Mahlon Dickerson

Search through the journals of Lewis and Clark and you won’t find the name Mahlon Dickerson. But to Meriwether Lewis the name meant a great deal – Dickerson was a close friend, especially before the Expedition. In 1810, Dickerson would write that Lewis was “the most sincere friend I ever had.”

A graduate of the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) in 1789, Dickerson was admitted to the bar in 1793. His law career was interrupted by the Whiskey Rebellion a year later, when he became an aide to Pennsylvania Governor Thomas Mifflin. He returned to practicing law in Philadelphia from 1797 to 1810, but his main activities even then were in politics. In what had become a family tradition, he devoted most of the rest of his life to political service in elective and appointive office.

Dickerson and Lewis probably first met when Lewis served as Thomas Jefferson’s personal secretary in the President’s Mansion. Then when Lewis spent extended periods of time in Philadelphia in 1802, 1803 and 1807, his guide to Philadelphia's social scene was Dickerson. They dined together several times, paid calls on various young ladies, and were guests two or three times at the home of Thomas McKean, then governor of Pennsylvania.

In 1810 Dickerson returned to New Jersey to manage the family iron mine. His successful administration of one of the richest iron deposits in the East enabled him to build a mansion named Ferromonte (Mountain of Iron) and he lived much in the style of his idol Jefferson. Throughout his career he served as the state’s attorney general, a member of general assembly, a state supreme court justice, then was elected governor of New Jersey in 1815. After 16 years as a U.S. Senator, he became Secretary of the Navy in 1834, and finally was appointed by President Van Buren to be a judge in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey.

Dickerson remained a bachelor all his life, living primarily alone at Ferromonte. He died in 1853 in Succasunna, New Jersey.

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• Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail

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