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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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DICKISON, CHARLES MORAN (1872-1956)

DICKISON, CHARLES MORAN, optician and drug store operator; b. Tabusintac, 12 Sep 1872, s/o Daniel Dickison and Louisa Ann Fowler; m. 1896, Nellie Violet Williston, d/o James Williston and Elizabeth McKenzie, of Tabusintac and Douglastown; d. Newcastle, 26 Apr 1956.

When he was a boy Charles M. Dickison's parents moved to Chatham, where his father was employed as a teamster. At age fourteen he became a clerk in the drug store of J. D. B. Fraser Mackenzie. Twelve years later, in 1898, he took a job in a store which the druggist H. D. Peters opened in Newcastle, and when Peters sold the business in 1900 he remained to work for his successor, Albert E. Shaw. While he was a drug store clerk he developed an interest in optics and undertook the studies required to obtain a diploma from the Canadian College of Optics in Saint John in 1905. The next year, "C. M. Dickison, optician, and A. E. Shaw, druggist" were in partnership in Newcastle.

Dickison severed his relationship with Shaw several years before Shaw departed for the United States and formed a partnership instead with the young Newcastle druggist John H. Troy. Dickison & Troy opened a new store in 1910, and the two remained in business until shortly before Troy's death. Other short-term business partnerships followed until 1921, when Dickison joined with his sons Charles D. Dickison, a registered pharmacist, and LeRoy W. Dickison in founding the firm of C. M. Dickison & Sons, druggists and opticians. Another son, Albert E. S. Dickison, opened a branch store in Doaktown in 1924.

Between 1907 and 1917 Dickison was Newcastle's volunteer fire chief. In his active years he was also a town councillor and a member of the Masonic order, the United Church choir, and the Newcastle Band. "His slim, erect figure was a familiar and welcome sight at Dickison's until he retired," in 1953, at age eighty-one. Two of his sons predeceased him, but his son C. D. Dickison continued to conduct the business until the family's interest in it was sold in 1966.

Sources

[b] church records [m] PPMP [d] Leader 4 May 1956 / Advocate 9 Aug 1905, 27 Apr 1920, 15 Feb 1921; Leader 6 Jul 1906 (ad), 18 Mar 1910, 6 Jul 1956; News 14 Jan 1981; World 10 Nov 1917


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