On the evening of April 3, 1871, John Dickinson was killed in Marianna, Florida by the Ku Klux Klan. Dickinson was a native of Benson.

A line officer with the Seventh Vermont Volunteers during the Civil War, Dickinson remained in the south after the war. He became Clerk of the District Court for Jackson County, Clerk of the Superior Court and Secretary of the Senate, all in Florida.

Being a Yank with influence in southern politics was the prime reason the Klan targetted Dickinson. He was first buried in Marianna, then disinterred and returned to Benson, where his funeral procession was the largest in the town’s history.

Image courtesy the Vermont Historical Society.