The
Hicks Family and Me
Norman L. Hicks
The Hicks Ancestors
Robert
Hicks arrived at Plymouth Mass. on
November 11, 1621, on the ship
Fortune, the second ship to reach the
new colony after the Mayflower.
Originally Robert was to sail with the
Mayflower on the
Speedwell,
but this ship proved unseaworthy and he had to delay his departure until 1621
.
As a result Robert missed the first
Thanksgiving by about two weeks. He was a leather dresser from Bermondsey, Southwark,
near London.
His father, James Hicks,
was lineally descended from Ellis Hicks, who was knighted by Edward, the Black
Prince on the battlefield of Poitiers in 1356 for bravery in capturing a set of
colors from the French. From Ellis Hicks comes the family coat of arms, and the
family motto
Nondum metam, “not yet
the goal”
. A
picture of Ellis Hicks, at age 90, was still hanging in Witcombe Hall in 1909,
the home of Sir William Hicks-Beach.
Margaret Winslow, the wife of
Robert, and their children, arrived on the ship
Anne, which arrived at Plymouth during the latter part of June,
1622.
The family settled in Plymouth and Duxbury
,
Mass. Robert was a friend of Miles Standish, among others
.
At the time of his death, he was living on
land originally owned by John Alden. Robert had five children by his first
wife, Elizabeth Morgan, and four by his second wife, Margaret Winslow.
John, the son of
Robert and Elizabeth was educated at Oxford
and followed his father to Massachusetts in 1635. John Hicks married four
times.
His first wife was Horod or
Herodias Long.
Horod, became an ardent
Quaker and she and John separated and divorced in Rhode Island. She subsequently
remarried to George Gardiner in a Quaker ceremony. On May 11, Horod was
traveling as a nursing mother from Newport to Weymouth to give religious
testimony.
She was arrested and jailed on
the charge of adultery, as Quaker marriages were not recognized in
Massachusetts. She was then sentenced by Gov. John Endicott to receive ten
lashes and 14 more days in jail. The Puritans, having been victims of religious
persecution, were quick also to deal in it. At the end, after the punishment
had been carried out, the record showed that Horod kneeled down and prayed the
Lord to forgive Gov. Endicott.
In 1642, John Hicks migrated to
Hempstead, Long Island. His son Thomas(b. 1640) had twelve children, and the
majority of old Long Island Hickses are descended from this family. Thomas’ son
Jacob was a captain in the revolutionary war, and the grandfather of Elias
Hicks (1748-1830) the famous Quaker preacher. Several of Jacob’s children
joined the Society of Friends.
Thomas’ son Isaac moved to New York, and became a very successful merchant and
commission agent, engaging in trade with Europe and up and down the American
coast
. After
amassing a considerable fortune, he moved to Westbury where he built a large
house and became more directly involved with the affairs of the Westbury
Meeting. Isaac is my direct ancestor. His son James would be my
great-great-great grandfather.
During the Revolutionary War, the
Hickses were on both sides, and in the middle as well.
Devout Quakers refused to fight for
independence, causing animosity with their neighbors. Many were Tories who
supported the Crown.
However, there were
those who were either not Quakers or not so devout that did support the
cause.
One of these was John Hicks, descended
from a brother of Robert Hicks.
He
participated in the Boston Tea Party. He lived in Cambridge and responded to
the call to arms issued at Lexington, April 19, 1775, even though he was fifty
years old at the time. He was engaged in delaying the advance of the British by
removing the planks from the main bridge over the Charles River.
With others from the town, he set up an
ambush for the retreating British troops, but were surprised when the British
outflanked them
. He was
shot dead on the corner of Massachusetts and Rindge Avenues, along with two
companions.
A monument exists today
marking the spot.
Jacob was also the forefather of
Henry Hicks, the founder of Hicks Nurseries in Westbury, which has been in
business for about 148 years.
Theodore
Roosevelt’s wife ordered plants from Hicks’ Nurseries, and the receipt can be
seen today at the house on Sagamore Hill, which is today a national park.
Thomas’ son John apparently had three sons
who left Long Island and settled in Granville County, North Carolina.
As a result, Hickses from the same ancestors were
found on both sides of the civil war, although many Long Island Hickses, being
Quaker, did not fight.
The strong Quaker belief in
abolition, however, meant that many Quakers participated in the “underground
railway” which helped runaway slaves escape to Canada and Nova Scotia. One
important stop on this system was the “Old Place” in Westbury, on Post Ave.
This house, which was built in 1695, was then
owned by Joseph and Lydia Hicks, and their children recount the secret comings
and goings at night which were later revealed to be their parents feeding and
sheltering runaway slaves. The house still stands, but is no longer in the
Hicks family.
 |
Elias Hicks, Quaker preacher, and abolitionist.
