We’re continuing our historical adventures in Hillsborough, North Carolina, with a visit to the Alexander Dickson House. Located on King Street, just a few steps from the bustle of downtown restaurants and shops, this unassuming home allows you to travel back in time to one of the most critical moments in United States history: the final days of the Civil War. In April 1865, the house served as a temporary headquarters for General Joseph Johnston as he traveled to meet with General William T. Sherman at nearby Bennett Place in Durham, North Carolina.
Today, the Alexander Dickson House is ready to welcome you, sharing its dynamic history. This beautifully restored, late eighteenth-century home now serves as the location for the Hillsborough Visitor Center and the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough.
The Visitor Center is the perfect place to start your Historic Hillsborough adventure! Staff are on site ready to help you plan fun things to do, whether you’re looking for historic sites, nearby parks, restaurants, scenic drives, or upcoming events.
Inside the Dickson House, several historic rooms have been transformed into an interactive timeline charting Hillsborough’s long and fascinating history. The timeline begins centuries ago when the area was an important Native American Trading Stop along the Great Trading Path. You’ll learn about the Occaneechi Tribe who lived along the banks of the Eno River, just steps from downtown.
From there, the timeline charts the beginnings of the town as a crossroads of trade, politics, and life with its founding in 1754. Exhibits cover dramatic events like the Regulator Uprising, Hillsborough’s important role in the American Revolution, and life in the 1800s leading up to the Civil War.
The Alexander Dickson House, a late-18th century Quaker-plan house, was built circa 1790. Though the first owners are not fully documented, Alexander Dickson acquired the property around 1839. It was originally located about a mile and a half from its present site, but a preservation effort in 1983 moved the house and its original out-office to the heart of downtown Hillsborough. Today, the building houses the Hillsborough Visitors Center and the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough, which led the restoration effort following the move.
The home is a Georgian-style house built according to the Quaker Plan, an architectural style first recommended to Quakers by William Penn, the founder of the Pennsylvania colony.
The Quaker Plan features a distinctive three-room layout on the ground floor, consisting of a large main hall and two smaller rooms on the other side of an interior partition wall. The hall contained a large fireplace, usually located along the exterior wall for cooking, along with a staircase to the upper level and built-in storage cupboards. The two smaller rooms, used as an office, sitting room, or bedroom, were heated by a separate fireplace, often built into an exterior side wall, with a single window typically illuminating each room.
The beautifully restored interior still retains its eighteenth-century character. As you tour the home, you can see the original oak timbers, pine woodwork and floorboards, hand-beaded ceiling joists, and even a few original glass windows. With every step, the gentle squeak of the floorboards offers a tangible echo of the past, whispering the many stories these walls can tell.
Alexander Dickson and his wife Elizabeth moved into the home in 1839. They had ten children, with Dickson descendants living in the home until around 1927. The Dickson family lived in the home, and also ran a gristmill, a store, blacksmith shop and occasionally sold furniture including a walnut chest. When they originally purchased the farm in 1839 it had 575 acres.
The hardships of the war and some poor investments by the Dickson’s forced them to sell 475 acres in 1863. They retained the remaining 100 acres and continued working their farm and other businesses on the property.
And while their stories of life in the mid-1800s and the midst of a Civil War no doubt could fill the pages of a book, with stories of hope and heartache…what catapulted this family and their home into history comes down to a fateful few weeks in mid to late April 1865.
After the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, fell on April 3, 1865, President Jefferson Davis initially ordered General Joseph Johnston to continue fighting in the Deep South. However, the situation became untenable when General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox on April 9th, 1865. Faced with this reality, Davis finally agreed to issue orders for Johnston to seek terms with General William T. Sherman.
Tragically, it was during this very time, while Sherman prepared for his anticipated negotiations with Johnston, that President Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth. The news of this tragedy must have struck Sherman profoundly. It certainly could have further exacerbated tensions and derailed the peace process, but thankfully, both commanders remained committed to ending the fighting.
