Gorsuch, Dickinson

Life Span
to
Dickinson Connection
Brother John Stansbury Gorsuch, class of 1844
Full name
Dickinson Gorsuch
Place of birth
Glencoe Village, MD
Place of Birth
Birth Date Certainty
Estimated
Gender
Male
Race
White
Sectional choice
North
Origins
Slave State
No. of Siblings
4
No. of Spouses
2
No. of Children
3
Family
Edward Gorsuch (father), Sarah Bowen Stansbury Gorsuch (mother), Rebecca F. Matthews (first wife), Susannah H. Johnson (second wife), John Stansbury Gorsuch (brother)
Occupation
Farmer or Planter
Relation to Slavery
Slaveholder
Political Parties
Republican

Dickinson Gorsuch (Smedley, 1883)

Scholarship
Dickerson [Dickinson] fell wounded. He arose and was shot again. The old man, after fighting valiantly, was killed. The others of the slaveholders with the United States Marshal and his aids fled, pursued by the negroes. While Dickerson [Dickinson] lay bleeding in the edge of the woods, Joseph P. Scarlett, a Quaker, came up and protected him from the infuriated negroes, who pressed forward to take his life. One was in the act of shooting, when Joseph pushed him aside, saying: "Don't kill him."…
    When the fight had ended [William] Parker returned to his house. There lay Edward Gorsuch near by dead. Dickerson, he heard, was dying, and others were wounded. The victor viewed the field of his contest, but he possessed too much of the noble spirit of manhood to feel a pride in the death of his adversary. He offered the use of anything in his house that might be needed for the comfort of the wounded.
    He then went to Levi Pownall's and asked if Dickerson [Dickinson] could not be brought there and cared for, remarking that one death was enough. He regretted the killing, and said it was not he who had done it…Dr. A. P. Patterson was sent for and examined Dickerson's [Dickinson] wounds. He pronounced them serious, but not fatal. Levi Pownall put a soft bed in a wagon and had Dickerson [Dickinson] conveyed upon it to his house, where for three weeks he received as assiduous care and attention as though he had been one of their own household. He did not expect this from Quakers, whom he had learned to despise as abolitionists. As each became acquainted with the other during his stay, they grew to esteem him for the noble characteristics which he possessed, and he manifested gratitude for the kind and home-like nursing he received at their hands. They told him they had no sympathy with the institution of slavery, but that should not deter them from giving him the kind care and sympathy due from man to man.
R.C. Smedley, History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania (Lancaster, PA: John A Hiestand, 1883), 119-120.
Chicago Style Entry Link
Bordewich, Fergus M. Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement. New York: Amistad, 2006.
view record
Forbes, David R. A True Story of the Christiana Riot. Quarryville, PA: Sun Printing House, 1898.
view record
Hensel, William Uhler. The Christiana Riot and the Treason Trials of 1851: An Historical Sketch. Lancaster, PA: The New Era Printing Company, 1911. view record
Katz, Jonathan. Resistance at Christiana: The Fugitive Slave Rebellion, Christiana Pennsylvania, September 11, 1851: A Documentary Account. New York: Cromwell, 1974. view record
How to Cite This Page: "Gorsuch, Dickinson," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5759.