DR. ELISHA DICK (1762-1825)
Mrs. R. L. Ruffner researched the content of this history and presented the manuscript to the Dr. Elisha Dick Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR). This manuscript was first printed in 1978, for the chapter’s 40th Anniversary celebration. Mary Ellen Harryman Ruffner was the chapter’s fourth regent (1943-1945) and the niece, by marriage, of Organizing Regent Naomi Simmons Klipstein.
One of the most versatile and popular men of early Alexandria was Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick, son of Major Archibald Dick, Deputy Quartermaster General in the Revolutionary Army in 1779, and May Bernard Dick, his wife. Elisha Cullen Dick was born on March 15, 1762, at his father’s estate near Marcus Hook, in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Major Archibald Dick was a wealthy farmer, and owner and breeder of blooded horses imported from England that furnished strains for Colonial race horses. When the Dick family traveled to Philadelphia, they rode in their own barouche drawn by four fine horses, with an accompanying coachman and footman. Theirs was a home of elegance and culture. Major Dick spent liberally and supported every community enterprise that had merit. When the Pennsylvania Hospital was founded, he was one of the first and most generous contributors.
To both of his sons Major Dick gave the best classical education available at that time. For their early education, both boys were sent to the Philadelphia Academy, located at Pegnes, Pennsylvania, in the home of Rev. Robert Smith, D. D. After completion of their study here, they were tutored by the Rev. Samuel Armor. This was augmented by professional training, which fitted Elisha for the practice of medicine and Thomas for the Bar. Thomas lived in Easton, Pennsylvania, and became quite distinguished. From him there descended a long line of lawyers of ability, some still living today in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
In beginning the study of medicine, Elisha was apprenticed to two very distinguished men: Dr. Benjamin Rush, our first psychiatrist and father of American medicine, and Dr. William Shippen, our first Surgeon General of the Continental Army. To this apprenticeship was added several years of study at the Medical College of the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned two degrees.
Disease contracted during the Revolution ended Major Archibald Dick’s life on March 27, 1782. By his will, he freed his slaves, and to each he left a sum of money. Surviving him were his two grown sons, each independently wealthy. In April 1783, Elisha Dick sold his half interest in his father’s estate to Isaac Dulton, and set about selecting a location to begin his practice of medicine. In that day, Charleston, South Carolina, was considered chief among southern cities. It was a place of pride and circumstance, and was peopled with wealthy aristocrats whose sons were educated in Europe, at Oxford and Cambridge or the Sorbonne and Geneva. Armed with letters from his teachers and friends, Dr. Dick started in that direction, and as he journeyed south, stopped in Alexandria, Virginia, to visit a kinswoman. She was so impressed with her young relative that she persuaded him to present his references to General George Washington, Colonel Fitzgerald, and Henry Lyles, the first merchant of the town. They in turn introduced him to representative Alexandrians, who urged him to establish himself there. Just at that time occurred the death of Dr. Ramney, one of the town’s three physicians. This incident was the deciding factor in Dr. Dick making a place for himself there. Then but 20 years old, he was one of the most accomplished gentlemen of the town.
He knew a good house when he saw one and secured the dwelling at 209 Prince Street, which had been erected about 1770. “The Doctor Dick House,” as it has been called, is elevated from its foundation to provide a well-lighted basement below three full stories, topped by a dormered attic. The keystones above the entrance door and windows are exceptionally fine, and the interior has beautiful woodwork. There were five more fine mid-Georgian homes within the block known as “Gentry Row,” on the crest of a rise, and nearer the Potomac were the smaller homes of “Captain’s Row,” the block where lived the captains of vessels that carried Virginia’s tobacco crop across the seven seas.
It might be romantic to think of young Dr. Dick falling in love with a Virginia belle and marrying her in Christ Church or the Presbyterian Meeting House, but such was not the case. He went back to his former home in Pennsylvania and married Hannah Harmon in October 1783. She was the daughter of Sarah and Jacob Harmon, of Darby, Pennsylvania, and born in the year 1763. He brought his modest little bride back to Alexandria.
While a medical student in Philadelphia, Elisha Dick had united with the Masonic fraternity. Soon after becoming a resident of Alexandria, he drew about him a number of gentlemen and formed a society, applying to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania for a charter. After some delay, this was granted them. The first Junior Warden of this new lodge was Dr. Dick, and in 1785, he was elected Worshipful Master, holding this office until April 28, 1788, at which time the Grand Lodge of Virginia issued their charter to this lodge, and the Grand Master appointed General Washington as Worshipful Master. Later he was re-elected and served until he went to New York in April 1789 to be inaugurated as President of the United States. Then Dr. Dick was chosen Worshipful Master, and in that capacity presided over two functions that were great days in the history of the Federal City. One was the setting of the southeast cornerstone of “The Ten Mile Square District,” at Jones Point, just below Alexandria. This event took place on April 15, 1791, at three o’clock in the afternoon. The stone was set with due symbolic ceremony, using corn, wine, and oil. Returning to Alexandria, Dr. Dick offered the following sentiment… “Brethren and Gentlemen: May jealousy, that green-eyed monster, be buried deep beneath the work which we this day have completed, never to rise again, within the Federal District.” (Note: This portion of the original District, south of the Potomac River, was given back to Virginia in 1846.) Two years later, Dr. Dick presided with President Washington over laying the southeast cornerstone of the Capitol, now under Statuary Hall, on September 28, 1793.
