The Hicks Family.
In the home at Jericho the children of Elias Hicks were born. Touching
his family we have this bit of interesting information from Elias Hicks
himself:
"My wife, although not of a very strong constitution, lived to be the
mother of eleven children, four sons and seven daughters. Our second
daughter, a very lovely promising child, died when young with the
small pox, and the youngest was not living at its birth. The rest
all arrived to years of discretion, and afforded us considerable
comfort, as they proved to be in a good degree dutiful children. All
our sons, however, were of weak constitutions, and were not able to
take care of themselves, being so enfeebled as not to be able to
walk after the ninth year of their age. The two eldest died in the
fifteenth year of their age, the third in his seventeenth year, and
the youngest was nearly nineteen when he died. But, although thus
helpless, the innocency of their lives, and the resigned cheerfulness
of their dispositions to their allotments, made the labour and toil
of taking care of them agreeable and pleasant; and I trust we were
preserved from murmuring or repining, believing the dispensation to
be in wisdom, and according to the will and gracious disposing of an
all-wise providence, for purposes best known to himself. And when I
have observed the great anxiety and affliction, which many parents
have with undutiful children who are favoured with health, especially
their sons, I could perceive very few whose troubles and exercises,
on that account, did not far exceed ours. The weakness and bodily
infirmity of our sons tended to keep them much out of the way of the
troubles and temptations of the world; and we believed that in their
death they were happy, and admitted into the realms of peace and joy;
a reflection, the most comfortable and joyous that parents can have
in regard to their tender offspring."[49]
[49] Journal, p. 14.
The children thus referred to by their father were the following:
Martha, born in 1771. She married Royal Aldrich, and died in 1862, at
the advanced age of ninety-one. She was a widow for about twenty years.
David was born in 1773, and died in 1787. Elias, the second son, was
born in 1774, and died the same year as his brother David. Elizabeth
was born in 1777, and died in 1779. This is the daughter who had the
small pox. There are no records telling whether the other members of
the family had the disease, or how this child of two years became a
victim of the contagion.
Phebe, the third daughter, was born in 1779. She married Joshua
Willets, as noted in the last chapter.
Abigail, who married Valentine Hicks, a nephew of Elias, was born in
1782. She died Second month 26, 1850, while her husband passed away the
5th of Third month of the same year, just one week after the death of
his wife.
Jonathan, the third son, was born in 1784, and passed away in 1802. His
brother, John, was born in 1789, and died in 1805.
Elizabeth, evidently named for her little sister, was born in 1791,
and lived to a good old age. She passed away in 1871. She was never
married, and occasionally accompanied her father on his religious
visits. She was known in the neighborhood, in her later years at least,
as "Aunt Elizabeth," and is the best-remembered of any of the children
of Elias Hicks. As the Friends remember her she was a spare woman,
never weighing over ninety pounds.
The youngest child of the family, Sarah, was born in 1793. She married
Robert Seaman, her kinsman, and died in 1835. Robert, her husband, died
in 1860.
It will be seen that the home at Jericho was a house acquainted with
grief. Of the ten children, Martha, David, Elias and little Elizabeth
made up the juvenile members of the household, up to the time of the
death of the latter. Phebe came the same year, while Abigail was born
three years later, so that there were at least four or five children
always gathered around the family board. Before the passing away
of Elias and David, the family had been increased by the birth of
Jonathan, making the children living at one time six. After the death
of the three older boys, and the birth of Elizabeth and Sarah, until
the death of John in 1805, living children were still six in number.
The five daughters, Martha, Phebe, Abigail, Elizabeth and Sarah all
outlived their parents.
Elias Hicks was undoubtedly a most affectionate father, as the
letters to his wife and children show. How much this was diluted by
the apparent sternness of his religious concerns is a matter for the
imagination to determine. What were the amusements of this large family
is an interesting question in this "age of the child," with its surfeit
of toys and games. What were the tasks of the girls it is not so hard
to answer. Of course they worked "samplers," pieced quilts, learned to
spin and knit, and possibly to weave, and to prepare the wool or flax
for the loom. If we read between the lines in the description of their
father, we can easily infer that the physically afflicted sons were
nevertheless not without the joys of boyhood.
At all events, if it was an afflicted family, it was also a united
one. It was a home where the parents were reverenced by the children,
and where there was a feeling of love, and a sense of loyalty. This
feeling is still characteristic of the descendants of Elias Hicks. It
is a sample of the persistence of the qualities of a strong man, in the
generations that come after him.
Of the four daughters of Elias Hicks who were married, but two had
children, so that the lineal descendants of the celebrated Jericho
preacher are either descendants of Martha Hicks, wife of Valentine,
or of Sarah Hicks Seaman. These two branches of the family are quite
numerous.[50]
[50] The descendants referred to will be given in their proper place in
the Appendix.
Of Jemima, the wife of Elias Hicks, little is known apart from the
correspondence of her husband, and that is considerable. That he
considered her his real help-meet, and had for her a lover's affection
to the end is abundantly attested by all of the facts. Dame Rumor, in
the region of Jericho, claims that she was her husband's intellectual
inferior, but that is an indefinite comparison worth very little. That
she was at some points his superior is undoubtedly true, and it must be
remembered that Elias himself, with all of his great natural ability,
lacked intellectual culture and literary training. Jemima was evidently
a good housekeeper, and manager of affairs. Before she had sons-in-law
with whom to advise, and even after that, the business side of the
family was a considerable part of the time in her hands. It is no small
matter to throw upon a woman, never robust, the responsibility of both
the mother and father of a family during the prolonged absence of the
husband.
The first long religious visit of Elias Hicks lasted ten weeks. At
that time there were four little people in the Hicks home, from
eight-year-old Martha to two-year-old Elizabeth, who died that
year, while Phebe was born after the return of her father from his
Philadelphia trip. Several of the other extended journeys were made
while the children of the family were of an age requiring care. Of
course this laid labor and responsibility on the wife and mother.
These she bore without complaining and, we may be sure, with executive
ability of no mean order.
It was a time when women were not expected to be either the
intellectual peers or companions of their husbands, and we cannot
justly apply the measurements and standards of to-day, to the women of
a century ago. Men of the Elias Hicks type, meeting their fellows in
public assemblies and ministering to them, traveling widely and forming
many friendships, whether in the Society of Friends or out of it, are
likely to be praised, if not petted, while their wives, less known,
labor on unappreciated. Such a woman was Jemima Hicks. To her, and all
like her, the lasting gratitude of the sons of men is due.