John Burroughs Hickerson and Florence Belle Brown

John Burroughs Hickerson was born January 31, 1856[1] in the family’s farmhouse in Remington, Fauquier County, Virginia.  His parents were Charles Kendall Hickerson (1820-1892) and Martha Frances Burroughs (1825-1897).[2] John farmed his parents’ land, which his mother had inherited from her father, Samuel Burroughs. It was bounded by the Rappahannock River, Tin Pot Run, and the state road south of Remington.[3] The Burroughs Hickerson cemetery is located on the southern boundary of the property.[4]

 

Florence Belle Brown was born November 29, 1868, in Stafford County, Virginia. Her parents were Louise H. Johnson (1830-?) and William Brown (1820-?).  Her father was a farmer.[5]

 

John was of an age to remember the fighting during the Civil War, as he was five years old when it officially began in 1861, and nine when the war came to a close in 1865.  According to Butterworth, many of his uncles served in the Confederate Army, including Robert and James Hickerson, and John Garland Taylor, brothers and brother-in-law, respectively, of John’s father, and his mother’s brother, John B. Burroughs, who was a doctor.  John remembered riding double behind his father to escape from Yankee soldiers, and Federal troops burned their house[6] (see Charles Kendall Hickerson). 

 

John was a farmer, like his father, and money was always tight.  He borrowed money from L. Robinson in the 1880s, and paid the loan in full ($130.84, including interest, costs, and Sheriff’s commission of 5%) on February 27, 1886.[7] 

 

Fauquier County was said to have been a wonderful place to farm, for “the soil is naturally strong and rich and whatever grows there is more vigorous and productive than what grows in many other places.”[8] Corn,  wheat and cattle were primary products of the farms in Fauquier and were probably were John’s main crops.

 

Life on a farm was not easy.  In the winter, there was snow and ice and mud and work, and in the summer, there was heat and work.  In the winter, food was most likely limited to pork, white beans, cabbage and cornbread, but in the summer, there was chicken and fresh vegetables and plenty of fresh fruit (apples, cherries, berries and peaches).[9]  Because the farm was right on the Rappahannock, it is easy to imagine the children swimming in the summer.  Some children swimming in this part of the river remember feeling an underwater Civil War cannon with their toes.[10]

 

John and Florence had eight children:  Everett Burroughs Hickerson (born 1891), Kendall Charles Hickerson (1893), William Daniel Hickerson (1896), Clyde Vernon Hickerson (1898), Lewis Shook Hickerson (1899), Martha Louise Hickerson (1901), John Aubrey Hickerson (1903), and Florence Virginia Hickerson (1906) (see Sketches). 

 

According to Herbert,[11] the winters in Fauquier could be long and hard. Some years, the roads froze in November and didn’t thaw until April.  Farmers somehow seemed to survive, though, and they had plenty to do to feed the livestock and provide firewood.  Living less than two miles from Remington town center, John, Florence or the children probably went in to town regularly (either walking or on horseback) to check the mail and say hello to friends in the store. The family were members of the Remington Baptist Church, which was located on Washington Street in Remington, right next door to the house belonging to John B. Burroughs, John’s uncle.[12]

 

Florence raised turkeys on the farm; they were hers exclusively.  As told by Amy Compere Hickerson, her daughter-in-law, Florence bought her own personal things with money from their sale,

 

and year after year provided for the extra needs of her family which the regular farm income could not compass.  One year, a missionary came to Remington on furlough and made an appeal that deeply touched Florence.  She made a pledge to the mission cause that amazed the whole church, especially since she had a houseful of growing children whose needs never seemed to be met.  After the service, one of the children ventured the question, “Mama, how will you get the money to give that much to missions?” “Well,” she answered, “you know my turkeys….  I think the turkeys will pay my pledge and buy our things, too, this fall.”

 

Baby turkeys are silly little things, as anybody who has ever worked with them can tell you; but through the weeks these were carefully tended and by the end of summer the flock was in beautiful condition.  In her mind [she] had already sold them, provided the new sweaters and books and shoes, paid her pledge and bought the new dress for herself that she needed.

