#13 - Isaac Hicks of Hicks Nurseries And His Hobbies

 Isaac Hicks of Hicks Nurseries

Isaac Hicks, the grandson of the more famous Isaac Hicks from a previous post. For the Hicks lineage leading to him, see another post. Isaac was my maternal great grandmother’s grandfather, or, my 3rd great grandfather.

If he had any notoriety, he began the "Hicks Nurseries" of Westbury, NY, the oldest family-owned business on Long Island.

From the banner Hicks Nurseries website

Isaac Hicks

The Swarthmore College Friends Collection on the Hicks’ has this to say:
“Isaac, son of John D Hicks and Mary/Sarah Rushmore Hicks (grandson of Isaac and Sarah Hicks), founded the Hicks Nursery in 1853. Active in the Westbury (Friends) Monthly Meeting and other Quaker organizations.”

Isaac’s wife and my 3rd great grandmother was Mary Fry Willis (who will/is in Post #30).
Issac Hicks' Vitals:
Birth & Parents
Isaac Hicks (as was most of his family) was born, raised and died on Long Island, New York. 
~He was born March 7, 1815 and he died March 13, 1900. **Hinshaw says he was born August 8, 1815 and died in 1898. I'm pretty confident Hinshaw's date of death is incorrect.)

~His paternal grandfather was Isaac Hicks
~His parents were John Doughty Hicks [Sr] (1791-1829) and
Sarah R. Rushmore (1790-1893).
More about Sarah Rushmore in post #30. 

Marriage
~In 1836 Isaac Hicks married Mary Fry Willis (1817-1898), the daughter of John Willis &  Mary W Kirby (more on Mary Fry Willis in post #30)
CHILDREN:
Isaac and Mary Fry Willis had
~Gilbert Hicks  1838 – 1922
~Edward Hicks  1840 – 1920
~Marianna Hicks 27 Sep 1842-13 Aug 1915 m William E Hauxhurst/Hawxhurst
   (Marianna Hicks & William E Hawxhurst are my 2nd great grandparents)
~William C Hicks  1845 – 1846

Earning a Livelihood - Hicks Nurseries
Isaac began as a farmer but founded what became "Hicks Nurseries."  It's been said that he was entered fruit trees in the Queens County Fair and won a $10 prize and certificate for having the best twenty varieties of apples. I'm not sure if that's what led him to the business, but he obviously had a passion for trees.

The business was on Jericho Turnpike, west of Post Avenue. 
 

Hicks Nurseries across from Old Westbury and the Hawxhurst Estate

"Hicks and Son" grew quickly: the Hicks family worked hard, and it helped that the surrounding population of Westbury swelled greatly. That there were many wealthy estates on Long Island gave them the opportunity to capitalize on their market.

Their son Edward enhanced the business when he struck on a method of moving and replanting large trees by the end of the 1800s.  Since then the family continued in the nursery business.  Some of the estates serviced by Hicks Nurseries include: the Morgan, the Vanderbilit, the Whitney and the Phipps (now Old Westbury Gardens) as well as planting trees on John D Rockefellers estate in Pocantico Hills. And, it is the oldest family-owned business on Long Island, but it is also one of the oldest family-owned businesses in the US, but it is the oldest one on Long Island.

When my aunt Margaret was researching Long Island family, she took her mother --my grandmother--Elizabeth Tilton (Bertha Hawxhurst's daughter) to Hicks Nurseries. On her maternal side, all of Elizabeth's  genealogical roots go back to Long Island to the 1600s.
Well, Elizabeth was tickled pink because she was treated her like a queen. As the founder's great granddaughter, the "family" part of "family-owned" business was still important.

Hicks Ad c1960s "The Hicks Homestead Westbury, LI, Built by Isaac Hicks 1838"

Isaac Hicks

More than a Livelihood--a Passion
 
It wasn't merely a business, I think Isaac Hicks was a devotee of trees. He wrote:

How does memory carry me back to those houses of Friends (Quakers), nestled near a piece of woods, showing a love of the beautiful and useful combined; and those noble trees that were of the primeval forest, when the country was settled…
There is something venerable and so conservative in these old trees around the meeting house that no lofty spire and no adornment of architecture can give. But all are not such.
Too many meeting houses stand out in bold relief, with no sheltering tree to beautify the lawn…But these trees, young men... will you not plant trees around your house of worship, and confer a lasting benefit to yourselves, meeting and the country?
....the time may come when you may enjoy their beauty and comfort of shade, and future generations bless the hands that planted the shade trees around your meeting house.

