William Dickson Elizabeth Campbell

Some of the DESCENDANTS OF William Dickson and Elizabeth Campbell of CHERRY VALLEY, NEW YORK COMPILED BY TRACY CAMPBELL DICKSON BRIGADIER GENERAL, u. 5. ARMY RETIRED Copyr;~ht 19'> by Tracy C. Dickson. Jr. and B. Abbott Dick,011 DEDICATED TO THE MEMORIES OF THE INDIAN CAPTIVE JANE (CANNON) CAMPBELL, OF THE MARTYRS ELEANOR CANNON AND ELIZABETH (CAMPBELL) DICKSON, AND OF MY FATHER CAMPBELL DICKSON FOREWORD Each descendant of William and Elizabeth (Campbell) Dickson about whom reliable information could be obtained has been in cluded in this work. The Campbell, Cannon, Hungerford, Morris, Abbott, Ken drick and some other families into which men of the Dickson family married are contained in the appendix . James Campbell and his family and William Dickson were among the first settlers at Cherry Valley, N. Y., the settlement that was the most exposed to Indian depredations in that region. William Dick son and four of his sons and the sons of James Campbell served in the army during the revolutionary war and the massacre on Nov. 11, 1778, of thirty-two of the inhabitants and the burning of their homes and barns by Indians and Tories brought upon them, their wives and children, who survived, mental and physical suffering and poverty. Of these families, two members were among the killed and one mother and four of her children were carried into a painful captivity of two years' duration. The Dickson family is a branch of the Keith Clan of the High lands of Scotland. Richard, a younger son of an Earl of Keith, Marshall of Scotland, went in about the seventh century to the Low lands, near Berwick, where he was kpown as Dick and where he achieved notoriety as a warrior. His son, known as Dick's son, per formed such valiant services for his king that he was knighted, whereupon he took the name of Dickson. A John Dickson was living in the early part of the eighteenth century at Downpatrick, County Down, Ireland, who married a Gault of the Parish of Kilragh, County Antrim, Ireland, and to them was born a son, named William. The Rev. Samuel Dunlop per suaded seven families to remove in 1741 from Londonderry, N. H., to Cherry Valley, N. Y., and after he built a log house and grew a crop he returned to Ireland and married Elizabeth Gault. When Rev. Dunlop and his bride returned to Cherry Valley, N. Y., early in 1742 they were accompanied by her brother, William Gault and [5] his family, and by her thirteen-year-old nephew, William Dickson. The latter lived with the Rev. Dunlop, by whom he was educated, until he married Elizabeth Campbell and settled on his farm at the then south end of the settlement. The stone foundation of his first house, in which Elizabeth was scalped and killed, still exists on the east side of the highway, opposite the house he built after his return to Cherry Valley in 1783, and which house is occupied by Mr. P. C. McCarthey. Elizabeth was the daughter of James Campbell and his first wife, Jane Humphrey. It is probable that James Campbell was a member of the party that came from the north of Ireland to Boston, Mass., in 1718 and which settled at Londonderry, N. H., the following year. In the spring of 1741, James Campbell, David Ramsey, Pat rick Davidson and four other families, totalling about 30 persons, re moved from Londonderry, N. H., going by water from Portsmouth, N. H., to Albany, N. Y., and thence overland to Cheery Valley un der the guidance of Rev. Samuel Dunlop. The sloop on which the party ascended the Hudson River from New York City to Albany was owned by Hendrick Myndertse Roseboom, a merchant at Al bany. The Marquis of Montrose disliked the supremacy in Scotland of the Marquis of Argyle and the latter's control of the Presbyterian Church. The Marquis of Argyle was the Chieftain of the Campbell Clan which had often extended its borders at the expense of its neighbors, particularly the Macdonalds. After the battle of Mars ton Moors, July 2, 1644, the Marquis of Montrose went to the High lands, raised an army among the enemies of the Campbell Clan, and defeated the latter at the battle of Inverlocky, Feb. 2, 1645. The Campbells were commanded in this battle by Duncan Campbell, of Auchinbreck, who was among the killed. Mr. Douglas Campbell, a prominent lawyer of New York City, owner of "Auchinbreck," his ancestral home at Cherry Valley, and a personal friend of the present Duke of Argyle, gave the following ancestry of James Campbell: The above Duncan Campbell had a grandson named William Campbell who lived at Western Karnes in Bute, Scotland. William had a younger son also named William who was born at Campbeltown, Scotland, about 1660, and died at r 6 1 Londonderry, Ireland. William