Bio: W. L. Dickson, M. D., Bossier, Caddo & East Feliciana Parish La
Source: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana
The Southern Publishing Company, Chicago & Nashville,  1890

Submitted by: Suzanne Shoemaker
sueshoe@hotmail.com

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Submitted to the LAGenWeb Archives


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W. L. Dickson, M. D., is one of the leading physicians of Caddo Parish, and
is especially well known at Rush Point, and that vicinity.  He is a
prominent representative of one of the oldest families of Louisiana, his
grandfather, Michael Dickson, having been born near Macon, Ga., but moved
to East Feliciana Parish at a very early day, and in 1855 came to Bossier
Parish.  He had some money left him, and by using it judiciously, he became
one of the wealthiest men in the State, owning 10,000 acres of some of the
most valuable and fertile land in Louisiana, being also the owner of real
estate in Arkansas.  At his death in 1865 he was sixty-nine years of age.
His wife, whose maiden name was Hannah Palmer, a native of South Carolina,
was brought by her father, Adam D. Palmer, to Louisiana when a child, where
she met and married Mr. Dickson.  Her father was also very wealthy, and she
and her husband were members of the Methodist Episcopal church, South.
Nine of the children born to them grew to maturity, and Michael A., the
father of the subject of this sketch, who was the eldest, was educated in
the Centenary College of Jackson, La., graduating from the same.  In 1862
he joined the Confederate army.  He controlled and managed the property
belonging to his father for some years prior to the latter's death, and
continued so to do until his father's death.  He was married in 1853, to
Miss Mattie Lipscomb, a daughter of William Lipscomb, of East Feliciana
Parish, she being still alive, and a resident of Shreveport.  Mr. Dickson
was a Democrat, a Royal Arch Mason, and his wife is an earnest member of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.  To them were born five children,
four living:  Dr. W. L., Michael A. (a planter of Lafayette County, Ark.),
S. A. (a graduate in medicine of the university of Louisiana, at New
Orleans, but gave up this calling to enter a drug store in Shreveport), and
J. O. (who is a partner in the firm of Dickson & Dickson, at Rush Point).
A daughter named Annie died when an infant.  The father of these children
passed from life in 1870, when just in the prime of life, being forty-one
or forty-two years of age.  Dr. W. L. Dickson attended Centenary College,
of Jackson, La., until he was in his senior year, then left school to
represent his mother in the settling up of his grandfather's estate.  In
1877 he commenced the study of medicine under Dr. T. G. Ford at Charity
Hospital, Shreveport, La., and from 1879 until the spring of 1881 he
attended Bellevue Hospital Medical College, of New York City, graduating
from the same in the spring of the latter year, after which he located on
Rush Point, his plantation and brothers' land amounting to 1,500 acres.
His practice is large, and the success which has attended his efforts is
fully deserved, for he is deeply enamored of his profession, and gives
every case that comes under his care the utmost attention and study.  he is
a Democrat, his first presidential vote being cast for Hancock and English,
and socially he is a member of the K. P., Dixie Lodge No. 32.