In Isaac’s poetic phrase the woods were “the beautiful and useful combined’ tells me he was  a businessman who did it for love of the product!

And Later, a "Weekend" Artist
I'm led to believe Isaac loved the outdoors. Collectors in my family had saved a few colored paintings of birds he made. Then someone scanned them-- and I have digital copies , The scanner scanned on the backs-"Red and White Warbler" is dated & initialed by Isaac, and the oriole painting is dated. 

Isaac dabbled with painting when he was elderly and unoccupied with work. (Could this be where the artistic streak in my mother comes from?)

"Warblers" by Isaac Hicks c. 1899

"Red & White Warbers 1900 I. H."

The color has faded in the warblers--but less so in the oriole below:  *note the date from the back*

Isaac Hick photo from Hicks Nurseries website

Now and then, I find a write-up on the Westbury area, such as this one-Click "Read More" to see it:

#12 - Phebe Willets Frees Her Slave before Rev War: Westbury, NY & Gets Other Quakers to Free Theirs!

My mother (the descendant this Phebe Willets) made it clear to us all from our youngest days that all people are of equal value. I did not know that there was a racism problem in this country until I heard about it on radio.  Both my parents set a good example for us and their children imitate what their parents embrace (and, by extension, the culture will be affected).

These ancestors had embraced ideas regarding people’s equality first on religious grounds, and some of them paid heavily for it. 

In this ancestral line some fought the Civil War for the Union, others were engaged in helping escaped slaves make it to safely to the North, and others spearheaded the first manumissions in New York.

Phebe Willets, my 7th great grandmother, was born in 1699 a Quaker home. Phebe became Quaker preacher and traveled and preached. She is the subject of Post #22 on this blog (with regard to her preaching).
Eventually, she married first at 32, a much older man, Adam Mott. They had three children, including my 6th great grandmother Elizabeth Mott. After Adam died, she married widower Tristam Dodge (she was in her 40s). She died in her 83rd year.
I find scattered references to Phebe Willets Dodge (or Phebe Willets Mott Dodge) in history books now and then. They usually say something like this:
 

However, what this doesn’t reveal is that she actually began the ball rolling at Old Westbury Meeting: beginning with her, the Friends at Meeting eventually manumitted all their slaves. This wasn't as light a matter as it sounds: people often found they had serious financial loss when they manumitted a slave. Long Islanders needed manpower to get jobs done: if you pay someone it makes a dent in your pocketbook. 

In 1939, Marietta Hicks (the niece of my great-great-great grandmother Marianna Hicks) turned over the original manumission papers which were witnessed (or "affirmed") at Old Westbury Meeting to {name?} someone for safekeeping.
 
The papers were transcribed, and someone eventually copied them, and we now have digital versions of these papers. (Though only some of the originals are available).
 
The typical wording of the manumission paper was similar to Elias Hicks’ and it went this way:
 

However, Phebe Willets (Dodge) was the first person in Old Westbury to manumit her slave. 

In contrast to the others, Phebe’s commitment to her faith rings out in her manumission paper: it was a cause based in her faith, not a statement for the Meeting.  Her conscience provoked her sense of obligation, and her ethics derived from that, not the other way around.  By this time, she was elderly,  she had nothing to gain, yet she felt it unChristian to keep another person as a slave.

Her manumission has a distinctly different tone to it (as its transcription shows). 
Phebe had been considering this issue for "some years" and it was a concern. It was her "duty as a ..Christian act to set her at Liberty." ["her" is Rachel, a slave her 2nd husband had left her when he died]

I would guess since she had been a Quaker preacher of some notoriety, she probably also urged others passionately (along with several other Friends who felt similarly, such as Elias Hicks) to do the same, and to stimulate the Friends in Meeting on this.  
Indeed, by the end of the Revolutionary War Old Westbury Meeting had manumitted all their slaves.
But what is striking to me--having lived in other cultures--is that the faith was proactive in its goodness.
--------------------------------------
Below find the transcribed manumissions--there might be an ancestor of interest in here:

 

Richard Willits manumits Jean, affirmed by Elias Hicks and William Valentine, of one several originals left.

