U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Hickman, Sotha (b. 1749) ------------------------------------------------------------------- History of Harrison County, West Virginia, From the Early Days of Northwestern Virginia to the Present. by Henry Haymond Acme Publishing Company, Morgantown, W.Va., 1910 Pages 383-384 Sotha Hickman was born on the Sugar Land Bottom on the Potomac River near the present town of Rockville, Maryland in 1749, and died at his home on Elk Creek near Quiet Dell where he had lived for many years. As stated before he with a party of four others came to this region looking for land in the fall of the year 1771 and built his first cabin near where the Elk View Cemetery is now situated. He brought out his family from the East to this location in 1772 or 1773 and is known to have been living there in 1779. He entered a thousand acres of land on Elk Creek near and perhaps including Quiet Dell in 1773 but did not occupy it for several years afterwards. Sotha Hickman always claimed that his son, Arthur, was the first white child born in Harrison County, that he raised the first crop of corn and owned the first rooster that ever crowed in the County. While trapping on the Little Kanawha River in Company with Levi Douglass they were captured by a party of Indians and taken to their towns on the Sciota River in Ohio. One night while the Indians were holding a grand dance and festival the prisoners were left in charge of an old man who fell off into a sleep. They each then quietly seized a gun and equipments and struck out for home and liberty. Travelling only at night they were four days without food and after reaching the Virginia side of the Ohio River they were fortunate enough to kill a bear and ate so much of it that they both became very sick and were relieved by drinking what was called rock oil, which was found floating on the surface of Hughes River. In common with most frontiermen he had no liking for the Indian race and a favorite expression of his was "Dod blast their yaller hides." He enlisted at Fort Nutter in the Virginia troops and served fourteen months during the Indian wars, a part of the time under Colonel William Lowther. He was pensioned by the Government for his military services. While a party were gigging for fish in the West Fork River near the old fair ground, Hickman carrying the fagott or torch, two guns were flashed on the bank. He soused the fagott in the water and they all struck for shore. The string of fish had been thrown down and hearing the fish fluttering in the water Hickman returned and secured them and they all hurried to Clarksburg. Flint locks were then in use and the powder in the pans of the Indians guns had become damp and thus failed to discharge the pieces. The subject of this sketch was of a companionable disposition, an expert hunter and trapper and spent most of the time in those occupations during the fall and winter. He died on his settlement right and was buried in the Haymond Grave Yard, having obtained a greater age than the others who came to the country with him in 1771. ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Harrison County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/harrison/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------