CHAPTER THREE
SIXTH GENERATION: PETER DICK III (1722-1790)[1]
At present we know very little about the life of Peter III (Peter Sr.)
My own Dick family research, confirmed by a great many other Dick and Dicks family researchers is that our ancestor Peter was born “Peter Dicks” on 23 October 1722 near Chester, Pennsylvania. His Quaker parents were: Peter Dicks (1696-1760) and Sarah Hayes Powell Dicks (born c. 1700). Our Peter was disowned by his father, due to a disagreement, and left the Quakers and dropped the “s” to show that he was not part of the Quaker Dicks family any longer. He married a lapsed Quaker as well: Mary Elizabeth Linton. Some researchers say that Peter III was a Revolutionary War Veteran, serving in the Revolutionary War Continental Army from 1 May 1781 to 1 November 1782. This is still being looked into.
Peter’s daughter, by wife #1 (Some researchers suggest her name was Susan” and that she and Peter married in 1742) was Catherine – “Catey” -- who, according to family legend, was born at sea in 1747 enroute to Philadelphia. I suspect there may have been some family legend confusion about Catherine and her husband Lewis…i.e. we know that Lewis came across the Atlantic as a very young child….the Wills family researchers are in general agreement about the birth date for Catherine but NONE of them have the legend about her being born at sea.
It is not surprising, however, that Peter could have been in Europe during the pregnancy of Catherine. Quaker documents I found at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania mention that his father had property in England and made trips back and forth. There is also a reference that Peter (the father) was not pleased about a marriage entered into by son “Peter” when on a “foreign trip.”
Catherine married Lewis Wills[2] in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1770. Catherine died in 1802 in Johnson Co. Tennessee. Wills died in Green Co, Tennessee on 15 March 1832. He had been born in 1744 in Strasbourg, France. [3] After Catherine’s death, Lewis married Ellender Martha King and they had five children.
Peter III’s son Peter IV (Peter Jr.) bought 256 acres, on 3 October 1787 from Edmund Randolph, in Frederick County Virginia, on the waters of Sleepy Creek. He paid “one pound and five shillings”[4]. He may actually have arrived much earlier because in a court case dated 1776 in Frederick County, Peter Jr. was tried for killing a slave. He was acquitted; but that would in any eventplace him in Frederick County that early. Peter III purchased his 395 acres in Virginia in 1789 for 2 pounds sterling. His property was next door to Lewis Wills. On the other side of Lewis Wills was Peter III’s son Peter Dick IV, adjoining 447 acres owned by Mathew Trotter on the drains of Sleepy Creek[5].
Father: Peter Dick III (23 October 1722 – 10 October 1790)
Mother: (Susan?) First wife
Children: (1) Catherine Dick (1747 - 1802) who married Lewis Wills
(2) Peter IV (1748 - 1804), who married Mary Aldridge
Mother: Mary Elizabeth Linton[6] Second wife. (b. 18 July 1738 - d. before 1787) They married: In St. Michael and Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church[7], 228 N. Franklin Street in Philadelphia on 30 September 1756.
Children:
(3) Eva\Eve (c.1758 - ) who married Christopher Hetherlin
(4) John (1762 - 1796), married Catherine Hieronimus[8]
30 October 1787
(5) Sarah who married Philip Burkhammer (Berkheimer) on 29 January 1799. She died 25 September 1835 in Sonora, Ohio.
(6) Henry (1760-1848) who married Decaude Dent Edwards (b. 1768), daughter of Benjamin Edwards
(7) Nicholas who married Patience Berry ……. was he also at one time the husband of Catherine Berry???
Mother: Barbara Null Third wife. (c.1755 - after 1790)
They married: 25 September 1787.
Barbara was the daughter of Johan George Pence Noll,
born 1742 in Jonestown, Lebanon County
and Maria Barbara Genselin Bossert,
born 2 February 1751/2 in Summer County, VA.
The father of Johan George was
Nicholas Noll, born 1716 in Alsace-Lorraine.
Children: (8) Barbara (c.1788 - ), who married Joseph Boot
[1] Peter Dick III’s will is found in Frederick County Courthouse, Winchester, VA: Will Book 5, p. 289, written 25 May 1790, proved 10 October 1790.
