Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Dickerson, Edward N.

Born: 1824-02-11 Paterson, New Jersey

Died: 1889-12-12 Long Island, New York

Edward N. Dickerson, patent attorney and engineer, was born into a prominent New Jersey family. He entered the College of New Jersey (Princeton) at a young age, but ended his studies about 1843 without earning a degree. Dickerson read law with his father, Judge Philemon Dickerson, and qualified at the bar at Paterson, New Jersey in 1845, after which he was briefly clerk of the federal district court over which his father presided. He ultimately took up practice as a lawyer and moved to New York City in 1852, where he continued his legal career. Dickerson was employed by such inventors as Samuel Colt and Charles Goodyear and became known as a national expert on patent law. Cyrus H. McCormick retained Dickerson as part of his legal team in the 1855 case of McCormick v. Talcott et al., in which McCormick alleged infringement on the patents for his mechanical reaper. Abraham Lincoln was also retained in the case as a defense attorney for the Rockford, Illinois firm of Manny & Company, but the other members of the defense team blocked his participation in the trial. Dickerson was skilled in engineering, and in addition to his work as an attorney, he secured patents of his own for improvements to pumps, steam engines, and steam boilers. For a time, he was engineer of the first locomotive between Paterson and Jersey City. Dickerson married Mary Caroline Nystrom in 1848 and the pair had two children. In politics, Dickerson was a Democrat, but was a pro-Union so-called “War Democrat” during the Civil War, and supported Lincoln’s reelection. He was involved in a public controversy with Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, during the Civil War, when he argued via open letter that Welles was adopting an inferior type of steam engine in the U.S. Navy.

H. W. Howard Knott, “Dickerson, Edward Nicoll,” Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964), 3:1:288-89; Directory of the Graduates and Former Students of Princeton College (New York: Eugene R. Cole, 1888), 12; New Jersey, U.S., Marriage Records, 1670-1965, 11 October 1848, Morris County (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2016); U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Passaic County, NJ, 332; McCormick v. Talcott et al., Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=137741; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 21, New York, New York County, NY, 90; M. D. Leggett, comp., Subject-Matter Index of Patents for Inventions Issued by the United States Patent Office from 1790 to 1873, Inclusive (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1874), 2:1146; 3:1428, 1592, 1835; New-York Tribune, 13 December 1889, 2:5; The Sun (New York, NY), 13 December 1889, 4:5-6; Gravestone, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY.