Cropped map of the Tick Creek area in Chatham County, North Carolina Revised July 1, 2018

The Dixons seemed to have one thing in common: every couple of generations they got the urge to explore, to move to the frontier and stake their claim on uninhabited land. William Dixon's parents or grandparents certainly did so, most likely as part of King James’ Plantation of Ireland. William and his sisters took the BIG leap and left for Penn’s Colony in the New World in 1689, even as William of Orange was landing in northeast Ireland with a large force that would eventually push King James’ Jacobite forces almost into the Atlantic! In the mid-1700’s William Dixon’s descendants moved to North Carolina and western Pennsylvania. In the early 1800’s they moved on again to Ohio just a few years after the NorthWest Territories were opened to settlers.

One byproduct of all this moving and exploring was that they were almost always on the outer edges of the normal channels of commerce. Thus, they were farmers. And one thing farmers both produce and consume in large quantites is grain! So it’s no surprise that wherever the Dixons roamed they built and operated mills.