engaged in the rebellion in 1685 of the Duke of Monmouth and after its disastrous collapse he fled to Londonderry, Ireland. He signed the address of loyalty to William and Mary, was appointed Lieut. Col. in their army, and his heroic part in the defense of Londonderry in 1689 caused the poet who commemorated that famous siege to describe him as the "brave Campbell." William's eldest son, James, born in 1690, was the father of Elizabeth. James Campbell and his second wife, Sarah (Simpson) Thomp son, had two sons :-Robert, killed at the battle of Oriskany Aug. 6, 1777, and Samuel. Colonel Samuel Campbell was commissioned as ensign and lieutenant by royal governors of New York and served under Sir William Johnson in 1757 during the war with France. He served as major, lieut. col. and colonel during the revolutionary war. He was a prominent leader in his community, an ardent patriot, and friend and adviser of Gov. Clinton. Seldom has a soldier been placed in such an embarrassing position as he was during the cap tivity by the Indians and British of his wife and four children. His five sons and many of his descendants have rendered valuable serv ices to their country and achieved success in many walks of life. His only daughter married Samuel Dickson, a son of William and Eliza beth (Campbell) Dickson and was a great grandmother of the com piler. Jane Cannon, the wife of Col. Samuel Campbell, four of her children, and her aged mother and father were made prisoners by the Indians at the massacre of the greatly exposed settlement, Nov. 11, 1778. Mrs. Cannon was unable to maintain the rapid gait of the retreating Indians and in spite of the assistance given to her by her daughter gradually fell behind. An Ir:idian "Brave" sunk his tomahawk into her head, scattering her brains over her daughter and the child the latter was carrying. Her body was left unburied where it fell and became food for wild animals. Elizabeth Dickson and four of her children escaped early on the morning of the massacre into the woods, where they covered themselves with leaves as a protection against discovery and the cold sleet. Repeated crying for food by the younger children finally [ 7 l caused their loving mother to go to the edge of the woods. Appar ently she neither saw nor heard Indians and ran into her house where she was killed and scalped by an ambuscading party. This work has been compiled in the hope that it will assist in keeping unforgotten by their descendants the physical and mental sufferings endured by Jane (Cannon) Campbell during the long, rapid and exhausting walk in winter from Cherry Valley to the In dian Village of Kanadesaga and the remainder of her two years of captivity and the martyrdom of Elizabeth (Campbell) Dickson and of Eleanor (McKinley) Cannon. TRACY CAMPBELL DICKSON, Brigadier General, V. S. A,·my, Retired. [ 8 ] ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations have been used m addition to those regularly used for states, towns, dates, etc. b ............... born. bap. ........... baptised. bur. ............ buried. d ............... died. dau. ........... daughter. gr ............... grand, as in gr. son. m ............... married. m. ( 1) .......... married first. m. ( 2) ..... ; .... married second, etc. [ 9] FIRST GENERATION l. William Dickson, b. at Downpatrick, County Down, Ire., Dec. 25; 1728, d. at Cherry Valley, N. Y., about 1795, m. (1) at Cherry Valley, Nov. 20, 1752, Elizabeth Campbell, b. at London derry, N. H., in 1730, massacred by Indians at Cherry Valley, N. Y., Nov. 11, 1778, aged 48 years and 9 months, dau. of James Camp bell and Jane Humphrey. He m. (2) June 5, 1782, Jeane Church, b. Aug. 26, 1734, by whom he had no issue. It is family tradition that William was the son of John Dickson who married a sister of William and Elizabeth Gault, who were born in the Parish of Kilragh, County Antrim, Ire. Elizabeth Gault married Rev. Samuel Dunlop. Elizabeth Dickson was buried apparently in the common grave in the cemetery at Cherry Valley in which were interred the remains of the 32 settlers and 16 soldiers that were killed during the mas sacre, and the site of which is marked by a monument bearing their names. A separate monument to her memory was erected by her son, Samuel. "The Frontiersmen of New York,'' by Jeptha R. Simms; states that in the spring of 1741 John Lindesay offered Rev. Samuel Dun lop, of New York City, a good farm if he would settle at Cherry Valley and use his influence to induce. others to settle there and that Rev. Dunlop returned to Ireland after a short residence at Cherry Valley to marry and, upon his return, became a permanent settler.

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