Charles Dick (13 October 1715–by 8 January 1783), arms and potash manufacturer, may have been a member of the Dick family of Edinburgh, Scotland, with some records suggesting his parents may have been Thomas Dick, a merchant, and Jean Harvie Dick. The contents of his library at the time of his death suggest that he was well-read in geography, history, literature, religion, and travel. Dick was living in Spotsylvania County by April 1743, when he stood as security for a defendant, and had opened a store in Fredericksburg by December of that year. By the end of the decade he had established himself as a successful merchant and community leader, and on 7 February 1749 he took his seat as a justice of the peace on the Spotsylvania County Court. Early in 1750 Dick married Mary Roy, of Caroline County. They had two daughters, one of whom married James Mercer, later a member of the Continental Congress and of the Virginia Court of Appeals, and one son.
Dick speculated in western lands and purchased property in Frederick and Hampshire Counties and in the town of Winchester. At his death he owned eighteen enslaved persons. By December 1754 he had become a member of the Fredericksburg Masonic Lodge, and that month the lieutenant governor appointed him one of the commissaries to supply the Virginia militia on the frontier. Responsible for acquiring and transporting the payroll and various provisions, Dick quickly grew weary of his work as criticism mounted and the government failed to provide prompt reimbursement for expenses incurred. He offered to resign in August 1755 but was apparently convinced to continue his efforts.
Late in the 1750s and early in the 1760s Dick participated in the large-scale production of potash for shipment to England, where it was widely used in the manufacture of glass, soft soap, drugs, dyes, and saltpeter. The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce began offering financial premiums not long after Dick began operating a furnace near Fredericksburg. Between 1757 and 1761, when he was the only recorded producer of potash in Virginia, he exported more than forty-five tons. Dick reported difficulties in meeting the society's goals, including uncertainties resulting from shipping schedules and a fire at his furnace in 1761. Noting a shortage of skilled labor, he complained that "the Americans in general are not a very industrious people, they live easy and consequently pretty lazy." The society suspended the bounty system in 1766, and Dick discontinued production of potash.
In 1768 Dick joined the vestry of Saint George's Parish. On 1 June 1774 he became one of ten members of the Fredericksburg Committee of Correspondence chosen following receipt of news of Parliament's adoption of the Coercive, or Intolerable, Acts. On 14 December of that year he was elected to the Spotsylvania County Committee formed to enforce the terms of the Virginia and Continental Associations, and he secured a warehouse for the contributions that local citizens made to send to the aid of Boston residents.
The third Revolutionary Convention appointed Dick and four other men on 26 August 1775 to establish and manage a factory in Fredericksburg to repair and manufacture arms. He and George Washington's brother-in-law Fielding Lewis became the sole managers of the manufactory and personally funded a majority of the work as a result of the state government's failure to offer adequate financial support for pay, provisions, and material. During the winter of 1780–1781 both men threatened to or did resign their posts, but Governor Thomas Jefferson persuaded Dick to continue management of the operation. In spite of debilitating attacks of asthma, Dick kept the gunnery running largely on his own and with his own money for nearly two more years. Between its founding and its discontinuance in 1783, the gunnery produced and repaired hundreds of stands of arms and thousands of rounds of ammunition and may have employed as many as thirty men.
Charles Dick submitted an account to the governor and Council of State on 10 December 1782. He died, probably in Fredericksburg and possibly from an asthma attack, between that date and 8 January 1783, when "the Death of Charles Dick Gent." required the surviving members of the Fredericksburg town council, to which he had won election in March 1782, to select an alderman to succeed him. In his will he noted that "Having for Amusement and Conversation only, never declared my Age, Be it known, I was born October 13, 1715." The place of his burial is not recorded.
Sources Consulted:
Biographies by Paula S. Felder in Fielding Lewis and the Washington Family (1998), esp. 261–267, 296, and Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, 24 July 2004; Ralph Emmett Fall, ed., The Diary of Robert Rose (1977), 77 ("lately married" as of 19 Apr. 1750); letters in W. W. Abbot et al., eds., The Papers of George Washington: Colonial Series (1983–1995), in R. A. Brock, ed., Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie, Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of Virginia, 1751–1758 (1888), in Letter Book of John Barker et al., Class Ref. Bag.C/493, Letter Book 1 (1753–1760), Sheffield Archives, Sheffield, Eng., in Guard Book 7 (including first quotation in Dick to Royal Society, 22 June 1762), Royal Society of Arts, London, Eng., and in Executive Papers, Letters Received, Record Group 3, Library of Virginia, printed in "Manufactory of Small Arms at Fredericksburg," Sons of the Revolution in State of Virginia Semi-Annual Magazine 7 (July 1929): 3–33; numerous references in William J. Van Schreeven, Robert L. Scribner, and Brent Tarter, eds., Revolutionary Virginia, the Road to Independence: A Documentary Record (1973–1983); Kathleen Bruce, "The Manufacture of Ordnance in Virginia during the American Revolution," Army Ordnance 7 (1926): 187–193; Elizabeth Dabney Coleman, "Guns for Independence," Virginia Cavalcade 13 (winter 1963–1964): 40–47; William I. Roberts III, "American Potash Manufacture before the American Revolution," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 116 (1972): 383–395; will (third quotation) and estate inventory in Fredericksburg Will Book, A:4, 40–41; Fredericksburg Council Minutes (1782–1801), 38, 39 (second quotation).
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Gregory Harkcom Stoner.
How to cite this page:
Gregory Harkcom Stoner, "Charles Dick (1715–1783)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2024 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Dick_Charles, accessed [today's date]).
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