Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation

MSS 16311, Alfred E.Dickinson letters, Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia

Immediate Source of Acquisition

This collection was purchased from Jeffrey Rovernor, by the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia on April, 2017.

Biographical / Historical

Alfred Elijah Dickinson, born in December 1830, in Orange County, Virginia. At an early age he entered Richmond College, from which he graduated and then attended the University of Virginia for special courses. While in Charlottesville, he became interested in the Baptist church and became its pastor. Later he became superintendent of the Sunday school and colportage work of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, and the Army of Northern Virginia. In his nine years in this position, he organized many new Sunday schools, strengthened those already in existence, enlarged their libraries, and improved their facilities for work. He formed a partnership with Dr. J. B. Jeter for the purchase of the "Religious Herald." More than half of his life was spent in his editorial career and he was considered the "dean of Baptist editors in the whole world." He also became the pastor fo the Leigh Street Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia. This biography is based on information from the Encylopedia of Virginia Biography Volume III, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, LL. D.

Scope and Contents

Alfred E.Dickinson letters, April 2017, 0.03 cubic feet, are a collection of letters by a Richmond pastor and editor of the noted Baptist newspaper, "The Religious Herald." The letters are written to J. H. Cogshill, a New York based Richmond College graduate, soliciting donations and discussing the purposes to which those donatons are put to use (printing tracts for distribution, helping the rural poor and orphans, etc..)