Hero to the young Walt Whitman |
Elias Hicks was a popular preacher,
and attracted many large audiences. Walt
Whitman’s parents took him to hear Elias when he was a boy. Walt was 10 at the
time and Elias was 81, and a year from his death. Nevertheless, the power of
Elias preaching made an indelible mark on young Walt, who noted that in the end
“Many, very many, were in tears”.
His teaching eventually led to a split in the Society of Friends, with Elias’
followers known as a the liberal wing or “Hicksite” Quakers. His emphasis was
on the “Inward Light”, and the idea that the “entire work and process of
salvation is within man”. In Whitman’s words, “Elias [speaks] to the
religion inside of man’s own nature. This he incessantly labors to kindle,
nourish, educate, bring forward and strengthen.” Elias
fought hard against slavery and was instrumental in finally having it abolished
in New York State. He traveled widely up and down the East Coast, preaching
abolition and reform. Many of the traditional Quaker meetings branded him as a
heretic, and refused to hear him. Most Long Island Quakers were “Hicksite”. Elias’
house is now the Milleridge Inn in Jericho. Elias married a first cousin once
removed, Sarah Hicks. Elias’ father and Sarah’s grandfather were brothers. Elias
and his family were known to provide unlimited hospitality to travelers, a
service for which they did not charge.
Another famous Hicks is Edward
Hicks (1780-1849), the painter, known particularly for his rendition of “The
Peaceable Kingdom”, a painting which he produced some 80 times.
He is now considered one of the best
primitive painters of the 19
th century, although he was largely
forgotten and only rediscovered in the 20
th. Edward was also a
descendent of Isaac Hicks and a cousin of Elias and Valentine Hicks. His grandfather,
Gilbert, was Isaac Hicks’ son.
Gilbert was a Tory, and fled with the British to Nova Scotia at the end of the
Revolutionary War.
Edward was raised in
Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he became a Quaker, and worked a decorator of
carriages and maker of signs. He also toured as a Quaker preacher.
Elias’s daughter Abigail married
Valentine Hicks in 1804.
Valentine and
Abigail were
second cousins, as Abigail’s grandfather John Hicks, and Valentine’s grandfather Benjamin Hicks, were brothers, sons of Jacob Hicks.
Valentine
and his family lived in a large house in the middle of Jericho, which is now
the Maine Maid Inn. In 1837 he was elected second president of the Long Island
Rail Road, and was influential in bringing the railroad out to Long Island. Valentine
purchased large amounts of land in mid-Long Island, and formed the Hicksville
Land Association which laid out streets and sold lots. Apparently, there was
some debate on the route to be taken, some favoring a more northerly route to
Oyster Bay.
Valentine preferred the
plains route, which would eventually link to Greenport and provide a connection
to Boston, avoiding the hills of Connecticut. He persisted in his version,
which took the railroad to the middle of Long Island, and coincidently to land
which he owned.
In
March, 1837 the Long Island Rail Road station was opened with the name
“Hicksville”, probably in his honor, although there are some who claim the
reference was to Elias and the Hicksite Quakers. For a number of years the
railroad ended in Hicksville until it was eventually extended all the way to
Greenport, which was reached in 1844. The trip from New York to Boston could be
done in ten hours, including a two hour ferry ride across Long Island
Sound.
However, four years later a rival
railroad succeeded in building a more direct line along the Connecticut shore,
and the LIRR lost its New York – Boston business.
The town of Hicksville, despite the
railroad, remained fairly dormant in its first years.
In 1849 Frederick Heyne and John Heitz
purchased over 1,000 acres in the Hicksville area, laid out streets and sold
home sites. In 1850, the first public school was erected, and a Lutheran church
was established.
A post office was
established in 1855, and the cornerstone for a Catholic church laid in 1859.
.
My Family
Our family is descended from
Thomas’ third son Isaac (1676-1745, see annex for complete family tree). The
famous Hickses such as Elias, Valentine, Edward and Henry are not my
“ancestors”, since I am not descended from them. However, we all have common
roots in Robert Hicks, and his son John, and his son Thomas. My grandfather was
James K. Hicks (1845-1919) who was a blacksmith and postmaster in Jericho, NY.
James had three wives, five children by the first, none by the second, and
seven by the last (Annie Lawrence). Of the children of Annie Lawrence was my
father, Norman Lee Hicks, born on July 4, 1898. I remember him telling me that
Theodore Roosevelt would ride down to Jericho from Sagamore Hill to have his
horses shod at his father’s shop.
