Person:Robert Hicks (1)

m. 1582
  1. Daniel Hicks
  2. Zachariah Hicks
  3. John Hicks1574 -
  4. Ephraim Hicks1576 -
  5. Mary Hicks1578 -
  6. Samuel Hicks1582 -
  7. Thomas Hicks1585 - 1653
  8. Robert HicksAbt 1585 - 1647
  9. Phebe Hicks1587 -
  10. Lydia Hicks1589 -
  11. James Hicks1590 -
m. 1610
  1. Thomas Hicks1603/04 - 1604
  2. John Hicks1605 - Bef 1623
  3. Sarah Hicks1607 - 1617/18
  4. Richard Hicks1609 -
  5. Margaret Hicks1610 -
  6. Samuel Hicks1611 - Abt 1676
  7. Lydia Hicks1612 - Est 1634
  8. Phebe Hicks1614/15 - 1663
  9. Mary Hicks1617 - 1619
  10. Elizabeth HicksAbt 1618 -
  11. Daniel HicksAbt 1621 -
  12. Ephraim HicksAbt 1625 - 1649
Facts and Events
Name Robert Hicks
Gender Male
Alt Birth[2] Abt 1570 London, Middlesex, England
Alt Birth? Abt 1570 Gloucestershire, England
Birth? Abt 1585 Southwark, Surrey, England
Marriage 1610 St. Bride Fleet Street, City of London, Middlesex, Englandto Margaret Unknown
Death[6] 24 May 1647 Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States
Ancestral File Number 5DN3-0G

Information on Robert Hicks

  • Immigrated to Plymouth in 1621 aboard the ship "Fortune". His family followed in 1623. He was a fellmonger in England, and was educated enough to have three books in his estate inventory.
  • Clement Briggs of Weymouth, fellmonger, deposed 29 August 1638 that about two and twenty years since this deponent then dwelling with one Mr. Samuell Lathame in Barmundsey Streete in Southwarke a fellmonger and one Thomas Harlow then also dwelling with Mr. Rob[er]te Heeks in the same street a fellmonger the said Harlow and this deponent had often conference together how many pelts each of their master pulled a week. And this deponent deposeth and saith that the said Rob[er]te Heeks did pull three hundred pelts a week and diverse times six or seven hundred & more a week in the killing seasons, which was the most part of the year (except the time of Lent) for the space of three or four years. And that the said Rob[er]te Heeks sold his sheep's pelts at that time for 40s. a hundred to Mr. Arnold Allard, whereas this deponent's Mr. Samuell Lathame sold his pelts for 50s. per hundred to the same man at the same time and Mr. Heeks pelts were much better ware [PCR 12:35].
  • Division of Land 1623 - These lye beyond the fort to the wood west. / This goeth in wth a corner by ye ponde. - Robert Hickes (also Robart Hickes his wife & children were granted four acres as passengers on the Anne) [PCR 12:5, 6]
  • May 22, 1627 as recorded in the Plymouth Colony Records - The Division of Cattle, 1627 listed Hickes: Robert, Margret, Samuell, Ephraim, Lydia, Phebe (others as Jene)...(The twelveth lott fell to John Jene & his companie joyned to him his wife...to this lott fell the greate white backt cow wch was brought over with the first in the Ann, to wch cow the keepeing of the bull was joyned for thes psonts to pvide for. heere also two shee goats.), also listed Edward Banges (husb of Lydia).
  • In the "1633" list of Plymouth freemen, among those admitted before 1 January 1632/3 [PCR 1:3]. In list of 7 March 1636/7 [PCR 1:52]. In the Plymouth section of the 1639 Plymouth Colony list of freemen, with the annotation "dead" [PCR 8:173].
  • Assessed 18s. in the Plymouth tax list of 25 March 1633 and 12s. in the list of 27 March 1634 [PCR 1:9, 27]. "Robert Hickes" was thirty-seventh on the list of Purchasers [PCR 2:177].
  • On 10 February 1629 Robert Hicks purchased two acres on the north side of town from Steven Dean [PCR 12:7]. On 29 August 1638 Clement Briggs acknowledged his sale of "one acre of land in the upper fall near the second brook" to "Mr. Rob[er]te Heeks" [PCR 12:34]. On 9 December 1639 "Mr. Rob[er]te Hicks" rented five acres at Reed Pond to John Smyth for three years, Smyth to fence the east side of the land [PCR 12:51]. On 13 July 1639 George Sowle acknowledged his sale of two acres of land to Robert Hicks of Plymouth [PCR 12:45]. On 20 July 1639 John Barnes of Plymouth, yeoman, acknowledged his sale of four acres of meadow at High Pynes to Mr. Robert Hicks [PCR 12;45]. On 11 February 1639[/40] Mr. Robert Hicks of Plymouth, planter, sold to Samuell Hicks his eldest son all his house, outhouses and garden in Plymouth, together with four acres of land and eight acres of land and all the meadow at the Heigh Pynes and Iland Creek, and all his right title and interest in the land, and three cows [PCR 12:54]. On 7 April 1642 Mr. Robert Hicks sold two acres of marsh at Heigh Pines to Mr. William Bradford [PCR 12:79]. On 7 May 1642 Mr. Robert Hicks sold seven acres of upland at Iland Creek to William Brett of Duxbury [PCR 12:80]. On the same day he acknowledged his deed to John Reynor of three acres of marsh meadow at Heigh Pynes [PCR 12:80]. On 9 October 1645 Mr. Robert Hicks sold to Georg Partrich a parcel of marsh meadow consisting of two acres [PCR 12:115].


