That Honest Man, Captain Hicks
Sketches of Greensville County, Virginia, 1650-1967
Chapter II
"That Honest Man, Captain Hicks"
Part I
IN THE EARLY HISTORY of Greensville County Captain Robert Hicks, the
pioneer, has always been first in the imagination and affections of the
people. His life on the frontier is a window to the past; his career
the epitome of the traditional border captain.
There are two Robert Hicks - one the man of history, the other the
man of fiction and folklore. Since this is so, it would not he proper
to leave unmentioned the stories of him that have been repeated shout
the firesides of Southside Virginia for more than two centuries.
According to the old tales, he was a British officer; he came up the
James from Jamestown and up the Appomattox River. Here, Fort Henry on
Flea Island protected a small frontier settlement on the Site of what is
now Petersburg. He was caught up in a rollicking, hard-drinking crowd.
Once, while participating in a drinking bout with "the Bollings and
other high rollers," he became so intoxicated he lost consciousness.
When he came to himself, he discovered his queue had been cut off short,
an act implying great disrespect. Angered and deeply humiliated he left
Fort Henry and followed the Indian trail southward through the
wilderness toward Carolina. He journeyed forty miles, far beyond the
outermost white settlements, until he came to the Meherrin River deep in
the southern forest. Here he set down his stakes. He won the
confidence of the Meherrin Indians who were numerous and had many
settlements in the area. There was an Indian fort not far from the
river crossing where he stopped. The Indians gave him a plot of ground
on the river bank on which to build; they helped him cut down the huge
trees and erect his double log cabin. Then one day when Vnuntsquero,
the Chief of the Meherrins, saw Hicks wearing a fine silk hat with a
plume, he said to him, "Last night I had a dream."
"And what did you dream?", asked Hicks.
"I dreamed you gave me your hat," said the chieftain. (Vnuntsquero,
"Chiefs Man of the Maherian," signed the Treaty of 1677 thus:
; also signing was Horehannah, "next Chiefe man of the Maherians." His
signature was .)
Robert Hicks, knowing the Indians placed great significance on their
dreams and expected them to come true, and also remembering that it was
their custom when receiving a gift to return one of equal or even
greater value, seized the opportunity to improve his position among
them. Taking the hat from his head, be graciously presented it to the
chieftain who received it with apparent delight.
A few weeks later Robert hicks came upon Vnuntsquero and said, "I
had a dream last night."
"And what did you dream" asked the Indian.
"I dreamed you gave me all the land for twenty miles along the river,"
Hicks replied quickly. The chieftain hesitated for a moment, then
solemnly said, 'The land is yours, White Man, but go and dream no more!"
And so it was, according to the legend, that Robert Hicks came to be
rich in lands and spent the rest of his days near the river-crossing
which became known as Hicks' Ford [Hicksford] and after a long time
became Emporia. For a livelihood he built a Trading Post* and bartered
with the Indians and the incoming white settlers. Under the huge oaks
that still stand he would hold "pow-wows" with the Northern Indians when
the occasion arose. His son "Robin" (Robert, Jr.)
built himself a house in the woods on the southside of the river
(between it and Jefferson Street), but "he died young." All this is
folklore and with this the tales end. Captain Hicks is swallowed up by
time. He is lost - except in legend.
How much of the legend is true we shall now see. For of the real
Captain Hicks we know much more than we do of the legendary Captain.
Who he was or where he came from no one knows. Like Melchizdek in the
Old Testament he appears out of nowhere. Attempts have been made to
show that he was the same as the "Captain Hicks" who appeared in James
City in 1694 as commander of His Majesty's Ship, "King Fisher," or that
he was a descendant of Robert Hicks of Plymouth, Massachusetts, or the
son of Robert of Lancaster County, Virginia. All have failed. Neither
can it be shown that he was a British officer - retired or unretired -
unless his service as the commander of the Surry Rangers be considered
as such, as well it might be.