My father drove a team of horses to
deliver food for the local general store, although the story goes that he also
spent a lot of time visiting his girlfriends in the process. He seems to have
learned the carpentry trade from his brother Harry, after leaving school after
the eighth grade. In 1917, at the age of 18, he joined the US Army, and became
a member of the 7
th Engineers, 5
th Division.
 |
| Young Norman Hicks Sr. in uniform. 1917. |
He served in
France at St. Mihiel and in the Meuse-Argonne theatres. While he worked as an engineer on bridges and roads, he also served as a
motorcycle dispatch rider. He mentioned to me that he would often get vague
instructions on what direction to take in “No-Mans Land”, and would go in the a
general direction until he heard the sentries speaking German. Then he would
turn around and go the other way.
He returned home in
1919.
He met my mother, a Catholic, and
they were eventually married in 1927. By
this time he was an accomplished carpenter, and before the marriage borrowed
money from his future mother-in-law to build a house, which still stands at 34 Park
Ave in Hicksville. My father was not a
practicing Quaker, and my mother was a strong Catholic who insisted that any
children be raised Catholic. This dispute
delayed the wedding until my father finally consented. He never attended at
church services, with the rare exception on an occasional Christmas service. My
mother would take us all to church on Sunday, and my father stayed home. After
a series of heart attacks, he died in 1953 at age 55.
They had three children; Phyllis
(1930), Jeannine (1933) and me, Norman (1939).
During the Depression there was little work for my father and he worked
only 1-2 days per week. As a traditional
American, he refused to go on welfare.
As a means of making ends meet, my mother rented out the house on Park
Ave., first moving the family in with her mother in the old farm house on Old
Country Road (now a Marriott Hotel), and eventually to other rented houses
including one in Port Chester, NY. When
I was born in 1939, we had returned to the house in Hicksville, but my father
was working in Maryland, coming back home every two weeks. In fact, he did not
go visit my mother in the hospital when I was born until very late in the day,
on account he had to set out his zinnias before leaving. When I plant zinnias in the spring, I think
of this.
My mother, born Eleanor Wesnofske in 1904, was raised on farm on Old Country Road. While initially a general farm, it eventually specialized in potatoes. She was one of ten children, five boys and five girls. Four of the boys also became potato farmers, and one a potato wholesaler. She went to eight years of school, like my father, and then one year of commercial training in Brooklyn. When she met my father, she was working at the Seaman and Eisemann Insurance agency in Hicksville, a job she eventually returned to after my father’s death.
My father worked as a carpenter, but later in life primarily as a carpentry foreman and construction job superintendent. At about 1950 he announced that his new job would pay him $100 per week, considered by everyone a substantial salary. He worked primarily on large construction projects, such as high schools and factories. During the war he worked on the addition/construction of the Grumman Aircraft Corporation. My father died in 1953 from a heart attack, at age 55. He had suffered a series of attacks prior to this, and collapsed at work in Oceanside. His death had a profound impact on the family, and while we got by, it was not the same as the previous decade of good times.
My Life
Growing up in Hicksville at that time was very pleasant. It was a small community of 5,000 surrounded by farms although after 1948 the farms disappeared and were replaced by housing developments. During the summer time, we had a choice of beaches, either the ocean or the Long Island Sound. When not in school we would occupy our time playing baseball, football and even croquet. Making and flying model airplanes was a hobby we all enjoyed. When I was a teenager I learned to sail, which was an opportunity for several adventures.
My grandfather Wesnofske died in 1947, and the family quickly sold off his farm land. The purchaser sold it a year later to Mr. Levitt, and the land became part of Levittown, or at least the Levitt development in Hicksville. The only mistake my mother’s family made was to listen to the dire predictions of the economists of that time that were predicting a return to the conditions of the Depression in the post-war era.
 |
Christmas in Hicksville, 1948:
From left: Norman Hicks , Sr, Norman Jr, Eleanor Wesnofske Hicks (mother), Jeannine Hicks (sister) and Phyllis Hicks (sister). |
In 1957 I graduated from Hicksville High School, and went for a brief period to Rensselaer Polytechnic in Troy, NY. Eventually I transferred to Hofstra (then College, now University), and graduated in January 1962 with a B.S. in economics and business. Part of my education was financed by my aunt, Hannah Hicks Spiro, who was my father’s sister. After working for nine months at the Nassau County Planning Commission, I went on to graduate school at the University of Maryland and emrolled in the Ph.D. program in economics. I choose Maryland principally because they gave me a teaching assistantship which paid my tuition and gave me an annual stipend of $2000 per year. That, combined with savings and summer jobs, was enough to survive, just barely.
I finished my studies at Maryland, and took a position with the Nassau-Suffolk Planning Commission in Hauppauge, New York. I agreed to work for a low salary on condition I be given time and data to work on my dissertation, which I completed in September of 1967. I eventually received my degree in January 1968 I lived at home between January and August, 1966, at which time Ann Marie and I were married in Plains, Pa., and moved to an apartment in St. James, New York.