Will of Robert Hicks

Dated 28 May 1645 and proved 15 May 1648.
"Robert Hicks of Plymouth ... being full of infirmities of body" bequeathed to "my son Ephraim all that my dwelling house barn and buildings with the gardens ... in Plymouth," also "all those three fields one lying on the north side of the said town of Plymouth ..., the second which I lately purchased of Mr. John Aldin and the third called the south field"; "but my mind and will is that my executrix hereafter named shall have and enjoy three rooms in the said house during her life she keeping herself unmarried, viz. the hall and chamber over and cellar underneath, and also that my said son Ephraim shall pay her the thirds of the said lands during her life and widowhood"; to "my said son Ephraim all my lands lying at Iland Creek on Duxbery side except two lots of upland of twenty acres apiece lying next unto Mr. Kemp's lands, which I hereby give and bequeath unto John Banges my grandchild"; to "my executrix ... the rents of the said land not set and let forth for six years yet to come if she shall so long live, but all the rest of my lands ... I give unto my said son Ephraim"; "I give unto John Reyner the son of Mr. John Reyner our teacher fifty acres of the purchased lands accruing ... to me as a purchaser of my share of lands lying at Seawams or Secunck if the said Mr. John Reyner his father do remain at Plymouth"; to "Samuell my eldest son" fifty acres; to "my said son Ephraim" fifty acres; to "John Watson" fifty acres; to "John Bangs" fifty acres; to "the younger of Mr. Charls Chancy's sons which his wife had at one birth when he dwelt at Plymouth" fifty acres; to "my said son Ephraim" household goods; to the Town of Plymouth one cow calf; to "William Pontus" 20s.; to "John Faunce" 20s.; to "Nathaneell Morton" 20s.; to "Thomas Cushman" 20s.; "Margaret my loving wife" sole executrix and residue; Mr. John Howland, Mannasses Kempton and Thomas Cushman overseers; to John Howland and Mannasses Kemton 10s. each for a remembrance; to Joshua Prat "a suit of my wearing clothes with a pair of shoes and stockings"; to Samuell Eddy a pair of wearing stockings; to "my said son Ephraim ... my four oxen, paying my loving wife ... the thirds of the profits of the lands as is before mentioned ... and to draw her twenty loads of wood yearly to her house in Plymouth during her life" [MD 8:144-46, citing PCPR 1:1:703].
The inventory of the estate of "Mr. Robert Hicks deceased the 24th of May 1647 taken the fifth of July in the year aforesaid also exhibited upon oath the 4th of May 1648" totalled £39 13s., with no real estate included [MD 8:143-44, citing PCPR 1:1:69].
On 23 January 1648 John Rogers of Duxbury bought the rent of lands improved by Mr. Robert Hicks now deceased from Ephraim Hicks of Plymouth [PCR 12:155-56].
On 1 May 1660 "Gorge Watson," on behalf of his son John Watson and nephew John Banges, requested that, because "Samuel Hickes" was mistakenly entered in the court records as purchaser of lands at Cushenah and Accoaksett, etc., and it should have been "Mr. Robert" Hickes, it be corrected; the matter was referred to a later court [PCR 3:186]. On 3 October 1662 "Samuell Hickes" was offered an equal division with others in the lands of Mr. Robert Hickes at Accushena, Coaksett, etc., but he declined [PCR 4:27]. Margaret and Samuel could not agree on the division of goods in Robert's estate and the matter was taken to court 7 June 1661 [PCR 3:217].
On 7 October 1662 "Margarett Hickes of Plymouth, widow, as sole executrix to my husband Mr. Robert Hickes," confirmed his bequest of fifty acres to "Elnathan Chauncye the younger of the twins of Mr. Charles Chauncye" [MD 17:240-41, citing PCLR 2:2:107].


