The Life and Labors of Elias Hicks

by Henry Watson Wilbur

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.