#5 - Hicks Family on Long Island, Post 1: Thomas Hicks (not a Quaker)

My 9th great grandfather: Thomas Hicks

The son of John and Herodias (Long) who are subjects of posts (#14 and #13 ).
That Swarthmore College keeps Hicks papers in their archives for research tells you that there are some interesting stories--and likely historical reasons for keeping papers.
This tight-knit agrarian community within an arms’ reach of the most important cities in the colonies/US produced a man who eventually led to one of the Quaker schisms, produced a good many who spoke and wrote for abolition and women’s suffrage, a community which spent a lot of money on adequate schooling and caring for the poor. From them came a famous primitive American artist and something new to me, it had an active "underground railway."
Many Long Island Quakers championed the manumission of slaves, and set the pace in the country for setting their own slaves free. Several of the families and meetings were active in the Underground Railway. One of them was the Hicks family. Several of them were members of the Westbury Friends Meeting (Quakers) and let their enslaved go free after the Revolutionary War. Around 1793 the Hicks family gave land to establish Guinea Town: the first free black community in Old Westbury. Guinea Town became a safe place for many runaways. And by 1830 the community had its own church and school that was built by the Charity Society of the Quakers.*(see source at end of post)

Since there are several stories to be told--and they intermarried, I've devoted the several posts to the Hicks (and related) families (just about all the oldest Long Island families are related to one another in some way).

Never fear, once we get to the early part of the 1800s, I will have more stories and fewer bare facts, However, before delving too deeply into that period in history, this post will trace John Hicks’ descendants who were my direct ancestors.

So what happened to little Thomas, John Hicks’ son, you wonder? He'd moved from Newport, RI to LI with his father, leaving his mother in Rhode Island. Was he a  Quaker? What was his attitude towards them? One researcher [sorry, I lost the citation] wrote:

"...Thomas, [was] a Justice of the Common Pleas Court.
Thomas defended Samuel Bownas, a Quaker in difficulty with the Hempstead churchmen, for attacking their doctrines and ceremonies. This defense, mentioned by [his grandson] Elias with satisfaction in his Journal, introduced the Hicks family to the enthusiastic Quakers then invading Long Island."  You will see their favoring of the Friends warm up in other posts.

As an adult he moved from Hempstead to Flushing (Westbury).

 I've divided the post into his personal history vitals (not included all the children, only his son who was my gr-greandfather), his occupations, his residence, his land disputes (which were quite common) and land sales, and where he is named in other documents (for historians/researchers).

John (and Herodias) Hicks’ son, Thomas Hicks:
 Thomas' vitals:
Birth: Probably at Weymouth, Massachusetts about 1641/42
Death: About 1741/42, Little Neck, Long Island, New York (yes, about 100 yrs old)
Moved to Long Island when he was about 2 years old shortly after John Hicks, his father moved there, separating from Herodias (Harod), Thomas’ mother.

Thomas married twice:
He married 1st, sometime after 1658, a Mary Washburn. Note: I’ve found 3 genealogies which differ: this Mary was a Butler married to Mr. Washburn first in CT, while another says that that Washburn was her uncle and her maiden name was Washburn, a third just has her name was “Mary Cornell Washburn”

1st - Mary Washburn (who died) * My 8th great grandfather Jacob Hicks, was the son of Mary Washburn and John Hicks. 

2nd - Mary Doughty in 1677. On 6 July, Thomas Hicks and Mary Doughty got a marriage license in New York.
In 1666, while in his 20s, he bought a patent of land from Governor Nicholls: about 4,000 acres in the vicinity of Little Neck. He built a good house and lived there for many years.

