Biography of Townshend Dickinson, Arkansas

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Submitted by: Joy Fisher < >
        Date: 18 Dec 2007
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BIOGRAPHICAL AND PICTORIAL HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
BY JOHN HALLUM.
VOL. I.
ALBANY: WEED, PARSON'S AND COMPANY, PRINTERS.
1887.

Entered according to act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-seven,
BY JOHN HALLUM, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.


JUDGE TOWNSHEND DICKINSON.

  Judge Dickinson was a native of the State of New York, an educated gentleman and
polished scholar. He came to Arkansas soon after the territorial government was
organized, and settled at first in Lawrence county. In 1821 he removed to Batesville,
Independence county, where he continued to reside until 1851. He was small and slender,
weighed one hundred and twenty-five pounds, had dark gray eyes and auburn hair. His voice
was musical and rung like the clearest sound of metal. He was a fluent, eloquent and
polished speaker, and never tired an audience. Those who knew him say he was a cogent
reasoner; his published opinions as a jurist speak for themselves. In 1823 he was elected
to the territorial legislature, and that body elected him prosecuting attorney for the
third circuit, a position he seems to have held six years. His promotion was rapid; in
1836 he was elected to, and served in. the constitutional convention of that year, and he
was elected to the first State legislature which convened on the 12th of September, and
that legislature elected him to a seat on the supreme bench.

  James Moore, a wealthy, cultured gentleman of Irish extraction, immigrated from
Vermont, first to Missouri, and then to Arkansas, and settled at Batesville in 1814, with
four or five more families. Moore had three accomplished daughters, all of whom became
the wives of prominent citizens of the territory.

  John Miller, the father of Governor W. R. Miller, married Clara., Thomas Curran, a
native of Ireland and near relative to John Philpot Curran, the celebrated Irish orator,
married another daughter who bore him a son, James Curran, who became one of the ablest
lawyers of his age. Judge Dickinson married Mariah. Thomas Curran and wife died early in
life, leaving their orphan son, only ten years of age, to the care of Judge Dickinson,
who educated and trained the brilliant youth well for the bar. Judge Dickinson moved to
Texas about 1851, and was accidentally drowned about 1860. He was noted for his great
fondness for race-horses, and love for the turf, in which he freely indulged like General
Jackson.