Jefferson County Illinois Biographies

  The Hickses were among the first pioneer families in Jefferson County. Isaac Hicks, one of the first settlers, moved from the Ohio River in 1803. He married Rebecca Casey, a daughter of Isaac Casey, another of the first Jefferson County pioneers. Isaac Hicks and his family along with the Casey family moved to Jefferson County from the Ohio River area in the spring of 1817. Isaac and his family settled in what is now McClellan Township. Descendants from this early pioneer family remained in the area of McClellan, Blissville and Shiloh Township during the early history of the county.

   When the villiage of Williamsburg was founded in 1867 in Blissville Township near the present site of Waltonville. David J. Hicks built the first residence and two of his sons opened businesses there. In the 1880's and 90's one of the sons, Isaac drove a "peddlers" wagon out of Williamsburg trading needed household and farm items to farmers throughout the general area for products such as poultry, eggs, cream, meat, etc. These products were returned to Williamsburg for sale there. Isaac and his two sons, Artie and Samuel, opened a general store at Dareville in Elk Prairie Township in 1900. When the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad was built, Isaac and his sons moved their families in 1910 to the new villiage of Bonnie on the railroad line. A large general store was opened here to serve this developing part of the county. Artie had four sons and one daughter: Lester, Kathryn, Bill, Harold and Orloff. All are still living except Lester.

   Isaac Hicks was first married to Mary Alpha Gilbert, who died in 1882. He later married Dora Hicks. The wife of David J. Hicks and Elizabeth Finch. The father of Mary A. Gilbert was Waldo Gilbert of Washington County, Ohio, who came to Jefferson County in 1839. He married Helen Hayes. The parents of Waldo Gilbert were Eli Gilbert, born in Washington, Vermont, in 1788, and died in Jefferson County, Illinois, 1875, and Susanna Gale, born in Newburg Port, New Hamshire, in 1791, and died in Jefferson County, Illinois, in 1865.---------Patsy Hicks Lipps

Submitted By: Cindy Ford