Occupations:
1675
 On 23 November, governor E Andros declared that heretofore, in the time of governor Richard Nicolls, the Neck called Cornbury, or Little Madnans Neck where Captain Thomas Hicks doth reside was adjudged to be in Flushing, since which [time] it hath been found that the part of the land on the said Neck, belonging to Capt. Thomas Hicks is within the bounds of Hempstead, where he hath a considerable interest and is now justice of the peace for that town and Riding.
1685
On 20 October, Thomas Hicks and others were commissioned as justices of the peace for Queens County, Long Island, New York.
1685
 On 20 October, Thomas Hicks was commissioned as sheriff for Queens County, Long Island, New York.
1686
 On 18 October, "Description of a survey of 100 acres of land, lying at Cow Neck, upon Long Island, laid out for Thomas Hicks, senr., by Leonard Beckwith, [with draught,]"
1687
On 5 April, Thomas Hicks posted a list of the inhabitants of Hempstead who could take up 50 acres of land, as did the original proprietors.
1687
 On 16 April, Thomas Hicks posted notice that the major portion of inhabitants of Madnans Neck agreed that no new vacant land would be improved and no more trees would be cut down in the area.
1688
On 25 August, Sr Edmund Andross appointed "as our justice to keep our peace in our county called Queens" Thomas Hicks (and others). Also appointed Thomas Hicks as "Judge of our inferior court of pleas".
1690
A letter from Mr. Van Cortland to Sir Edmund Andros [governor of New York] stated: "It is now nere 17 weekes that I have been forced out off my house, by the violence of Capt'n Laysler," ... so is Mr Hix [in prison] "for not delivering up his Commission as Justice off Peace"
1691
Thomas Hicks was appointed judge in Queens County for a term of 8 years.
1693
On 20 April, Thomas Hicks [Hix] was the judge for the court of common pleas in Queens county, Long Island, New York.
1701-2
Thomas Hicks was a representative for Queens County to the 8th Colonial Assembly. The Assembly was dissolved May 3, 1702.
1706
Thomas Hicks and others were chosen by vote of freeholders at a town meeting in Hempstead to "run all the lines of our towns bounds".
1710
By vote of the majority of freeholders of Hempstead, the four trustees; William Nicoll, Coll John Jackson, Judge Hicks, and Justice John Tredwell; were to agree with John Keeble for a parcel at Rockaway for the whale men to cut fire wood for "the use of the whalling design".

Residence:
On 1 January, 1666/67,
governor Richard Nicholls wrote to the constable and overseers of Flushing, Long Island that he was tired of the hearing about the issue of Thomas Hicks and wanted the town to resolve the issue. What had happened: Thomas Hicks and two others had settled on the Neck, which the court of Hempstead had decided to be in Flushing, but Flushing had not laid out accommodations for the men, even though they agreed to pay the charges.
1684
On 14 April "We underwritten Tachapowsha (and other named) Indyans" ... "freely and absolutely sold" to "Elias Doughty, ... Thomas Hicks, Richard Cornell, ... the agents of the freeholders of said Towne, ... the inhabitants of Flushing in general."
1698
Justice Thomas [Hicks] Hukes and Mrs. Mary, his wife, lived with sons Isaac, Benjamin, Charles, William, Stephen, Charet, and daughter Mary in Flushing, Long Island, New York, nine persons besides six servants.
Land Disputes: 
1672
 On 10 June, the council minutes for Long Island affairs reported the [election] returns for constable of Hempstead with 39 votes for Robert Jackson and 34 votes for Simon Seryou. Objection was made by Mr John Hicks [named as Thomas Hicks on the next page] and James Pine, on behalf of others, that many of the votes for Mr. Jackson were from great Neck or Madnans Neck, with only small, divided, parcels of land unrelated to the town of Hempstead, and questioned whether they should be counted equally with ye ancient inhabitants. The council determined that all the inhabitants were freeholders and their votes would count, although a proposal would be considered for them to be in a separate town with officers of their own.
1679/80
On 19 January, William Haviland wrote to governor Edmund Andros as follows: "May it please your Honour: Whereas it hapens a difference or dispute between Mr. Hicks & Mr. Cornell with myself concerning a tract of land formerly belonging to Mr. Dowtie [Doughty] a full & equal third whereof I have bought of the said Dowtie as by the transport and patent may appear part of which my said purchase or equal third is by the said Mr. Cornell & Mr. Hicks demanded or claimed though it be my right & property, I therefore humbly pray for a fair decision of the said controversy that your honour would be pleased to appoint fit & indifferent persons to measure or survey the whole that each may quietly have & enjoy his right which is the desire of your humble servant.
The 19th of January 79-80.
Will'm Haviland. To his Excellence Sr Edmund Andros, K'nt Seigneur of Sausmaurez, Lieutenant and Governor Gen'l under his Royall Highness of all his Territories in America."