[2] Lewis Wills arrived in North America (either at Philadelphia or New Castle, Delaware) in 1748 at the age of 4. He had been on a ship with his father and stepmother. His father died on the voyage and upon arrival his stepmother did not want him. He was adopted by a family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and stayed with them until he was 21. Most researchers believe that his original name was not Wills.
[3] Children of Catherine and Lewis Wills were:
(1) Barbara (b.1782) who married Thomas McQueen
(2) Lewis (1 April 1784 – 29 June 1855) who married Catherine Weitzel
(3) Peter (23 December 1776 – 14 November 1856) who married Susanah Weitzel on 30 April 1804, in Carter County, TN.
(4) Mary (b.1779) who married Henry Smith on 18 March 1798
(5) John (b.1772) born in Lancaster County, PA, who married Mary Snodgrass on 17 March 1794 in Washington Co. VA. He died in 1860 in Dade , MO and is buried in Sinking Creek Cemetery, Everton, MO.
(6) Elizabeth (b.1778) who married Alfred Smith
(7) Sarah (b.1786).
[4] Randolph was a former Governor of Virginia and nephew of Peyton Randolph, first President of the Continental Congress. Some historians say that if he had lived he would have probably been the first president of the United States.
[5] Abstracts of the Virgina Northern Neck Fairfax Land Grants.
[6] Mary Elizabeth Linton was a Quaker and her parents were Joseph Linton (1705-ABT 1743) and Mary Blackshaw Linton from Bucks County Pennsylvania. (Mary Blackshaw - 28 February 1705 -- before 1 October 1773 – was daughter of Nehemiah Blackshaw and Elizabeth Bye.) Joseph and Mary Blackshaw married on 24th day of 3rd month in 1726 at Falls Monthly Meeting (Pennsylvania)
Mary Elizabeth’s siblings were: Isaac, born 3 December 1729; Elizabeth , born 13 December 1730; Joseph, born 1 April 1736; Phebe, born 26 April 1741; Jonathan,
born 11 May 1743.
From Quaker records in Pennsylvania, the Linton family Bible now with a member of the Linton family in Ohio, and from early Linton family correspondence, we now have a better picture of the family background of Mary Elizabeth Linton.
Mary’s father Joseph was the son of John Linton (born 21 October 1662/3 in Low Crosby, Cumberland, England) and Rebecca Relf (born 1672 in London, England <daughter of William and Mabel Relf>).
John was son of Roger Linton (21 October 1641-1678) and Dorothy Newberg. [Roger son of John Linton 1614-1662]
Esther Newman from Ohio writes: “The records as copied below are in the form of a letter which was addressed to my great-grandmother, Mrs. Cora Peterson, Lumberton, Ohio, Clinton Co., postmarked from Wilmington, OH, February, 1895. Across one end of the envelope is written: "If not delivered in 10 Da. Return to Lock box #23, Wilmington, Ohio." The information was taken from the Bibles of David Linton and Seth and Ann Linton. …John who was born in England Cumberland county in the year 1663 and married in Friends meeting London A D 1691 to Rebecca Relf of London who was born in that city on the 31st of the 3rd month 1672. They emigrated with Penn to America and landed in the wilderness on the western shore of the Delaware where the city of Philadelphia now stands.”
[7] This church was founded in 1742. Pastor John Hamster wrote to Lois McIntire in February 1963 “I did not yet find the name of his first wife. If I could find the names of the children who he had with his first wife I might be able to find also her name. The marriage of Peter Dycke (Dick) and Maria Elisabeth Linton on September 30, 1756 is recorded in Vol. 1 of our records”.
[8] This line has given me more than one headache. I think it looks like this: John and Catherine Heronimus had at least one son named John who married a Rosannah This John + Rosannah had a son John who married Elizabeth Allemong on 14 January 1819. Their children were:
(1) Martha (Melinda?) Jane (13 November 1818 – 1899). She married Alexander Grim on 13 March 1844 in Fayette County, Ohio. See: http://go.to/thegrimms.
(2) Camillus H. (1820 -- ??) born in Frederick County, VA, who married Alsina Jane
Arehart
(3) William born 1840 in Fayette
(4) Martin
(5) John B. born 1845 in Fayette
(6) Stewart born 1842 in Fayette County
(7) Cass Ann who married Isaac Johnson in 1846.