Page 6 - January 2021 Issue.indd

Shore Noir: The The ancestral Dickinson farm in Caro- With that said, Bennett did just as much
line County, Wiltshire Manor, was just to tarnish the family name with a nation-
Duels That Made south of modern Harmony. A now ally-publicized scandal featuring the
Caroline County unmarked monument sits on the side of aforementioned duel.
Maryland Route 16 as a subtle acknowl-
Famous edgment of the area where generations The debacle began innocently enough.

Bennett was set to publicly announce
of the family once lived. Daffi n House,
by Chad Dean his engagement to a woman named
site of a congenial first meeting between

Caroline May at an 1876 New Year’s
Most local history enthusiasts are famil- Dickinson and Jackson in the 1790s, still party. As he was prone to do, however,
iar with the storied rivalry between stands outside of Hillsboro but is not Bennett had too much to drink and
Caroline County native son Charles open to the public.
this time outdid himself by apparently
Dickinson and future president Andrew
The above sequence of events and docu- relieving himself in the May family’s

Jackson that culminated in a fatal 1806

mented locations, as nationally notable fireplace [also possibly a piano] within
gun duel. After a dispute about the
and personally exciting as they are, have view of the assembled guests. He enjoyed
particulars of a proposed horse race led
literally nothing to do with the more absinthe cocktails in particular, if you
to alleged insults referencing Jackson’s
obscure and thus less celebrated story are wondering, literally and fi guratively,
wife, Dickinson was mortally wounded
I am about to share. My hope is simply what got into him.
when the two faced off at Harrison’s Mill

that history buffs will now acknowledge,

near what is now Adairville, Kentucky. Immediately the wedding plans were
appreciate, and possibly re-enact the
The Caroline County Historical Society called off . That was not enough revenge

other iconic duel on the local chrono-
revisited the feud with a commemora- for Caroline’s brother: Frederick May
logical record -- so I dutifully submit to
tive event the week of the 200th anni- soon confronted Bennett in public and
monthly column readers the following:
versary of its tragic climax. whipped him without remorse. Bennett
One of the last duels between American subsequently challenged May, quixoti-
I have scholarly reviewed numerous “gentlemen” occurred this month in cally if not anachronistically, to a duel.
academic resources from national 1877 near Marydel. The participants, in

publishing companies chronicling this this case, were not chivalrous Southern New York-area high society frowned
antebellum soap opera saga, not to planters defending their family honor upon dueling (consider the loss of Alex-
mention closely examining the guide but rather -- of all people -- New York ander Hamilton at the hands of Aaron
script and interpretive materials at Jack- City socialites. Burr in 1804), so arrangements were
son’s stately plantation home outside made that the showdown would occur
of Nashville. Known as The Hermit- James Gordon Bennett, Jr., made a January 7th, 1877, in the rail-accessible
age, docents were excited to meet a name for himself in the business world vicinity of Marydel. Of additional note
visitor from Dickinson’s home county as publisher of the New York Herald, was the vagueness of the location: was
when I first toured in 2006; I was also taking over for his father. Perhaps his it in Maryland? Was it in Delaware?

in Tennessee in 2010, when Dickinson greatest individual claim to fame is send- One dispatch reported the town was
was reinterred at Nashville’s historic ing Henry Morton Stanley to Africa to actually in Virginia, impossibly! Th ese
City Cemetery. His permanent rest- track down missionary explorer David semantics were just as important as
ing place there was dedicated during a Livingstone, which did occur to much the geography if authorities from one
memorial service aft er burial remains international fanfare in 1871. Cover- state or the other arrived on the scene
were exhumed from the original family age of these travels greatly elevated the or wanted to pursue criminal charges;
plot at what was once Peach Blossom, profile of the family newspaper and indeed, New York investigators declared
an in-law’s property which had been made “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” a on the record that ascertaining the facts
overtaken by a suburban west Nash- memorable phrase in the global lexicon of the confrontation would be a hopeless
ville housing development in the 20th of English speakers.
Century.

Peach Blossom, the Nashville-area
plantation where Dickinson was James Gordon Bennett, Jr.
Charles Dickinson originally buried.
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