Land Sales:
1666
While in his 20s, he bought a patent of land from Governor Nicholls: about 4,000 acres in the vicinity of Little Neck. He built a good house and lived there for many years.
1686
On 15 January, Thomas Hicks sold to John Treadwell, land called "faire feld hollow" on the southwest side of the town.
1684
On 10 April, Indian deed. Opson son and heyre to Sacpousha, to Richard Cornell Senior and Thomas Hicks Senior, land on Cow Neck. Bounded on the north with land of John West. 1685 April, John Juians of New York, merchant, and Mary his wife, to Gerrardus Beakman of Flatbush, chirurgeon, and Hendrick Ryke of Flatbush, blacksmith, land on Madnan's Neck in Hempstead, No 35, which was laid out to John Hicks. 130 acres.
1687
On 5 November, Thomas Hicks of Cornbury and Mary, his wife, to Edward Stevenson of Newtown. Land on Cow Neck, 100 acres. Bounded as by pattent of Coll. Thomas Dungan November 25 1686.
1687
On 12 December. Deed:28 acres in Merrick
To all Christian People to whom these presence Shall Come Greeting. Know ye yt we thomas & mary hickes of Cornbery necke in ye Jurisdiction of Flushing in Queens County upon Long Island have granted bargained alienated and Sold and do by these presence grant bargain alienate make over Confirm and Sell from us our heirs executors administrators to and assigns unto Jonathan Smith of the towne of hempstead in ye afore sd County and Island his haires executors administrators to and asignes for Ever a Sartaine Lott of meddow containing twenty Eight aceors more or Les as it was Laid out situatte & Lying one Merrick buted and bounded as followeth westerly by Richard Gildersleeve north w'th Little Smith Est by ye Cold Spring River South by the Bay yt Runs betwixt ye meddoe and ye beech with all ye Salt meddoe that Lys on ye west side of ye Cold Springe neck as far as any Salt grese grows with all ye Rightes proffite and Previledges there unto beLonging by vertue of any towne order or other wise for and in Consideration of full Satisfaction to me in hand paid for ye which I ye afore sd thomas hickes doe fuly exonerate aquit ...

1687 
Thomas Hicks senior of Cornbery, Long Island, sold to John Tredwell land called "Mr Hickes Neck" that was previously owned by Thomas Hicks's father John Hicks, who owned it by agreement with John Carman senior. 

1688
 On 27 November, Richard Cornell, gent of Cornwell Hall in Queens county sold land in Huntingtowne, Suffolk County, to Thomas Hickes of Hempstead.

His appearance in other documents: 
1659
Thomas Hicks was listed among "persons that are to fense and Inclose Rockoway w'th ye Nomb'r of their gates donn at A full town-meeting the 17th of Aprill 1659."
1663
On 19 October, Robert Ashman of Hempstead sold several tracts to Richard Ellison, including a meadow on the Neck commonly called "Mr Washbornes Neck", bounded on the east by Thomas Hicks.
1664
On 23 March, Thomas Hicks witnessed and recorded a deed between Simon Seren and Thomas Fessee in Hempstead.
1665/66
On 12 March, Thomas Hicks, clerk, witnessed a deed between Richard Lattin of Huntintowne and John Carman of Hempstead for a lot formerly owned by Thomas forlers [Fowler?].
1666
 In testimony recorded in the Hempstead town records of 1688, Thomas Hicks recalled that as town clerk in 1666, he had heard an agreement made between William Thickstone and William Seadin. 1694
Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Hicks was an overseer for the will of Richard Cornell.
1697
Thomas Hicks was an overseer of the will of Jerwin Rootes.
1701
On 30 December, Thomas Hicks and four others signed "in behalf of ourselves and upwards of two thirds of the freeholders and inhabitants of Queens County on Nassau Island" a letter from New York to the King William III, expressing "lively and gratefull sense, that our Religion and Liberties are in the greatest safety under your auspicious Reign".
1710
Thomas Hicks, perhaps this one or his son, witnessed the will of William Urquehart.
1715
The will of Elizabeth Regnier stated "To Regnier Rushmore, nephew of Thomas Hicks, of Long Island."
1717
On 9 May, a deed by Thomas Hicks of Flushing refers to "my late son Charles Hicks deceased" and "the homestead that the said Charles lately lived upon" and "whereas my said son Charles Hicks" died leaving "one son called Edward an infant of the age of eight years".

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 * Additional information sourced: thanks to: The Underground Railroad on Long Island, Friends in Freedom by Kathleen G. Velsor, History Press, 2013