COLBERT COUNTY, ALABAMA
BIOGRAPHIES

DAVID W. HICKS

DAVID W. HICKS was born in Davidson County, Tenn., July 31, 1830, and is a son of John C. and Ann Maria (Waters) Hicks. He received a good education at Eureka College, Richland, Miss., and at the age of 18 years engaged as a salesman in a commission house at Yazoo City, that State. In 1853 he went to Gonzales, Tex., where he engaged in the dry goods business, and nine months later returned to Mississippi, and engaged in business for about seven years. In 1860 he came to Tuscumbia and married Miss Sarah A. Hobgood, daughter of John and Martha A. (Alsobrook) Hobgood, of that city.

After his marriage, Mr. Hicks engaged at planting, and in 1862 he entered Captain Kumpie’s Company for six months, after which, said company was re-organized and known as Company K, Eleventh Alabama Regiment, and Mr. Hicks was elected second lieutenant. He participated in the first fight at Decatur, the battles of Fishing Creek, Sulphur Trestle, Tenn., Moulton and Selma, and was in Forrest’s command at the time of the surrender. After the war he resumed farming and now owns a large plantation near Tuscumbia.

Mr. Hicks and wife are communicants of the Episcopal Church, and he is a member of the I. O. O. F. They had eight children born to them, viz.: John C.; Martha A., wife of W. T. Elam, of Mississippi; David B., deceased; Ann M., deceased; Lottie H., Sarah B., McReynolds, and Edgar W.

The father of our subject was born near Richmond, Va., and at the age of about 18 years located in Davidson County, Tenn. He was an aide, with the rank of major, to General Jackson, and had command of the post at Mobile while Jackson was at New Orleans. After his marriage he studied medicine, and in 1830 located in Lawrence County, Ala., about twelve miles east of Tuscumbia, where he lived nine years, then removed to Sumter County, and thence to Carroll County, Miss., where he lived until his death, which occurred in August, 1865, at the age of 73 years. He was a planter, and accumulated considerable property while in Mississippi. He was Grand Master of Freemasons for many years while in Alabama, and was a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He reared a family of six children, viz.: Sarah (Mrs. Judge Jas. J. Chewning, of Mississippi); B. M., physician, now deceased; David W., our subject; Marianne W. (Mrs. A. J. Tidwell, of Mississippi); John W., of Memphis; and Robert H., of Mississippi. The Hicks family came originally from England, and the Waters are descendants of Scotch ancestry.