Mary "Polly" Norris Dickinson was an early American land and estate owner and manager. She is known for her ownership of one of the largest libraries in the American colonies, her participation in political thought of the time, and her presence in or near events of the Constitutional Convention, including her marriage to Framer John Dickinson, one of the early drafters of the Constitution and one of its signers on behalf of the colony of Delaware. They bequeathed much of their combined library to the first college founded in the new United States. The college was originally named "John and Mary's College", by Benjamin Rush, for Norris Dickinson and her husband and is now called Dickinson College.
Portrait of Dickinson and daughter Sallie by Charles Willson Peale
John Dickinson, a Founding Father of the United States, was an attorney and politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware. Dickinson was known as the "Penman of the Revolution" for his twelve Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, published individually in 1767 and 1768, and he also wrote "The Liberty Song" in 1768.
Portrait, 1780
A 1773 portrait of Mary Norris Dickinson, Dickinson's wife, and Sallie Dickinson, their daughter, by Charles Willson Peale
Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States a 1940 portrait by Howard Chandler Christy depicting the ratification of the Constitution at Independence Hall on June 21, 1788
