Collect Day #33, LYDIA CHESLEY DIXON & JAMES DIXON
Holy God, in whose Son is revealed in the beauty and breadth of the human family; Strengthen and sustain us, just as you did for your servants Lydia & James. Give us the courage to persevere in the face of injustice, oppression and all that enslaves and seeks to make invisible the glory of your Creation; and pray that we, through their worthy example, may receive the inspiration of your Holy Spirit to protect and gather all that seek safety and freedom through our brother, Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God now and forever. Amen
DAY #33, March 23, 2018
Dover
LYDIA CHESLEY DIXON & JAMES DIXON
Jody Fernald
There is no known existing image of Lydia Dixon of Dover. She would have become lost to the history of New Hampshire had she not joined an antislavery organization in Dover the records of which were preserved, and had her father not left military and probate records of his life.
Lydia’s father, Corydon Chesley, was born into slavery in New Hampshire. He died in 1831 at age 91, having lived over 50 years after he purchased his freedom from the Chesley family. Records of Lydia and her sister Abigail allow us to trace the lives of the next generation after slavery in New Hampshire.
Four years after her father’s death, Lydia, a member of the First Church of Dover, appeared as a member of the Ladies’ Antislavery Society of Dover under the leadership of Rev. David Root. Lydia, a woman of mixed race and daughter of a man born into slavery, knew far better than her sister members the legacy of slavery.
Dover’s population of color at the time numbered 15, including children. Lydia, like most free Blacks at the time, lived a subordinate status both in the antislavery organization and in the community. Her third husband, James Dixon, was a Black barber from Jamaica who first appeared in Portsmouth records c. 1830. James and his brother-in-law were both professional barbers at the New Hampshire Hotel, an occupation common among free blacks in the area.
Lydia joined the church in 1830 and her husband, James, joined in 1831, although records indicate James was not committed to the church and was willingly excommunicated for nonattendance in 1842. Church records labelled James as a Negro while no race had been indicated for Lydia who had connections to several local families. James moved his barbershop to the waterfront of Dover in 1834 where he may have come into contact with others from Jamaica or those escaping slavery through maritime routes. Shipping traffic on the Cocheco River was brisk in the early 19th century since many of Dover’s ship owners also lived and worked in Portsmouth.
The advent of a management class in Dover’s mills brought new class distinctions and changes in the goals and composition of the original antislavery organization. Lydia became disenfranchised and moved with other members of the artisan class to establish the Belknap Church of Dover, named after the 18th century clergyman Jeremy Belknap who authorized her father’s manumission papers in 1778. Founding members indicated their dissatisfaction with a community in which “irreligion and vice so prevail.”
In 1858, Lydia Dixon, a widow, left a will detailing how she would continue to care for the women in her life. She left her sister, Abigail Moore, wife of Dover’s Black barber William Moore, two rooms in her house where she was residing at the time. She left the rest of her estate to her niece, Elizabeth Fowler, wife of Samuel Fowler Jr. of Malden, Mass., and to Elizabeth James (“commonly called Elizabeth Dixon”) whom she had raised. Lydia died in 1868 after a life spent actively opposing slavery and caring for the members of her immediate family.
For more information on Lydia Dixon see:
Fernald, Jody R. “Radical Reform in Public Sentiment: Lydia Dixon and the Dover, New Hampshire Ladies’ Antislavery Society”, Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife: Annual Proceedings 2003. Boston University Scholarly Publications, 2005. P.92-101.
