HICKSON, WILLIAM ALLEN (1841-1912)

HICKSON, WILLIAM ALLEN, lumber business manager and sawmill owner; b. New Bandon, Gloucester Co., N.B., 20 Mar 1841, s/o William P. Hickson and Elizabeth Daley; m. 1884, Emma Jessie MacLennan, of Prince Edward Island; d. Montreal, 10 May 1912.

William A. Hickson was a nephew of the Rev. Edward Hickson, and his wife, whom he married when he was in his forties, was a niece of William Muirhead. He came to the Miramichi during his uncle's term as Baptist minister at Newcastle and was baptized by him in 1864. He was working as a carpenter in 1865 when he joined the Newcastle Sons of Temperance. He was later employed in the lumber industry. In 1877 he was manager of a sawmill which was conducted near Tracadie by Guy, Stewart & Co. Later he was general manager at Chatham with Guy, Bevan & Co. In 1886, the year before that firm went bankrupt, he bought James O. Fish's interest in the Hamilton & Fish sawmill in Newcastle. William D. Richards also owned an interest in it, and it was known at first as the Richards & Hickson sawmill. Later James Robinson was a part-owner.

In 1887 Hickson bought the James O. Fish residence and moved his family to Newcastle. In the years that followed, his sawmill was one of the most productive and profitable on the Miramichi. It was stated in 1903 that it was a "close second" to the D. & J. Ritchie mill, the town's largest. Like most owners of larger sawmills he manufactured lumber for the European and American markets, but unlike some of the others he was not a major shipper. Instead he sold most of his production to lumber buyers such as Frederick E. Neale. He had business interests other than the sawmill, and until 1897 was a partner in the grocery firm of William Wilson & Co. of Chatham.

In 1894 Hickson succeeded James Brown as president of the Newcastle Board of Trade. In 1896 he was elected president of the County Conservative Association. In 1900 he won a seat on the Newcastle Town Council. He was appointed to the Almshouse Commission in 1904. He was a trustee of the Newcastle Baptist Church and a liberal contributor to the fund created to rebuild the church during the pastorate of the Rev. Henry T. Cousins. When he died in hospital in Montreal in 1912 he left $110,000 to his wife, Emma J. MacLennan, and their two daughters. His burial plot in Miramichi Cemetery is a continuing testimonial to his financial standing in the community.