________________
* See footnotes
Robert Hicks appears first in Charles City County (afterwards Prince
George). In the records his name is spelled both Hix and Hicks, often
both ways in the same record. He was born about 1658. He married
Winifred Evans probably about 1678. She was a birthright Quakeress, the
daughter of Captain John Evans and his wife Mary, of Charles City
County. In 1663 John Evans' land lay on the south side of Appomattox
River, near Fort Henry and adjoining that of Major General Abraham Wood,
the great explorer, Indian trader and commander of the Fort. 'This site
was to become Petersburg. John Evans, Senior, also a large landowner
and successful Indian trader, was a devout Quaker.2 When the Act of
Toleration was passed by the British Parliament in 1692 he petitioned
for permission to hold a Quaker meeting once a month in "his old House
and twice a week there alsoe and once a year where he now dwells." His
son Captain John Evans, Jr. was a successful Indian trader and an
associate, later, of Robert Hicks.
It is probable that Robert and Winifred were married "in meeting" by
the simple Quaker rites. Had it not been so she would have been
dismissed from the Society for "marrying out" and he would have lost the
favor of his father-in-law. As it was, John Evans, in 1690, gave Robert
and Winifred "for love and affection" 560 acres adjoining General Wood's
land. It is reasonable to interpret this as meaning he approved of the
marriage. However, if Hicks was ever a Quaker himself he did not remain
one for we soon find him taking oaths in Court and "bearing arms." Among
his effects at his death would be a Prayer Book, something no good
Quaker would have had.
Winifred Evans Hicks did not live long but it is believed that she
was the mother of Robert's two oldest sons, Robert (Robin) and Daniel.
Eventually Hicks married again, this time to Frances. Her surname is
unknown. She was to be the mother of many children outliving her
husband by several years. Robert Hicks was to become the father of
twelve children, six sons and six daughters: Robert, Daniel, George,
John, James, Charles, Martha who married John Beddingfield; Frances who
married Richard Ransom; Rachel who married Matthias Davis; Tabitha who
married Thomas Jacobs; and Mary and Elizabeth (one of whom married an
Irby).
Robert Hicks must have been a handsome man, and blessed with a
strong physique, for he lived a long, strenuous life. At eighty-three
he was still in perfect health. The only description we have of him is
by William Byrd, II, who speaks of him as "my old friend." When Byrd
described him Hicks was seventy years old. The year was 1728. He
wrote, "Beauty never appeared better in old age, with a ruddy complexion
and hair as white as snow."3
Like many another lively young man Robert Hicks, no doubt, had years
when he sowed his wild oats. On April 13, 1693, he appeared in Charles
City County Court in a drunken state and was sentenced to the stocks.
This was far from commendable (in fact, it was a common occurrence even
for members of the Court) but he could not have been a worthless fellow
or given to continuous drunkenness for his father-in-law soon afterward,
perhaps at a vote of confidence, gave him another 1,120 acres of land on
the south tide of the Appomattox and shortly after that (on his own
initiative) Hicks claimed 6oo acres for transporting twelve persons into
the colony. These early acquisitions of land were the be ginning of a
habit he would follow to the year of his death - patenting, buying and
selling land by the thousands of acres. He would become a wealthy man.
The last mentioned grant was to the south of Fort Henry; it crossed
the Second Swamp and adjoined tracts owned by Evans and James Cock(e).
Few white men dared to journey in that direction except in the company
of others.
We do not know when Robert Hicks first started trading with the
Indians but it must have been at an early date - certainly prior to
1700. It is probable that he became involved from the time he arrived at
Fort Henry. The Fort, built in 1646, had been the center of Indian
trade from the early 1650s. Most of the men whose names we know who
lived in the locality were traders or factors in the peltry trade. Some
were involved in a large way sending caravans (made up of as many as 100
horses) out on the Trading Path which began at Bermuda Hundred where the
ships anchored.4 It would have been unusual had Robert Hicks not
become involved in so profitable a commerce and popular a pursuit.
In 1700 Governor Francis Nicholson of Virginia, who had long been
interested in the trade, conferred with Robert Hicks and John Evans
giving them "instructions to be observed . . . concerning which they are
to treat with such great nations of Indians as they shall trade to, and
particularly the Usherrees (The Catawbas, 283 miles southwest of Ft.
