Daniel Dickson was born around 1831 in Pennsylvania to Robert Dickson and Alice Frazier. His father was a Scottish immigrant and a farmer who owned $4,800 of real estate and $800 of personal property in 1860. Dickson grew up and attended school in Meadville, Pennsylvania, before beginning work as a farmer. He moved to Ohio, Illinois, sometime in the 1850s and worked as a farm laborer there. He may have returned to Meadville sometime afterwards, and he died in 1868.