The year 1794 offered an exciting assignment that took Dr. Dick to his native state of Pennsylvania as a cavalry officer. When the western counties of that state rose in revolt against the whiskey tax and President Washington called out the citizen soldiers to quell the uprising under the command of “Light Horse Harry” Lee, Dr. Dick led a company of cavalry raised in Alexandria to the scene of the conflict.
As his father before him, Dr. Dick took a decided interest in all local affairs, and often held public office in Alexandria, as well as under the Federal Government. In 1795, when a yellow fever epidemic was raging in Philadelphia, His Excellency, Robert Brooke, Governor of Virginia, appointed him superintendent of quarantine, and due to his diligence, the disease was prevented from being spread to Norfolk. Unfortunately, Dr. Dick was unable to keep it out of his own city. He reported that a vessel from Philadelphia docking in Alexandria brought the contagion there. Two members of his family and a student in his office were contaminated. He was the city’s health officer when the great epidemic of 1803 struck Alexandria and reported that half the town’s population of 6,000 had fled. Under his authority, inoculation was practiced on a large proportion of the people, and during the scourge, only 300 deaths occurred. He was elected Mayor of Alexandria in 1804. Always alert to his responsibilities, he held numerous other offices of trust under the corporation.
In General George Washington’s last illness, Dr. James Craik called Dr. Elisha Dick together with Dr. Gustavus Brown of Port Tobacco, Maryland (just across the river from Mount Vernon), as consulting physicians. Dr. Dick opposed the bleeding, which weakened the patient, saying “He needs his strength; bleeding will only diminish it.” This was conceded by Dr. Brown a month after Washington’s death, when he wrote Dr. Craik regretting that they had not taken Dr. Dick’s advice. He concluded, “We thought we were right and were governed by the best light we had, and so were justified.” According to an old custom, Dr. Dick stopped the hands of Washington’s bedroom clock at the moment of his death, which was at 10:20 p.m. on December 14, 1799. The same clock was later presented by Mrs. Washington to the Masonic Lodge of Alexandria and is now one of their most valued possessions.
As head of the Alexandria Masonic Lodge, Dr. Dick conducted the “Lodge of Sorrow” for George Washington and presided at his funeral on Wednesday, December 18, 1799. The following paragraph is a quotation from the address he made on that occasion:
“Statues of marble will prove the love and gratitude of his survivors, but his virtues and his services have already implanted a monument far more durable in the bosoms of his countrymen.”
At the grave, Dr. Dick read the burial service with great impressiveness and dignity. A few days later, while installing his successor as Worshipful Master, he delivered an impressive oration on Washington, on the anniversary of whose death – February 22, 1800 – he, at the request of the citizens of Alexandria, was chief speaker at the Presbyterian Meeting House. This address being hardly surpassed in eloquence by that of General Henry Lee in Congress, when he characterized the former general and first President of the United States as “First in war, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of his countrymen.” Dr. Dick’s speech at this first memorial service contains this classic:
“America has lost its first of patriots and best of men, its shield in war, in peace its highest ornament, the avenger of its wrongs, the oracle of its wisdom, the mirror of its perfection. His fair fame, secured in its immortality, shall shine through the countless ages with undiminished luster. It shall be the statesmen’s polar star, the hero’s destiny, the companion of maturity, and the goal of youth.”
This memorial service, instigated by Dr. Dick, has been annually observed by the citizens of Alexandria since that time.
Throughout his life, Dr. Dick diligently sought a religion that would satisfy his particular needs and views. Being of an inquiring mind, this led many to call him an infidel. In truth, he was a very religious man, never coming from under the influence of his father’s training. In early life, he was brought up in the doctrines of the Church of England. After moving to Alexandria, he became a Presbyterian and was an exemplary member of that denomination. Late in life, he united with the Friends Meeting and became one of their speakers. On one occasion, he preached the funeral service for his only son Archibald, a young physician of rare promise, who was named for his paternal grandfather. Hannah Harmon Dick was a Quaker when she married her illustrious husband, but just about the time Dr. Dick embraced that faith, she in turn united with the Episcopal Church, where she remained until her death. Beside their son Archibald, Dr. and Mrs. Dick had a daughter Julia, who married Gideon Pierce, of Maryland. The Pierces had two children: James Alfred Pierce, born at his grandfather’s home in Alexandria on December 14, 1805, and Ann Ophelia, born in 1807, and who died April 11, 1866. James was raised by his grandparents and educated in Alexandria up to the time he entered Princeton University. He was married twice, first to Martha G. Laired, then to Matilda C. Ringgold. He served four years in the U.S. House of Representatives and was 21 years in the U.S. Senate from the State of Maryland. He died December 20, 1862.
