryland at the Daffin House plantation, Dickinson met Jackson and struck up a conversation about horse racing. Later the two would meet again after Dickinson had relocated to Nashville, Tennessee. A duel was set up between the two. Jackson waited, planning for Dickinson to shoot first. Dickinson took his shot, and Jackson took one ball in the ribs.[1] Without wavering, Jackson then fatally wounded his opponent with a .70-caliber bullet to Dickinson's middle, severing an artery. This was not, however, a violation of the rules of a duel. Jackson still got his shot as his gun at first did not fire at all. A few hours later Dickinson died, the only man Jackson killed in any of his many duels.^[1]

[edit] Debate over gravesite

Dickinsons' body is known to have been buried near the mansion of his father-in-law, Captain Joseph Erwin, whose Peach Blossom home and farmlands occupied a large area west of Nashville in 1806. As that area was developed into Nashvilles' fashionable Whitland neighborhood in the first decades of the 20th century, successive land records continued to track the location of Dickinsons' grave. A stone box marker stood over the site until after 1911. Around 1930, the site, no longer marked, was located in the front yard of a home at 216 Carvin Avenue.

In 1965, local historians in Caroline County, Maryland unearthed a lead coffin on the grounds of land once owned by Dickinsons' family. Citing a story passed down in the family of a Dickinson slave, the historians asserted that the body in the coffin was Dickinsons', re-interred on his home grounds some years after his death.

In September 2007, a new owner of the Nashville property at 216 Carden Avenue joined with a Dickinson descendant and local historians to petition a court for the right to conduct a dig intended to determine whether Dickinson was buried there or not. If the court agrees, and if a body is found and identified as Dickinsons', plans call for it to be removed to Nashvilles' original City Cemetery, which has seen few new burials since the 1880s.^[2]

[edit] References