William Watkin Hicks

William Watkin Hicks
6th Florida Superintendent of Public Instruction
In office
March 1, 1875 – December 31, 1876
GovernorMarcellus Stearns
Preceded byJonathan C. Gibbs
Succeeded byW. P. Haisley
Personal details
Born1837[1]: 280 
England[2]
Died1915?[1]: 280 
OccupationMethodist minister, newspaper editor, author and politician

William Watkin Hicks[3] (1837–1915?[1]: 280 ) was a Methodist minister,[4] newspaper editor, author, and politician. He served as Florida State Superintendent of Public Instruction from March 1, 1875, until December 31, 1876.[5]

Early career

Hicks was born in England in 1837, and came to the United States as a boy.[2] From 1857 to 1861, he held various pastorates in the Baltimore (Maryland) Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church[2] in the vicinity of Darlington[6]: i  and Havre de Grace.[2]

During the war, he became a missionary to India.[2]

In 1865, he was appointed to a Methodist pastorate in Frederick City, Maryland; but, changing both denomination and location, in December 1867 he became the acting pastor of a Congregational Church in Brooklyn.[2] In late 1868, he moved again, to Charleston, South Carolina,[2] and on January 8, 1869, he became assistant pastor to the aged John Bachman (d. 1874) of St. John's Lutheran Church in that city.[7] "His brilliant sermons drew great crowds," and yet he resigned on August 23, 1870.[7] Meanwhile, alongside Felix Gregory De Fontaine, he edited a monthly magazine titled The XIX Century (1869–1871).[2]

In 1871,he returned to Methodism as pastor of the First Street Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Macon, Georgia. He continued to hold pastorates in Georgia and Florida until 1875.[2] By 1875, he was associated with Dade County, Florida.[8]

Political career

In 1875, Governor Stearns appointed Hicks to the post of Superintendent of Public Instruction in order to fill a vacancy left by the death of J. C. Gibbs;[9] between Gibbs' death in August 1874 and Hicks' appointment in March 1875, Florida Secretary of State Samuel B. McLin served as acting Superintendent.

Overlapping his term as Superintendent of Public Instruction, in 1875–1876, Hicks served as the final editor of the Republican Fernandina Observer.[10] He was also active in campaigning for the Republican candidate in the election of 1876. He traveled the state with William U. Saunders, a colored man from Baltimore, urging their mostly black audiences to "vote early and often."[11]

The election of 1876 saw Rutherford B. Hayes elected to the Presidency, and Hicks replaced as Superintendent by William Penn Haisley.[12]

Soon after the 1881 inauguration of James A. Garfield, Hicks moved to Washington, D. C.,[13] seeking preferment for some political office, but he was unsuccessful.[13] He became the pastor of a breakaway Methodist congregation "over by the Smithsonian grounds"[13] known as the Washington Tabernacle,[2] to which he preached in a sensational style. Hicks attended Garfield's assassin Charles Guiteau in prison from June 10,[14] 1882, and officiated at his hanging on June 30.[15] His unconventional sermons and his apparent sympathy for the assassin — on top of his previous peregrinations and carpetbagging — led the Atlanta Constitution to brand him "a bird of passage in theology as well as in habitation."[13]

Later career

By 1884, Hicks called Orange County, Florida, home.[1]: 69  Hicks contributed somewhat to the Florida citrus industry via his introduction of certain orange varieties.[16]

In 1892, he wrote (under the pseudonym "Golden Light") a Spiritualist roman à clef titled Angels' Visits to My Farm in Florida.[1]: 280  This was reprinted in 1913 under the auspices of the Sanctuary Publishing Company.[6] The same company had already printed Hicks' The Sanctuary (1910), a synthesis of the teachings of Nagasena with Christianity; The Jungle-Wallah (1911); and The Banner With the New Device[17] (1913), which engaged with feminist and suffragist topics as well as the theological. His A Valentine for the Lonely (1912) was printed by the Occult and Modern Thought Book Centre in Boston.[18]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Servies, James Albert; Lana D. Servies (1999). A Bibliography of Florida. Vol. 3. King & Queen Books. ISBN 0-9636370-2-9. LCCN 93-077633.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simms, William Gilmore (1956). Mary C. Simms Oliphant; T. C. Duncan Eaves (eds.). The Letters of William Gilmore Simms. Vol. 5 (1867–1870). Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. p. 147 (footnote).
  3. ^ Occasionally reported as "William Watkins Hicks."
  4. ^ "State Superintendents". Journal of Education. 50 (22): 372. December 7, 1899. JSTOR 44051426. 1875-'77, Rev. William Watkin Hicks. Methodist minister, came from Georgia, prominent in politics.
  5. ^ Black, Marian Watkins (1959). "Florida Educators". Florida State University Studies (30). Florida State University.
  6. ^ a b Golden Light (W. W. Hicks) (May 1913). Angels' Visits to my Farm in Florida (2nd ed.). Boston: Sanctuary Publishing Co.
  7. ^ a b Ficken, John F. (March 24, 1918). St. John's Lutheran Church of Charleston, S. C.: An Historical Address. Charleston. p. 14.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ Shofner, Jerrell H. (October 1966). "Political Reconstruction in Florida". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 45 (2): 145–170. JSTOR 30147741.
  9. ^ The Compiled General Laws of Florida, 1927. Harrison. 1929. p. 16 – via Google Books. J. C. Gibbs died in August, 1874, and Governor Stearns appointed William Watkins Hicks, Superintendent of Public Instruction.
  10. ^ "The Fernandina Observer (Fernandina, Fla.) 1871-1876". Library of Congress. Retrieved November 15, 2025. Hicks, who was also the state superintendent of public instruction, was active in the presidential election of 1876, traveling around Florida with an African-American–a former barber from Baltimore–to urge the black population to vote. The outcome of the 1876 election signaled the end of Reconstruction, which may explain the ending date for the title.
  11. ^ Shofner, Jerrell H. (April 1964). "Fraud and Intimidation in the Florida Election of 1876". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 42 (4): 321–330. JSTOR 30140045.
  12. ^ United States Bureau of Education (1878). Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1876. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 64.
  13. ^ a b c d "A Cranky Confessor". The Atlanta Constitution. Vol. 14. June 28, 1882. p. 1.
  14. ^ "Affairs in the Capital". The Atlanta Constitution. Vol. 14. June 11, 1882. p. 1.
  15. ^ Godding, William Whitney (October 1882). "The Last Chapter in the Life of Guiteau". The Alienist and Neurologist. 3 (4): 550–557. On Wikisource.
  16. ^ Moore, Theophilus Wilson (1881). Treatise and hand-book of orange culture in Florida (2nd ed.). New York: E. R. Pelton. p. 105.
  17. ^ Hicks, William W. (1913). The Banner With the New Device. Boston: Sanctuary Publishing Company.
  18. ^ "Literature". The Christian Register. 91 (36): 859. September 5, 1912. Loneliness, he says, is a sort of blindness of those to whom he would restore clear vision. Another book by the same author is The Jungle-Wallah, also written with religious intent.
allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Watkin_Hicks