William H. Dix (8 July 1806–3 August 1891), member of the Convention of 1864, was the son of George M. Dix, an Accomack County farmer, and his first wife, whose maiden name was Hickman. His mother died while he was young, and he grew up under the care of two successive stepmothers. On 28 October 1828 Dix executed a bond and on that date or soon afterward married Susan Rayfield, also of Accomack County. Before her death from consumption on 8 February 1876, they had six daughters and two sons.
Through inheritance and purchase, by the end of 1860 Dix had acquired almost 283 acres of Accomack County land, which he farmed. In that year he reported to the census taker a value of $7,000 for his real and personal property, which included one adult female slave and three enslaved boys age five or younger. In addition, in 1858 his wife inherited from her father the terms of service of two adult slaves, on condition that they be emancipated after two and eight years, respectively, and two enslaved children, on condition that they be freed when they reached age thirty.
Dix won election to four-year terms on the Accomack County Court in 1852, 1856, and 1860. He regularly participated in court and county business, including processioning the boundaries of the Accomack Parish precinct. After the Civil War began, Dix joined the other county justices of the peace on 30 September 1861 in swearing a prescribed oath of allegiance to the Confederate States Constitution. United States forces occupied the Eastern Shore in November 1861, and the governor of the loyalist Restored government meeting in Wheeling called for new elections for local officers in Accomack and Northampton Counties late in January 1862. In the new polling, Dix retained his seat on the court for the term ending in August 1864. He won reelection to a final four-year term in July 1864.
During the Civil War, Dix continued his routine county service. In February 1862 he was named an election commissioner for News Town (later Centerville) when the Restored governor ordered elections on the Eastern Shore to determine local opinion on the annexation of Accomack and Northampton Counties to Maryland and also to choose a member of the United States House of Representatives for the First District. The referendum on annexation may never have been held. Later that year the county court recommended Dix as a coroner, and in September 1863 it appointed him a county commissioner in chancery.
On 21 January 1864 Accomack County voters elected Dix to a convention that met from 13 February until 11 April 1864 to revise the state constitution. He joined sixteen other delegates from the cities and counties of northern and eastern Virginia then under United States control at the meeting in Alexandria, the seat of the Restored government since August 1863. Although named ranking member of the Committee on the Legislative Department, Dix made no formal remarks during the recorded proceedings. He voted on 10 March for the abolition of slavery and on 4 April with the minority who favored submitting the constitution to the voters for ratification, rather than proclaiming it in force. Dix voted for adoption of the final version of the constitution on 7 April, but along with the other two Eastern Shore representatives he did not sign the document the following day, possibly to protest the convention's decision to proclaim the constitution in effect without referral to the electorate but perhaps because they had already departed Alexandria and set out for home. The new constitution recognized the creation of West Virginia as a separate state, provided funding for primary and free schools, required voting by paper ballot for state officers and members of the General Assembly, and reduced from five to three the number of judges on the Supreme Court of Appeals. Initially its authority extended only to areas controlled by the United States, but after the fall of the Confederacy the constitution became effective for all of Virginia in May 1865.
Dix did not seek election to the constitutional convention called in 1867 to comply with federal Reconstruction legislation. He continued farming near Parksley into the 1880s. William H. Dix died at his Accomack County home on 3 August 1891 and was buried in a family cemetery nearby.
Sources Consulted:
Birth date and father identified on gravestone inscription in Mary Frances Carey with Moody K. Miles III and Barry W. Miles, comps., Tombstone Inscriptions of Upper Accomack County, Virginia (1995), 106; middle name possibly Hickman and possibly adopted after maternal grandfather's death; Accomack Co. Marriage Bonds; Accomack Co. Circuit Court Order Book (1860–1862), 84, 462, 484, 488, and (1862–1865), 10, 194, 346, 355; convention election certificate in Francis Harrison Pierpont Executive Papers (1861–1865), Accession 36928, Record Group 3, Library of Virginia; Journal of the Constitutional Convention Which Convened at Alexandria on the 13th Day of February, 1864 (1864), 8, 18, 47, 48; Onancock Eastern Shore News, 21 Apr. 1950, 17 May 1951; Accomack Co. Will Book (1882–1901), 210–211; death notice in Accomac Court House Peninsula Enterprise, 8 Aug. 1891 (p. 3).
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Sara B. Bearss.
How to cite this page:
Sara B. Bearss,"William H. Dix (1806–1891)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2016 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Dix_William_H, accessed [today's date]).
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