Sherman had set up his headquarters in Raleigh. Johnston, traveling by train from Tennessee to the Hillsborough area (about forty miles west of Raleigh), strategically selected the Alexander Dickson House as his temporary headquarters due to its proximity to the crucial rail line between Greensboro and Raleigh.
- Raleigh surrendered to Sherman without a shot fired. Lore says that the only chicken in Raleigh during the time of the surrender was the Rooster atop of Christ Church in Downtown Raleigh. You can read more about the surrender of Raleigh on April 13th (one day before Lincoln’s assassination) in this article from WRAL
It was decided the negotiations would commence at Bennett Place (sometimes called Bennit) farmstead, located roughly halfway between Raleigh and Hillsborough in Durham County.
According to Dickson family tradition, a charming incident occurred just before Johnston rode out to the first meeting. Realizing he lacked a proper sign of peace, the General politely requested that Mrs. Dickson help him furnish a white flag. Finding her bedsheets unfit and much of their cloth already used for bandages to nurse the war wounded, she ultimately gave the General her husband’s clean, white shirt—a personal, humanizing detail from the Civil War’s final days.
The first meeting between General William T. Sherman and General Joseph E. Johnston occurred on April 17. General Wade Hampton, frustrated by the situation, is said to have remained outside Bennett Place, initially wishing to continue the fight rather than negotiate. The generals did not immediately agree to terms, instead working out the details over a nine-day period, concluding the final agreement on April 26.
During this time, General Joseph E. Johnston and General Wade Hampton stayed at the Dickson House. According to the Dicksons, Johnston slept in their detached office building. This building is also located on the visitor center grounds, allowing visitors to truly connect with this pivotal history.
The formal surrender by the Confederates occurred on April 26, 1865. General Johnston surrendered not only the 32,000 men camped nearby but also most of the Confederate forces in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida—totaling close to 90,000 men. It was the largest surrender of the war. For many Confederate soldiers on the Dickson farm, their last memory of the area was the chiming of the Hillsborough town clock as they withdrew toward Greensboro to lay down their arms.
In an unexpected twist of fate, Johnston and Sherman became close friends after the war. Johnston devoted himself to rebuilding efforts and was even asked to serve as a pallbearer at Sherman’s funeral—a moving gesture that demonstrated how a shared focus on peace, even after the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history, helped both the North and South to heal.
While many still fear ‘Sherman’s wrath’ as he marched through the South, it’s worth noting he had spent many years living and working there, including serving as superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning (the precursor to LSU) in the South. He believed that the destruction of infrastructure would ultimately lessen the loss of lives on the battlefield, arguing that property could be rebuilt. However, his furious March continues to spark terror in the minds of many, even to this day.
In researching this post, I truly enjoyed finding an account of the Dickson family’s life and war memories from the grandson of Alexander Dickson. What is interesting is that as I read his essay, I initially assumed it was a modern-day piece by a distant descendant. I discovered this gentleman was actually born on the Dickson farm and heard these stories first-hand from his Aunt Nannie and other family members. Click to read his fascinating account here.
Another interesting link is from Open Orange that provides photos of the original house location and how it was moved to its current location.
History surrounds the Alexander Dickson House, across the street is the Colonial Reed’s Ordinary Building (more in an upcoming post) as well as the nearby Old Orange County Courthouse.
You can also drive to the original home site, which is now part of a shopping center called Hampton Pointe Shopping Area (named after Wade Hampton). Here you’ll find a historical marker denoting Johnston and Hampton’s last encampment at the Alexander Dickson House.
The Alliance for Historic Hillsborough has a wonderful page dedicated to the history of the Alexander Dickson House
Thanks for taking this historical journey with us…Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog for more upcoming posts on Hillsborough and beyond!
Hi, I’m Adele Lassiter, the travel enthusiast behind American Nomad Traveler. This is where I share my love for history, cool museums, art, and travel tips. When I’m not writing, I’m a singer-songwriter with a passion for Americana music. You can find my new album here: adelelassiter.bandcamp.com
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