Hicks died at Bodmin 5th September, 1868, at the age of sixty.
CAPTAIN TOBIAS MARTIN
Tobias Martin, better known as Cap'n Toby, was born in the parish of Wendron on January 5th, 1747, and was the son of a father of the same name, who was a common working miner, but afterwards was advanced to be a mine agent, or captain of a mine, which situation he retained during the remainder of his life.
The elder Cap'n Toby was passionately fond of reading, and read promiscuously whatever came into his hand. But his main literary passion was for poetry, and he speedily conceived that he possessed the poetic afflatus, because he could string lines together that rhymed more or less well. He went to a mine near Helston, but was never in sufficiently good circumstances to be able to give his children a moderate, let alone a superior education.
Tobias, his second son, inherited the father's love of reading and liking for the Muse, and as a boy he bitterly lamented that he was not sent to school.
Deprived through his father's poverty or negligence of the means of education enjoyed by others, he resolved on supplying the deficiencies of such instruction by self-application.
From an early age he was employed at the tin-stamping mills near Helston and Redruth. After he became a man he worked underground on his own account, i.e. in working setts that he had taken, and at other times on what is termed among miners "tutwork and tribute."