for Sally Norris Dickinson,” read the label on the underside of the box that curator of Stenton Laura Keim was showing me. Reader, I gasped. I’ve been familiar with Sally Norris Dickinson’s family for a long, long time and indeed with their copious deeds and papers. Sally (1771-1854) was the daughter of Mary Norris and John Dickinson, the granddaughter of Sarah Logan and Isaac Norris, and the niece and cousin of many, many 18th century Philadelphia-area women I’ve read and written about. When Sally’s parents married her mother was reputed to be the wealthiest heiress in the colonies; Sally never married, like the namesake aunt who died before she was born, and like many of her and her mother’s cousins. A whole world of unmarried women in the 18th century would have made Sally’s life well into the 19th century legible to her and to her family. And their wealth of course made it a comfortable one.
Stenton was built in the 1720s by James Logan, one of the dominant political figures in early Pennsylvania, and then inherited and lived in by descendants through the early 20th century. Since 1899 it has been preserved and interpreted by the National Society of Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (NSCDA-Pa). Laura Keim, historic preservationist and curator par excellence in my opinion, has been leading their work there for more than two decades, learning and sharing more about the house and the history of its occupants including Dinah, an enslaved woman now memorialized with an interpreted place of respite on the grounds.
How did Sally Norris Dickinson’s materials come to be at Stenton? Her family was long entwined with the Stenton Logans; among their family ties her own grandmother was James Logan’s daughter, and her sister married Albanus Logan, James Logan’s great grandson. Albanus inherited the estate, and then Maria lived there after his–and her sister’s Sally’s death. Did Sally live at Stenton, too? She had her own property, after all. Maybe sometimes.
Like generations of her family including her cousin (twice over) Deborah Norris Logan, Sally Norris Dickinson applied herself to the curation and preservation of their legacy; her notes and copies appear throughout her parents’ papers. In his will John Dickinson referred almost immediately to the arrangement of his papers that documented his own extensive real estate. “Almost all Deeds, Papers & c of consequence,” he wrote are in “my Mahogany Writing Desk, the Mahogany Chest, and the Red Cedar Chest.” He went on to describe how they were organized and how they might be moved or stored. That red cedar chest? It seems likely to be the one that went on to hold Sally’s papers, the very ones that had belonged to her parents.
I’m always interested in where the objects of Lineage rested, and what was nested around them. Visiting Stenton after a long time–I think I’d only been there for events and not for some years–was such a terrific reminder of how much rich context the material world offers to how we understand even people and events we feel almost (but not quite) familiar with. And also how fantastic it is to have an expert guide. Continuing to reflect on what I saw and learned, I’m so looking forward to going back!