We left St. James in 1967, having received an offer to work with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Accra, Ghana in West Africa. After some orientation in Washington, DC, we arrived in Ghana in early 1968. I worked as an economist in the resident mission, while Ann Marie taught school at the newly established Lincoln School in Accra, a school she helped to found. We returned to the United States via Europe in 1970, where I took up a position in the World Bank. While at the Bank I worked on countries such as Pakistan and the Philippines, did research, and spent 10 years working on Latin America. We settled in Annandale Va., and Ann Marie gave birth to our first child, Norman Alexander (“Sander”) in February, 1971. Over the years we adopted three more children: Lee Ann, Mary Elizabeth, and Kenneth James. In 1977, we moved to a house in Falls Church Va., and I continued working for the World Bank, until formally retired in 2003.
Norman Lee Hicks
3602 Bent Branch Ct.
Falls Church, Va.
January 19, 2016
Nhicks4 [at] cox.net
Hicks Family Tree:
Ellis Hicks (b. 1315)
John of Totworth
Thomas
(1445)
John Hicks of
Totworth and Margaret Atwood had
Thomas
of Totworth (b. 1475)
John
(1477)
Richard
(1480)
Thomas Hicks of
Totworth and Joan Darney had
John
(1500)
Baptist
(1526)
Baptist Hicks and Nancy Everard
had:
Baptist
(1548)
James
(1550)
Mary
(1555)
James Hicks and Phebe Allyne had:
John
(1574)
Ephraim
(1576)
Mary
(1578)
Robert
(1580)
Samuel
(1582)
Thomas
(1585)
Phebe
(1587)
Lydia
(1589)
James
(1590)
Robert Hicks
married, first, Elizabeth Morgan had:
Elizabeth
(b. 1600)
Thomas
(1603)
John
(1607)
Stephen
(1609)
Sarah
(1607?)
Robert Hicks married, second,
Margaret Winslow
had:
Samuel
(1612)
Ephraim
(1616)
Lydia
(1617)
Phebe
(1618)
John Hicks
married Horod (Herodias) Long and had:
Thomas
(1640)
Hannah
(1641)
Elizabeth
(1642)
Thomas
(1667)
Jacob
(1669)
Thomas Hicks married, second, Mary
Doughty and had:
Isaac
(1678)
John
(1679)
Benjamin
(1680)
Charles
(1683)
William
(1684)
Elizabeth
(1685)
Stephen
(1686)
Charity
(1688)
Phebe
(1689)
Mary
(1694)
Isaac Hicks married Elizabeth Moore
and had:
Charles
(1703)
Benjamin
(1705)
Gilbert
(1707)
Margaret (1708)
Henry
(1711)
John
(1716)
Isaac
(1717)
Edward
(1718)
Thomas
(1719)
James
(1722)
Mary
(1723)
James Hicks and Deborah Hicks had:
Stephen
(1755)
William
(1759)
William Hicks and Nancy McCord had:
Mary
(1784)
Deborah
(1787)
Stephen
(1789)
Sarah
(1771)
James
(1793)
William
(1795)
Charles
(1797)
Catherine
(1801)
Henry
(1805)
Martin
(1807)
Richard
(1809)
James and Hannah Tappen had:
John
J. (1834)
Catherine
W. (1837)
Elizabeth
(1839)
Caroline
(1840)
Charles
C. (1842)
James
K. (1845)
Adelaide
(1847)
James K. Hicks married, first,
Martha Russell and had:
Roy
(1869)
Daisy
(1876)
Irene
(1874)
Edna
(1872)
Charles
(1877)
James K. Hicks married, second,
Mary Weeks (no issue).
James K. Hicks married, third,
Annie Lawrence, and had:
Daniel
Lawrence (1887)
James
Knox (1888)
Edith
(1889)
Harry (1893)
Hannah
(1896)
Norman
(1898)
Annie
(1901)
Norman and Eleanor Wesnofske had:
Phyllis
(1930)
Jeannine
(1933)
Norman
Jr. (1939)
Norman and Ann Marie Wysocki had:
Norman
Alexander, later changed to Sander Elias (1971)
Lee
Ann (1974)
Mary
Beth (1976)
Kenneth
(1980)
Norman Alexander married Holley
Anderson, and had:
Coleman
Anderson (2005)
Lee Ann Hicks married Bruce MacNeil
and had:
Matthew
(1999)
Abigail
(2004)
Ella
(2005)
Shane
(2005)
Mary Beth Hicks married Carlos
Holloway and had:
Dominic
(2003)
Isaac
(2010)
