SOURCE: History of Harrison County, West Virginia by Col. Haymond
Read Sotha Hickman's ancestry chart.
Sotha Hickman was born on Sugarland Bottom on the Potomac River near the present town of Rockville, MD in 1749 & died at his home on Elk Creek, near Quiet Dell where he lived for many years. ..he with a party of four others came to this region looking for land in the fall of the year 1771 & built his first cabin near where the Elkview Cemetery is now situated. He brought out his family from the East to this location in 1771 or 1773 & is known to have been living there in 1779. He entered a thousand acres of land on Elk Creek near & perhaps including Quiet Dell in 1773 but did not occupy it for several years afterward.
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 & owned the first rooster that ever crowed in the County.
While trapping on the Little Kanawha River in company with Levi Douglas there were captured by a party of Indians & taken to their towns on the Sciota River in Ohio. One night while the Indians were holding a grand dance & festival the prisoners were left in charge by an old man who fell off to sleep. They each then quietly seized a gun & equipment & struck out for home & liberty. Travelling only at night they were four days without food & after reaching the VA side of the Ohio river they were fortunate enough to kill a bear & ate so much of it that they both became very sick & were relieved by drinking what was called rock oil, which was found floating on the surface of Hughes River.
In common with most frontiersmen he had no liking for the Indian race & a favorite expression of his was, 'Dod blast their yaller hides.'
He (Sotha) enlisted at Fort Nutter in the VA troops & served 14 months during the Indian Wars, a part of the time under Col William LOWTHER. He was pensioned by the Government for his military services. The subject of this sketch was of a companionable disposition, an expert hunter & trapper & spent most of the time in those occupations during the fall & winter
He (Sotha) died on his settlement right & was buried in the Haymond Grave Yard, having obtained a geater age than the others who come to the country with him in 1771. A monument in front of the courthouse of Harrison County at Clarksburg tells about Sotha Hickman & lists him as an Indian fighter.
Descendant: Addie Hickman Research
Also, see Debbie's web site for Sotha Hickman's ancestors.