Hicks, Edward

Extract

Hicks, Edward (04 April 1780–23 August 1849), folk artist, was born in Attleboro (now Langhorne), Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the son of Isaac Hicks and Catherine Hicks. (His parents were first cousins; his mother’s maiden name was Hicks.) The Hicks family were Anglicans, and Isaac Hicks had sided with the British during the American Revolution. He eventually was forced to flee from Bucks County, leaving his family behind. His wife died not long after, and Edward Hicks, then eighteen months old, was taken in by family friends David and Elizabeth Twining, who raised him in the Quaker faith. When he was thirteen, Hicks was apprenticed to coachmakers William and Henry Tomlinson of Langhorne. He displayed a talent for painting, and in 1801 he became a partner of coachmaker and carriage painter Joshua Canby of Milford, Pennsylvania. In 1803 he married Sarah Worstall; they had a son and four daughters....