| The Dickenson family
has vanished from Caroline county, as far as we know, and the land grant
made by Charles I to Dickenson's first American ancestor in the 1640s has
been cut up by farms and towns. This grant, totaling 5,100 acres, included
all the land from the confluence of Hunting Creek and the Choptank south
of Preston, north to where the creek rises then west one mile to the Choptank.
The big house, called Wiltshire manor after the name of the grant, stood
off the road between present-day Harmony and Preston about a mile toward
American Corner.
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Delvings by Caroline
citizens interested in the past have turned up two-foot thick foundations
of brick, coins bearing dates in the 1700s, a spoon and other artifacts
on the supposed site of the Wiltshire Manor house. There is no record of
what happened to the house; it was destroyed by fire or neglect years ago.
As far
as the records go, there is little trace of Charles Dickenson left in his
native Caroline county. For the best information about him, the records
of the part he played in Andrew Jackson's life give the best picture of
the fiery young squire who grew up and lived in Caroline County and bled
to death in Tennessee.
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