Dick, Thomas (fl. 1760s)

Birthplace:

Unknown

Residences:

  • Brunswick, North Carolina

Trades:

  • Carpenter/Joiner

Styles & Forms:

Georgian

Thomas Dick (fl. 1760s), carpenter, is the only builder identified as having worked in Brunswick, the prominent but short-lived colonial port on the Cape Fear River. In 1762 he was mentioned as a carpenter “who wrought at his excellency the Governor’s” a large two-story house with broad piazzas—evidently Governor Arthur Dobbs’s house, Russellborough, which was later inhabited and described by Governor William Tryon. In 1762 Dick undertook completion of the roof of St. Philip’s Church, the imposing brick church now preserved as a ruin at Brunswick Town State Historic Site. Thomas Dick was listed in tax records in Brunswick and New Hanover counties from 1762 through 1769. There was more than one man in the colony by this name. One was a loyalist whose lands were confiscated and sold; another served in the American Revolution and subsequently lived in South Carolina. Probably still another Thomas Dick appeared in Guilford County in the 1790s and later. Which (if any) of these was the colonial carpenter is not known.

  • Catherine W. Bishir, North Carolina Architecture (1990).
  • Robert J. Cain, ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina, Volume 6 (1981).
Sort Building List by:
  • Russellborough

    Contributors:
    Thomas Dick, carpenter/joiner
    Dates:

    Ca. 1760

    Location:
    Brunswick Town, Brunswick County
    Street Address:

    Brunswick, NC

    Status:

    No longer standing

    Type:

    Residential


  • St. Philip's Church

    Contributors:
    Thomas Dick, carpenter/joiner (1762, roof)
    Dates:

    1754-1768

    Location:
    Brunswick Town, Brunswick County
    Street Address:

    Brunswick, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Religious

    Images Published In:

    Catherine W. Bishir, North Carolina Architecture (1990).
    Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern, A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Eastern North Carolina (1996).
    Frances Benjamin Johnston and Thomas Tileston Waterman, The Early Architecture of North Carolina (1941).

    Note:

    Under construction for many years, the large brick church was the grandest in the colony and featured a broad Venetian window. It was burned in 1776 and has been stabilized as a ruin at Brunswick Town State Historic Site.


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