Gilbert Hicks (267)

Gilbert Hicks (19 September 1720–1786) was a judge, officeholder, slaveholder, and farmer, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1768. Born on Long Island, NY, Hicks’s family extended back generations in New England, but little is known about his youth. In 1746 he married Mary Rodman, the daughter of a prominent Quaker in Flushing who not only forgave his daughter for marrying outside the Quaker faith but bought the couple a 600-acre farm in Bucks County, PA. The couple relocated and welcomed their first child there in 1748. Hicks proved industrious and added other business to his farm including a saw and planing mill, tavern, and general store. These ventures proved profitable and in 1763 Hicks built a new home in a more central location so he could pursue public office holding. Beginning as a justice of the peace, Hicks was later named judge of the county courts and by July 1774 was presiding over the public meeting to choose representatives to attend the scheduled provincial convention in Philadelphia. Yet Hicks’s time representing the region was coming to end, brought on by his refusal to join the growing clamor for Independence. After reading General Howe’s peace proclamation in 1776 from the courthouse steps, an angry crowd forced Hicks to flee. Leaving his home in secret, Hicks eventually found refuge with the British forces in Trenton. He would never see his wife or his home again. The Pennsylvania Assembly charged him with treason and then promptly confiscated and sold his property, leaving Hicks to find protection under British authority, first in New York and then on a piece of his own land in Nova Scotia in 1783. His new life as an aging farmer was difficult and his promise of financial recovery proved short lived. Though the Loyalist Claims Commission awarded him a substantial sum in compensation in 1786, he died shortly thereafter; murdered, some believed, for his new found money. (PI)