From: "Families of Dickerman Ancestry", 1897 by Edward Dwight Dickerman, p. 365
"Elliott Dickerman, the youngest child of the family, was left fatherless at the age of four. He was physically delicate but with a keen and active mind. At the age of seventeen he visited his brother in Illinois and induced to teach the winter at a district school. The county was rough then and so were the boys and there were several contests over who should rule, which he settled by the force of superior will.
Returning from the west, he attended school at Castleton Seminary, where he made a reputation as a poet by some graceful verses that he wrote. He engaged in the work of a colporteur and in other occupations until he entered the ministry, joining the Vermont Conference in 1856. He filled several appointments when his failing health obliged him to stop preaching for a time. Having a taste for machinery, he turned his attention that way and invented a clothes wringer. Going to Connecticut to dispose of the patent, he found a man who had invented a similar machine, each having worked out his idea without knowing the other. The two machines were combined into the Universal Clothes Wringer and was manufactured at Middlefield, Conn., by a company, of which Mr. Dickerman was a member. This led to his removal with his family to that place. Here he preached occasionally, and after a while regularly, for three or four years. Being greatly interested in temperance reform, he bought and edited a paper which was published in Hartford under the name of the State Temperance Journal. Just at this time the state branch of the Prohibition Party was started and he assisted in it with enthusiasm. This was his last butlic work. He was first a Whig, then a Republican and last a Prohibitionist. He was an unusually conscientious man, with a clear perception of right and wrong, and unwavering determination to follow what he thought to be his duty regardless of consequences. As his ideass were progressive, this somtimes led him where most would fear to tread. After a short illness he died proving in his death the efficacy of the truth he had preached."

The above mentions that he visted his brother (my ancestor, NELSON DICKERMAN) and taught in an Illinois rural school. "History of Greene Co., Ill." p. 915 states that "Mr. Dickerman" and others taught and trained youths of the growing town [Greenfield, Ill.] in the mysteries of the three R;s until 1844".

He is found in the 1850 North Haven, New Haven Co., Conn. Census working as a mechanic, age 27, born in Vermont.

He was the son of my ancestors, LYMAN and ABIGAIL (BUTTON) DICKERMAN and he married Nancy Mosher on Feb. 16, 1855 in Royalton, Vermont. They were the parents of:
1. Frank b. Oct. 24, 1856 in Brookfield, VT.
2. Addie Nancy b. Jan. 13, 1859 in Morristown, Vermont
3. Allen Elsworth b. July 13, 1861 in Middlefield, Conn.
4. Arthur Lyman b. April, 1867, d. Feb., 1871