John Allen Hickman
The late John Allen Hickman, a veteran of the Civil War, who died at his home in Caesarscreek township on June 24, 1908, was born in that township and had lived there most all his life. He was born on January 10, 1843. a son of Riley and Sarah (Ford) Hickman, the former a native of Tennessee and the latter, of Virginia, who had come to Greene county with their respective parents in pioneer days and were here married. After his marriage Riley Hickman located on a tract near where Mrs. J. A. Hickman, widow of his son, is now living, formerly known as the Turner farm, but presently found that he had settled on the wrong claim, through an error of location, and he then moved to the tract just south of the one mentioned and there established his home, spending there his last days. Riley Hickman was both a farmer and a cabinet-maker and in the latter line the products of his shop were in wide demand among his pioneer neighbors. He and his wife were the parents of six children, Gilman, David, Martha, Jacob, Jolm Allen and George, the latter of whom is still living, now a resident of New Burlington.
John Allen Hickman was reared on the home farm in Caesarscreek township and received his schooling in the neighborhood district school. From boyhood he was a hard worker, being required to give assistance early and late in the labors of developing the home place, and also, under his father's direction, became a carpenter. Though but eighteen years of age when the Civil War broke out he enlisted his services in behalf of the Union, in 1861, and went to the front as a member of the One Hundred and Fifty-fourth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with which command he served until the close of the war. Upon the completion of his military service Mr. Hickman returned home and until his marriage in the fall of 1870 was engaged working as a carpenter in that neighborhood. After their marriage he and his wife made their home on the old Turner place, where his wife was born and reared, and there resided for more than seven years, at the end of which time they moved down into Clinton county, but after a two years' residence there returned, in 1879, to the old Hickman place of seventy acres on which Mrs. Hickman still lives and which she owns, and there Mr. Hickman spent the rest of his life, his death occurring there, as noted above, in 1908, he then being sixty-four years of age. By political affiliation Mr. Hickman was a Democrat, but had not been a seeker after public office.
On November 15, 1870, John Allen Hickman was united in marriage to Elizabeth Turner, who also was born in this county, daughter of Elijah and Fanny (Bales) Turner, both of whom also were born in this county, members of pioneer families, and who spent all their lives here. Elijah Turner was a son of Joseph and Diana (Small) Turner, who had come up here from Tennessee and had settled on a farm in New Jasper township, where they spent the remainder of their lives. They were the parents of twelve children, all of whom grew to maturity, and as most of these reared families of their own the Turner connection hereabout is now a numerous one. Elijah and Fanny (Bales) Turner were the parents of seven children, namely: Hannah, who died unmarried; Elizabeth, widow of Mr. Hickman; John, a retired farmer, now living at Lumberton, over the line in Clinton county; Hiram, deceased, whose last days were spent in Arkansas; William, a farmer of Xenia township, this county, who died in 1916; Daniel, a farmer of New Jasper township, and Jane, who lives in the neighborhood of Alpha, in this county, widow of William McBee.
To John A. and Elizabeth (Turner) Hickman were born five children, namely: Amy, who married Charles Davis, of Columbus, this state, and died in August, 1917; Harley, engineer at the powder-mills, making his home at Xenia, who married Anna Whittington and has three children, Vesta, Helen and Vernon; Fanny, who married Charles Robinson, formerly a blacksmith at New Burlington, but who now is farming the Hickman place, and has four children, Lewis, Lucy, Elizabeth and Mildred; Ruby, who married Harry Whittington. a farmer of Xenia township, and has four children, Louise, Raymond, Frances and Alden; and John Ray, a brakeman in the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, living at Xenia, who married Cora Davis, who died in 1916 leaving three children, Dorothy, William and Kenneth. Since her husband's death Mrs. Hickman has continued to make her home on the old home place which is being looked after by her son-in-law, Mr. Robinson. She is a member of the White Chapel Methodist Episcopal church.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918