Henry) and the Tottevay (Nottoway or Toteros?) in regard to a school to
be established for the Indians." The Usherees lived in upper South
Carolina, their lands extending southward to what is now Camden. This
fact suggests how far these early traders had penetrated the then
unknown wilderness. That Robert Hicks and his associates went even
farther south is intimated by the fact that before 1705 he had brought
into the colony an Indian slave. Her English name was Bess and she
belonged to the Appalachian tribe whose original lands were about
Tallahassee, Florida. The tribe never lived farther north than Augusta,
Georgia, where the great "Western Trading Path" ended.6
In the years before tobacco became the major crop in Virginia the
fur trade (especially beaver) was the most advantageous in the colony.
Profits were fabulous. Many of the early fortunes were founded upon it
both in Virginia and South Carolina. Skins of wild animals bought for a
handful of glass beads or a cheap trinket brought handsome prices on the
European market. For the man with a little money to equip a trader or a
man with enough courage to venture his purse and person in the Indian
country, the opportunity to secure quick wealth was unexcelled. Hand in
hand with the "skin trade" went the trade in Indian slaves, it being the
accepted custom to buy the prisoners of war (whom the Indians
automatically made slaves) and resell them to the Virginia planters or
on the New England market.7 Unscrupulous white men engaged in "slave
catching." Though the Indian slave trade was a common practice at the
time we have no evidence that Hicks and his associates ever engaged in
it.
Robert Hicks, his father-in-law, John Evans, and John Evans, Junior
(later called "Captain Evans") were very active in the "southwest
trade." Others in the same business and with whom Robert Hicks was on
intimate terms were: Col.William Byrd II, John and Robert Bolling (who
had "an immense trade with the Indians" and a Store near Petersburg),
Col. Robert Mumford, several of the Joneses including Peter, Thomas and
Richard, and the Poythresses. The records tell of Robert Hicks' visits
to "Westover" to discuss the "skin trade" and his frequent and friendly
associations with these "Gentlemen." It is probable that William Byrd
shipped Hicks' furs for him. He certainly went out of his way to
accommodate him by buying two Negroes belonging to Captain Evans, "in
hope of gaining the trade."
Beginning as a "private trader" (as independent traders' were
called), or perhaps in conjunction with his relatives, it was not long
until Robert Hicks had a company of his own, which meant enough capital
to buy pack-horses, trade goods, ammunition and guns, provisions, and
wages for the pack-horsemen. His partners were: John Evans, Richard
Jones, "Gentleman" (later Captain); David Crawley, Nathaniel Urvin
(sometimes spelled Urven and again, Irwin), and possibly Nathaniel Irby.
With the exception of Jones, these men were related by marriage or
otherwise. Nathaniel Urvin's daughter would marry Robert's son and a
daughter of Hicks would marry an Irby.
These traders (with the exception of Hicks himself) would post bonds
in Charleston, S. C., in 1710/11. Logan in his history of Upper South
Carolina says they carried on "a regular and honorable commerce."8 For
a number of years they ranged so widely and did so handsomely they
aroused the intense jealousy of the South Carolinians with whom they
competed. They were representatives of a large number of white traders'
from the Southside. As early as 1698 the South Carolina Commons House
debated a bill forbidding Virginians to trade with any Indians in that
Province - as if Virginians had not been doing this very thing since the
1650s. In 1701 the Carolinians proposed that all of the Virginia
traders' goods be confiscated but this did not pass. However, in the
same year they levied a heavy tax on every horse brought into the
colony, an ill-conceived plan to stop Virginia caravans. Knowing this
law was contrary to Her Majesty's royal decree of free trade between her
colonies, the Virginians refused to pay the tax. In 1707, invoking this
act, the South Carolinians seized a considerable quantity of skins and
"diverse other goods" which Hicks and his partners had left in one of
the Catawba towns while they were further on trading with "the Western
Indians." The order had been to "seize the said Traders in their return
and take from them all they had and strip them and send them back to
Virginia."9