John Dickinson (1732–1808) was born in Talbot County, Maryland, grew up in Kent County, Delaware, and studied law at the Middle Temple in London before practising in Philadelphia. He sat in the assemblies of both Delaware and Pennsylvania, drafted the declaration of the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, and in the Continental Congress wrote the Olive Branch Petition of 1775. In July 1776 he argued that independence was premature and did not sign the Declaration, yet he served in the militia and prepared the first draft of the Articles of Confederation. He later served as president of Delaware and of Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council, represented Delaware at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, signed the Constitution, and defended it in the Letters of Fabius; Dickinson College in Carlisle bears his name.
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania is a series of twelve public letters that John Dickinson printed in the Pennsylvania Chronicle beginning with the issue of November 30–December 3, 1767, and continuing weekly into February 1768. Writing as a modest farmer settled near the Delaware River, a man of small estate, a good library and a contented mind, Dickinson addressed his countrymen in the British colonies about the measures Parliament had passed in 1767 under Charles Townshend.