In connection with the early education of James, an incident is told in the biography of Benjamin Henry Latrobe by Talbot Hamlin. Latrobe, architect of the “The President’s House,” was called to Washington in 1815 to rebuild the Capitol. Shortly after his arrival, he met a man who called himself Baron de Niroth. “The Baron” had invented a type of cement and was attempting to market it. Latrobe befriended “The Baron,” who was encumbered by many debts and, with no more prospective victims to fleece, decided to leave town. His plan became known, and he was arrested and jailed for debt in Alexandria, leaving his young daughter Charlotte – who, at the time, was in her late teens – penniless at the inn there. Dr. and Mrs. Dick, hearing of the distressing case, rescued the girl and took her to their own home. After a time, the Latrobes, with a feeling of responsibility, invited Charlotte to come to Washington as their guest; she accepted. Some period of time passed before “The Baron” was released from prison, and Mr. Latrobe wrote him, saying that he must be responsible for the care of his daughter. Charlotte had no wish to join her father and begged to be allowed to return to the Dicks’ home in Alexandria. Latrobe, increasingly skeptical, instituted an inquiry through the Russian embassy, where he was on terms of special intimacy. The embassy denied any knowledge of anyone of Russian nobility of the name Baron de Niroth, and before long “The Baron” disappeared from history via jail. Charlotte was at last settled with the Dicks in Alexandria as a sort of governess, in all probability for their young grandson. The episode is expressive of Dr. Dick’s deeply considerate kindness.
This remarkable man was something more than a learned and accomplished physician. And, he was something other than a dignified and exalted Mason; he had talents beside those of an orator. Stored in his mind was a wealth of information, gathered from experience, as well as wide reading of the best books, and he became a ready and vigorous writer on many subjects. His oration on George Washington and some of his medical papers have been preserved and all are indicative of a cultured gentleman. Among other relics of a bygone day, found in the attic of an old Alexandria home, was an ancient trunk, in which lay an interesting dinner invitation signed by Dr. Dick, which proves he was genial and something of a bon vivant. It reads:
“If you can eat a good fat duck
Come up with us, and take pot luck.
Of whitebacks we have got a pair,
So plump, so fat, so round, so fair,
A London Alderman would fight,
Through pies and tarts to get one
bite.
Moreover we have bees or pork
That you may use your knife or fork.
The day tho wet, the streets tho
muddy,
To keep out the cold, we’ll have
some toddy.
And if perchance you should get sick
You’ll have at hand,
Yours, E.C. Dick.”
This invitation hangs in the Old Stabler Pharmacy in Alexandra, now restored.
When a young man, Dr. Dick took part in numerous duels as a surgeon and even owned a pair of fine dueling pistols. After becoming a Quaker, he threw them into the Potomac River. One day, while walking down King Street, he was astonished to see them displayed in a dealer’s window. Upon inquiry, he learned a fisherman had found them in the bed of the stream and sold them to the dealer. After Dr. Dick’s death, the pistols were displayed for many years in the window of Mr. Fred Ayer’s shop. Now they are owned by the Alexandria Masonic Lodge owned and exhibited in their museum.
Local advertisements show Dr. Dick and his family lived in various houses in Alexandria. From 1794 to 1796, he owned the clapboard house at 517 Prince Street, known today as “The Fawcett House.” He then moved to 209 Prince Street, which has long been called “The Dr. Dick House” and was marked to that effect with a bronze plaque some years ago by the Society of the Colonial Dames. Earlier, his practice was located in a small frame office at the southeast corner of King and Royal Streets. His last office was at 508 Queen St.
In the year 1827, Dr. Dick became a member of the newly organized Medical Society of the District of Columbia, having joined the first year it was established. His birth predated all other members of this Society, and it was from their records the exact date of his death has been established.
