The 1835 Road Petition

  The following document might not seem so unusual.  A group of neighbors petitioning the county commission to build a road to make transportation easier.  However, some of those neighbors included some members of the Hickman family, and the petition provides us with examples of their signatures.  In addition to Edwin Temple Hickman, the document was signed by his sons William Adams, James Barton, and Josiah Harvey Hickman.  Another signer was George Burckhardt, who being an attorney probably also wrote it, and whose daughter Bernetta eloped with Bill Hickman, causing a major rift in the family that didn't heal for many years.  It is not known if the road was constructed, or if it was the same road down which Bill and Bernetta later traveled on their way to Nauvoo after having become Mormons.

--Western Historical Manuscript Collection--Columbia,            

University of Missouri, RG 3476, Folder 55.            

To the Honor of the County Court of

Randolph County - we the under signers

labour under grate inconvenience for

want of a Rode from Thomas Thompsons

Mill on the middle fork of Salt River, to inter

      the State rode between Thomas winn's and george

sect the rode leading from Huntsville to

   Burkhartts

Columbia at Flanerys, and to run the

nearest and best rout therefore we your

pertitioners pray your Honors to grant us

said rode this 15th June 1835

Laton Sisk             |    Henry Halley

Wm A Hickman           |    James P. Halley

Wm Beaty               |    Westley Halliburton

Kenneth A Newton       |    Melchi Johnson

E.T. Hickman           |    Wm Wear

George Burckhartt      |    Young A. Rowland

James B. Hickman       |    James Rowland

Josiah H. Hickman      |    Petre Blanshit

                       |    F Rowland

                       |    Samuel Osborn

                       |    Robert Pashike

                       |    George Reynolds

                       |    Ebenezer Enyart

                       |    Young Kerby

                       |    James Holeman

                       |    Benjamine Robuck

                       |    Burrell Freeman

                       |    John Freeman

                       |    Matthew Hollerp

                       |    William Hoflek

                       |    Wm H. Rowland

To learn more about Edwin Temple Hickman, click here, here, or here.

To learn more about William Adams Hickman, click here.

To learn more about James Barton Hickman, click here.

If you have any information about Josiah Harvey Hickman, email me.

For information on the Missouri manuscripts at U Missouri, click here.

To return to the Hickman Family index page, click here.