William B. Dickson

When he was one, his family moved to Swissvale where his father was a partner in Dickson, Stewart and Company, a successful coal mine and lime kiln operator.

Dickson left school at age 11 and began working full time, first running errands for a lamp and glassware store in Pittsburgh for $3.00 per week.

In 1886, he was shifted to clerical work in the mills and, less exhausted at the end of the day, enrolled in Duff's Mercantile College in downtown Pittsburgh and studied bookkeeping and accounting.

Dickson moved his family to Montclair, New Jersey, where he bought a home on Llewellyn Road to which he added wings designed by New York architect Frank E. Wallis.

His portrait was painted by renowned American Impressionist William Merritt Chase in 1905 and was donated to the museum in 1976 by Dickson's children.

"They Shall Beat Their Swords into Plow-shares" is an anthem composed in 1934 by Mark Andrews and dedicated to Dickson, "a great lover of music and men."

Between 1902 and 1909, on a hilltop above the farm with views of Mount Lafayette and the Kinsman Ridge, he built Highland Croft, a stone and wood lodge with nine inter-connecting bedrooms.