The Hickman Family of Henry County
EUGENE STUDEBAKER WIERBACH

The Reverend Joshua Hickman was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, April 10, 1766, the youngest son of Ezekiel and Elizabeth (Trammel) Hickman.  When about thirteen years of age, he drove pack horses over the Allegheny Mountains to assist his father in equipping a company of men for service in the American Revolution.

His father was later made lieutenant of his Company, which was a part of the Eighth Pennsylvania under the command of Colonel Daniel Brodhead.  On January 13, 1785, when Joshua Hickman was nineteen years of age, he was married to Josinah Van Meter, daughter of Jacob and Catherine (De Moss) Van Meter (Van Metre), in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. This Jacob Van Meter was an early settler and landowner in this section of Pennsylvania and was descended from the Van Meter family which planted the first white colony in the Valley of. Virginia. Joshua and Josinah Hickman settled on lands along the Cheat River lying partly in Pennsylvania and partly in what was later to become West Virginia. Here all of their children were born and many of them were married.1

From his Bible, we learn the names of Joshua Hickman’s twelve children:2

• Rebecca—b. April 8, 1787; d. May 29, 1866; m. Abel Williams (b. 1774, d. 1847).
• Lewis—b. June 9, 1789; d. in infancy.
• Catharine—b. June 17, 1791; d. Feb. 22, 1849; m. Robert Perfect.
• Jacob—b. Nov. 22, 1795; d. Feb. 27, 1869.
• Mary Ann—b. Jan. 7, 1796; d. Nov. 8, 1853.
• Elsy—b. May 16, 1798; d. Jan. 10, 1864; m. April 8, 1816, to James Dodd (b. Dec. 16, 1779; d. June 24, 1869) 3
• Ann—b. May 22, 1800; d. in infancy.
• Sarah—b. Nov. 22, 1801; d. March 15, 1877; m. Jesse Ice.
• Joshua—b. May 7, 1804; d. Jan. 12, 1885; m. Juilett (or Juliette) Moore (b. March 6, 1809).
• Cynthia—b. June 9, 1806; d. June 10, 1853.
• Ezekiel—b. Jan. 9, 1810; d. March 2, 1870.
• William—b. Jan. 18, 1813; d. June 26, 1873; m. Clarissa Williams (b. 1817, d. 1881).

About the year 1826, the family moved to Indiana, locating in the northern part of Henry County.4  Here Joshua Hick-man served the community in the Regular Baptist Church, at the same time farming a large tract of land.  Most of his children settled in the East Lebanon neighborhood, where they achieved – prominence in law, medicine, and the arts.

Joshua Hickman died on August 18, 1842, in Henry County.  Three days before his death he made a will in which he made mention of all his children, leaving them land, money, stock, and farming equipment, and naming his youngest son, William, his executor.

His wife died on June 3, 1857, in Henry County, and is buried beside her husband in East Lebanon Cemetery.

Births and deaths of the Hickman and Moore families: 5

Joshua Hickman—b. April 10, 1766; d. Aug. 18, 1842.
Josinah (Van Metre) Hickman—b. Jan. 22, 1768; d. June 3, 1857.
Josiah Moore—b. Nov. 6, 1783; d. July 15, 1822.
Melinda Thomas—b. Jan. 22, 1786 [m. Josiah Moore]; d. Oct. 27, 1831.
Juliette Moored.6 March 6, 1809.
Anna Moore—b. Feb. 2, 1811.
Mary Moore—b. April 3, 1814.
James Thomas Moore—b. July 29, 1816.
Adeline Elizabeth Moore—b. Dec. 24, 1819.
Lydia Emma Moore—b. Dec. 24, 1822.
Joshua T. Hickman—b. May 7, 1804; m. Juliette Moore, April 17, 1827.
4 The dates of the deaths of James and Elsy differ in the two records. Samuel Gordon Smyth, comp., A Genealogy of the Duke-Shepherd-Van Metre Family (Lancaster. Pa., 1909). 899-400: see also sketch of James T. Hickman. grandson of Joshua Hick-man, in Biographical Memoirs of Henry County, Indiana (Logansport. Ind., 1902), 648. 549. According to this sketch, the family moved to Henry County in 1830.
5 This record was copied from the Bible belonging to Miss Byrd Hickman of Springport, Indiana. The copying was done by Eugene Studebaker Wierbach. Names are re-arranged, as they were copied without reference to family or sequence in the Bible record.
6 Juliette Moore and the five persons whose names follow hers were evidently the children of Joshua and Melinda (Thomas) Moore.
Josiah Moore Hickman 7 —b. Sept. 12, 1828.
William Trammel Hickman—b. Sept. 1830.
Josinah Van Metre Hickman—b. April 9, 1835.
James Thomas Hickman—b. June 28, 1837.
Lewis Joshua Hickman—b. Oct. 26, 1839.
Jacob Van Metre Hickman—b. April 11, 1842.
Charles Melette Hickman—b. July 19, 1845.
James T. Moore-m. Cynthia Ann Melette, June 18, 1839.
7Son of Joshua T. and Juliette (Moore) Hickman, and grandson of Josiah and Josinah (Van Metre) Hickman. The six persons whose names follow that of Joshua Moore Hickman were evidently also the children of Joshua and Juliette (Moore) Hickman.
Published by the Indiana University Department of History.

WIERBACH, Eugene Studebaker. The Hickman Family of Henry County. Indiana Magazine of History, [S.l.], sep. 1940. ISSN 1942-9711. Available at: <https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/view/7246/8205>. Date accessed: 20 dec. 2017.

Source: https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/45520160?cid=mem_copy