Mary Norris Dickinson

Mary "Polly" Norris Dickinson (July 17, 1740 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – July 23, 1803 in Wilmington, Delaware) was an early American land and estate owner and manager. She is known for her ownership of one of the largest libraries in the American colonies, her participation in political thought of the time, and her presence in or near events of the Constitutional Convention, including her marriage to Framer John Dickinson, one of the early drafters of the Constitution and one of its signers on behalf of the colony of Delaware. They bequeathed much of their combined library to the first college founded in the new United States. The college was originally named "John and Mary's College", by Benjamin Rush, for Norris Dickinson and her husband and is now called Dickinson College. Early life and economic and political position Mary "Polly" Norris was born on July 17, 1740, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Isaac and Sarah (née Logan) Norris. The Norris family were members of the Quaker Meeting, also known as the Religious Society of Friends. Her extended family included members of the Logan and Norris families, who were either loyal to the British Crown but advocates for nonviolent protest of British policies; or advocates for American independence. One of her Logan cousins was the Quaker poet Hannah Griffitts (aka "Fidelia"), one of the advocates for nonviolent protest but not independence, who had lived with Norris at her family's home for a time as a child. Norris was well-educated and owned one of the largest libraries in the colonies at the time, holding approximately 1,500 books, as well as personal and real property, including the estate of Fair Hill in the Philadelphia area. After her parents had died, when she was age 26, Norris ran the estate, either by herself or with her sister Sally, for a number of years. Measured by the time of her marriage at age 30, she also held personal property of between £50,000 and £80,000 (about $7.8 million to $12.4 million, adjusted for inflation to 2013). Norris was a participant in correspondence with Milcah Martha Moore, Hannah Griffitts, Samuel Fothergill, Patrick Henry, Susanna Wright, Benjamin Franklin, and other politically and economically engaged men and women of the colonial era in Pennsylvania that was documented in Moore's book of that time.