The late John Boynton Dixon, of Geneva, an expert tile and brickmaker, and the inventor of valuable improvements in the manufacture of clay products, belonged to an English family which for upwards of a century was identified with that business, both in England and America. His grandfather, James Dixon, a gallant soldier in the British army, holding the rank of sergeant, had the honor of serving tinder the renowned Duke of Wellington, and participated in the famous battle of Waterloo, which decided the fate of Europe and effectually terminated the imperial aspirations of the greatest military dictator of modern times. The sabre which he carried in that memorable struggle is now (1910) in the possession of his grandson’s widow.
Upon his retirement from the army Sergeant James Dixon returned to his home in Rellington, England, and engaged in the manufacture of tile and brick. Physically strong and active, he nearly rounded out a full century, dying at the unusually advanced age of ninety-nine years. His wife, who is now (1910) only known to her descendants in this country as Dame Dixon, was a woman of excellent character and superior intellectual attainments, who conducted a school for girls in Rellington. She lived to be eighty years old.