 

And then disaster overtook them!  One boundary of the farm was formed by the railroad and for some unknown reason the turkeys elected one night to roost on the rails.  Next morning fully half the flock had been killed by the train.  The children were shocked into silence by what seemed to them nothing less than catastrophe.  Quickly their mother readjusted her calculations – sweaters and books and shoes; her own new dress; the pledge for missions.  Already she knew what she would do.  “We will work it out all right,” she told them.  And she did.  They had the things they needed, she made her gift for missions, and with dignity and grace she wore the old dress that she had thought past wearing again.[13]

 

Florence died December 20, 1920; John died November 27, 1940. They are both buried in the Burroughs Hickerson cemetery outside Remington. 

Children of John Burroughs Hickerson and Florence Belle Brown

Everett Burroughs Hickerson (September 26, 1891[14] – 1964)

Everett married twice; his first wife was Henrietta, his second was Georgia.  He had two children, Robert (Bobby) and Patricia.  In 1964, Sue Hickerson Jett, Amy Hickerson Dalton and the Dalton boys buried his ashes in the Burroughs Hickerson cemetery in Remington.[15] 

Kendall Charles Hickerson (March 17, 1893[16] - June 13, 1956)

Kendall was “absolutely the biggest liar of anybody we’ve every known.”[17] His parents named him Charles Kendall, but everyone called him Kendall.  When he was wanted to enlist in the service for World War I, the military told him he would be put down as Charles, so he legally changed his name to Kendall Charles.  After the war, when he served in France with the infantry,[18] he came back and ran the family farm until his father died, then he moved to Tampa, Florida.  He graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and never married. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC.[19]

William Daniel Hickerson (February 23, 1896[20] - January 27, 1967)

William was a doctor in World War I, specializing in tuberculosis.  He married twice:  first to Miss Burrus, second to Virginia Borum.  He had one daughter, May Burrus Hickerson, who “smoked cigars and played the accordion.”[21] William and Virginia retired to Hendersonville, North Carolina, near her family.  Virginia Borum died December 25, 1947, and William died January 27, 1967.[22]

Clyde Vernon Hickerson (April 19, 1898 – November 29, 1977)

See Sketch.

Lewis Shook Hickerson (June 1, 1899 – December 27, 1901)

Lewis was named after Lewis Shook, a famous missionary, who married Henrietta Hall.  Henrietta Hall Shook was the great aunt of Addison Dalton, the husband of Clyde Vernon Hickerson’s daughter Amy.  Lewis died at age two, and is buried in the Burroughs Hickerson family cemetery in Remington.[23]

Martha Louise Hickerson (1901 – June 12, 1976)

Louise married Charles Borum, brother to Virginia Borum.  Charles and Virginia’s father was a Baptist minister in Mississippi.  Louise was Charles’ third wife, and they had only known each other two weeks before they got married.  His first wife was from Mississippi and was very wealthy.  They had two children but divorced on bad terms.  According to Jett, his second wife was some type of circus performer.  Louise and Charles lived in Hendersonville, North Carolina.  After he retired, Charles gave power of attorney to Addison Dalton, husband of Amy Hickerson, one of Clyde’s daughters.  Charles said, “I’ve turned my life over to Christ and I’ve turned my finances over to Addison.”  Amy Dalton said he was “odd but likeable.”[24]

John Aubrey Hickerson (November 11, 1903 – September 3, 1911)

John Aubrey (November 11, 1903 – September 3, 1911[25]) died of diabetes one year before insulin was available.  Jett said it took two years for him to die and it was pitiful.[26]  He is buried in the Burroughs Hickerson family cemetery in Remington.

Florence Virginia Hickerson (March 23, 1906 – after 1948)

Kendall named his youngest sister Toodles after a dog, and somehow the nickname stuck.  She lived in Washington, DC and never married.  She was a schoolteacher.[27]

 

Return to Charles Kendall Hickerson and Martha Frances Burroughs.

Return to Martha’s Family History.