Disputed Information

The major breakthrough on this family was made when Robert S. Wakefield discovered additional baptismal entries in the St. Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, register [TAG 51:57-58].

Several sources give Robert Hicks two wives: Elizabeth Morgan and Margaret Winslow. No record has been found of any marriage for Robert Hicks, and his only known wife was Margaret; the argument that Margaret was a Winslow has little basis [TAG 54:31-34].S6

Great Migration does not identify any research showing Robert's parents.




References
  1.   Ancestral File.
  2. Banks, Charles Edwards. The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers: Who Came to Plymouth on the 'Mayflower' in 1620, the 'Fortune' in 1621, and the 'Anne' and the 'Little James'. (New York: Grafton Press, 1929)
    p. 119,.

    "Robert Hix was born about 1570"

  3.   Hicks, Eugene C., and Eugene C. (Eugene Clifton) Hicks. Sir Ellis Hicks (1315), Captain John Ward (1598), John Wright (1500), Philip le Yonge (1295) and 7812 descendants. (Wilmington, North Carolina: Wilmington, North Carolina: Wilmington Printing, c1982, c1982).
  4.   Banks, Charles Edward. The Planters of the Commonwealth: a study of the emigrants and emigration in colonial times, to which are added lists of passengers to Boston and to the Bay Colony, the ships which brought them, their English homes, and the places of their settlement in Massachusetts, 1620-1640. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1930)
    pp. 50-51.
  5.   Res.: "The American Genealogist", 1975.
    v51.
  6. Robert Hicks, in Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995).

    Death date from inventory. (Savage and Pope both give this date as 24 March, apparently based on the abstract of the inventory published in 1850 [NEHGR 4:282]. On the original the month of death is in the upper right corner of the page, and is worn, so that only "Ma" can now be read on microfilm. Bowman saw this as May, and his reading is followed here.)
    Gives origin as London.

The Fortune (1621)
The Fortune, the second ship to arrive at Plymouth, was sent by the Merchant Adventurers, the same group that financed the Mayflower. It arrived unexpectedly and without significant supplies, thus further stressing the colony. Upon return to England, the Fortune was carrying £500 of cargo to pay off the Pilgrims' debt, but it was captured by the French en route.
Sailed: 9 Aug 1621 from London, England under Master Thomas Barton
Arrived: 9 Nov 1621 at Plymouth, Massachusetts, shortly after the first Thanksgiving
Next Vessel: The Anne and the Little James (1623)

Passengers:
35; 17 families left descendants (Full List)
John Adams - William Bassett - Jonathan Brewster - Clement Briggs - Edward Bumpas - Robert Cushman (and son) - Stephen Deane - Phillip Delano - Ford family - Robert Hicks - William Hilton - Thomas Morton - William Palmer (and son)- Thomas Prence - Moses Simmons - John Winslow - William Wright

Resources: Primary Sources: Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation - Mourt's Relation
Wikipedia: Arrival of the Fortune