Dr. Dick’s long list of accomplishments included painting. He took some lessons in this art and followed it all his life. His most notable portrait was of Washington, painted in the last year of his life. This work still hangs in the Mansion at Mount Vernon. With a fine ear for music, though largely self-taught, “he sang with great power and sweetness.” It is said he performed very well on a number of musical instruments. Having a mechanical bent, he made the parts and put together a cabinet organ, on which he played “reasonably well.” When he united with the Friends Meeting, he said the organ was a vanity and destroyed it. In his early years, he had a fondness for dress, which did not altogether leave him, as some of his portraits show, but as he neared the end of his journey, he “put away childish things,” ruffles included. He had a genial spirit, courtly manners, and a charming wit, and was fond of people, good talk, good food, and music; he was ardent and enthusiastic in his attachments. At all times he possessed the highest sense of honor, and over his entire life there shadowed a deeply religious nature. One of his biographers states that “his forte was the sick room, where his sympathetic voice and polished manners won the confidence of his patients, and his large range of reading made him familiar with obscure and rare cases, as well as the best remedies to prescribe.” His patients regarded him with devotion, and his counsel was widely sought by practitioners in both the District of Columbia and Virginia.
A few years before his death, Dr. and Mrs. Dick retired to a small farm they owned in Fairfax County, south of Alexandria, in what may be described as “the Groveton neighborhood,” near Hollin Hall. They named this place “Cottage Hill.” It has not been determined whether the house standing on this farm is the original. Dr. Dick died at Cottage Hill on September 22, 1825. With a Quaker’s lack of ostentation, he directed that no stone be placed over his grave. His remains rest in the old Quaker burying ground on Queen Street, now the site of the Alexandria Public Library. Thus, the grave of one of the most illustrious men who ever lived in Alexandria is unknown. (In the past, old citizens recalled it was near the north wall of the enclosure).
Hannah Harman Dick survived her husband by 15 years. She died on February 9, 1843, at the home of the Reverend H. Wharton of Botetourt County, Virginia.
(Copied from the files of the Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser, dated Saturday morning, February 18, 1843):
Died
“On the 9th of the inst., in the 80th year of her age, Mrs. Hannah Dick, relict of Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick, long and favorably known to the citizens of this town, as an able and skillful physician. Mrs. Dick died at the residence of the Rev. D. M. Wharton, in Botetourt County, Virginia, of whose family she had been a member upwards of six years.
“It was the request of the deceased that no eulogy should be connected with the announcement of her death. But, without violating her wishes, this much we may be permitted to say: She bore the pressure of a long, protracted illness with patience, resignation, and humility, and the closing scenes of her life will ever be remembered by those who were privileged to stand around her dying bed, as a striking and influential testimony to the power of the Christian faith to nerve the soul against the terrors of our last enemy, – death.”
(Copied from the files of the Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser, dated January 10, 1826):
NOTICE
“On Friday, 13th of January, 1826 at ten o’clock will be sold the late Dr. Dick’s Shop, drugs, medicines, shop furniture, dye stuffs, galvanic batter, medical and religious books. “This affords an opportunity to Physicians and Merchants keeping such articles, to lay in a supply known to be superior. “The shop furniture, such as drawers, show bottles, etc., are particularly adapted for druggists, confectioners, and others keeping goods which they are anxious should not be exposed, also for housekeepers for preserves, etc.
S. A. Marsteller, Auct.”
REFERENCES:
- Barbee, David Bankin. One of Washington’s Last Friends.
- Brockett, Franklin 1. The Lodge of Washington.
- Callahan, Charles. Washington: the Man and the Mason.
- Files of the Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser. (Microfilm)Congressional Library.
- Freeman, Douglass. Robert E. Lee: Book 1.
- Hamlin, Talbot. Benjamin Henry Latrobe.
- History of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia, 1817-1909. The Society. (Located in the Library of Congress).*
- Letter written by Dr. Elisha Dick to His Excellency Robert Brooke, Governor of Virginia, September 4, 1995. William Buckner McGrorety Papers: Alexandria Library.
- Letters and Genealogical Record from the Hon. James A. Pierce, William Buckner. McGrorety Papers: Alexandria Library.
- Lindsey, Mary. Historic Houses and Landmarks of Alexandria, Virginia.
- Moore, Gay Montague. Seaport in Virginia – George Washington’s Alexandria.
- Our Town 1749-1856. The Alexandria Association, Member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
- Powell, Mary G. The History of Old Alexandria.
- Wilstrach, Paul. Potomac Landings.
- Stetson, Charles W. Washington and His Neighbors.
- The Medical Society of the District of Columbia is the only record I have been able to find of the month and day of Dr. Dick’s death. All Masonic Records give only the year, 1825.
© 1978 40th Anniversary of the Dr. Elisha Dick Chapter, NSDAR.
© 1988 First Reprinting for the 50th Anniversary of the Dr. Elisha Dick Chapter, NSDAR.
© 2002 Second Reprinting for the 65th Anniversary of the Dr. Elisha Dick Chapter, NSDAR.
© 2012 Third Reprinting for the 75th Anniversary of the Dr. Elisha Dick Chapter, NSDAR.
© 2022 Fourth Reprinting for the 85th Anniversary of the Dr. Elisha Dick Chapter, NSDAR.