Margaret,
This is from an article I wrote many years ago.
Yankee Azoreans
John Miranda Raposo
This is not a work about the thousands of immigrants who
have come to New England from the nine islands of the Azores.
Rather, this work is primarily concerned with the descendants of Thomas
Hickling, a Boston Yankee who settled on São Miguel and became the patriarch of
a large clan on both sides of the Atlantic.
Thomas Hickling was born in Boston
on 21-2-1744 into the prosperous merchant family of
William Hickling of Nottingham, England
and Sarah Townsend Sale. At the age of eighteen, his father arranged an
apprenticeship for him with the prosperous Green brothers and in 1764 he
married their sister, Sarah Emily Green, fifteen years his senior, in Boston's old Trinity
Church.
[1] There is some speculation
that it was a marriage of convenience, arranged either for social or economic
reasons, or both. In any event Hickling fulfilled his marital duty becoming the
father of two children by his first wife. Catherine Green Hickling was born in Salem in 1768 and William
Green Hickling was born in 1765. Their father soon left his family and located
to the Caribbean where he traded in molasses which he shipped back to his
father's distillery in Boston.
[2] He must have been an
enterprising sort, for he perceived the commercial possibilities in the Azores
because in 1769 be was living in Ponta
Delgada. Thomas Hickling never returned to America and
never lived anywhere else.
He became one of the principal developers of the orange
trade, the export of oranges to England,
which became the basis for the colossal fortunes of many of São
Miguel's socially prominent families and paid for the construction
of many a
palácio, those grand manor
houses with their lovely English and French gardens still seen throughout the
island. In 1820 Hickling exported nearly 5,700 crates or oranges and 2,000
crates of lemons from Ponta Delgada.
But the firm of his sons-in-law Ivens & Burnett exported over 11,000
crates.
[3] At the height of the
orange age 93% of the oranges produced
in São Miguel were exported.
But
the Hicklings and many other "gentlemen farmers" were brought to
financial ruin at the end of the century when the orange trade came to an end,
victim of a blight that first attacked the orange groves in 1834, again in 1860
and finally destroyed the remaining groves at the end of the century. The
financial ruin resulted in a reduced standard of living for these
"gentlemen farmers", many of whom could no longer afford the upkeep
on their
lovely homes and gardens. Many
can still be seen in the suburbs surrounding Ponta Delgada and Lagoa,
their dilapidated state a silent witness to
both the greatness and the misery of the age.
[4]
News traveled slowly and it must have been months before
Hickling learned that Sarah Green, the wife he had last seen twelve years
earlier, had died in Boston
in May of 1774. He could not have mourned her death very much for not long
after, in February 1778,
the young
widower married Suzanne Sarah Falder of Philadelphia,
fifteen years his junior. It must have been love at first sight since the young
Sarah just happened to be passing through Ponta
Delgada in the company of her father, Thomas Falder.
Between the time of their marriage and 1808 they produced 16 children, all born
in São Miguel, including two sets of twins.
[5] Thus, came into being the
first generation of Yankee Azoreans.
Throughout his lifetime on São Miguel,
the Protestant Hickling was very ecumenical; whenever a Protestant minister was
unavailable at the frequent arrivals of new Hicklings, he had them baptized in the
Catholic Church.
[6]
In 1776 Thomas Hickling was appointed American Vice Consul
in Ponta Delgada,
a post he held until his death some fifty years later. Hickling became socially
prominent and popular for his sincerity and friendliness. His diplomatic and
social positions on the island made him a natural good will ambassador who
often received and entertained visiting foreigners. Over the years his business
ventures made him a fabulously wealthy man and he built three magnificent
estates on the island. In 1792 he was living on
Rua da Misericórdia. His first manor house with a curved northern
side and curved outer steps leading to what must have been a magnificent lawn,
was built in Rosto do Cão in the parish of São Roque on the outskirts of Ponta
Delgada.
[7] In 1812 he began building the
Palácio de São Pedro. Built in the
Georgian colonial style, it cost Hickling nearly $30,000.00, a huge fortune at
the time and it was considered the grandest private residence on the island
well into the second half of the 19th century.
[8] It still stands today at
the water's edge in the eastern end of Ponta Delgada as the Hotel São Pedro,
the
grand dame of hotels, lovingly
preserved and filled with period furniture, by its late proprietor, Vasco
Bensaúde.
But it is Hickling’s Terra
Nostra park and botanical gardens in Furnas that stands as a perpetual
monument to his memory. Hickling chose the Furnas valley to build his summer
home in 1782, which he appropriately named Yankee
Hall. Furnas is blessed with thermal springs of warm water and Hickling
built his home on high land facing o Tanque, a natural pool fed by these warm
springs. All around the house Hickling began developing what eventually became
a magnificent botanical garden, planting many specimens from America and
from other lands where he maintained commercial interests. For the rest of his
life, Hickling divided his time among his three estates.
Thomas Hickling died in Ponta Delgada
on 31 August 1836 and lies buried in the protestant Cemetery. He was succeeded as vice-consul by his son
Thomas, Jr. (1781-1875). Sarah Falder died in 1849 and was buried beside her
husband.
In 1848, with the financial crisis caused by the first
attack of blight to the orange groves,
Yankee
Hall and the gardens were sold to the Marquês da Praia who restored and
expanded Hickling’s masterpiece.
[9] So grand an estate did it
become, that his descendant put the house and estate at the disposal of the
King and Queen during their visit to the island in 1901.
In 1970 the island's government formally recognized Thomas
Hickling’s place in Azorean history and horticulture by erecting a monument to
his memory close by the entrance of his beloved Yankee Hall.
The Azorean
Hicklings: the descendants of Thomas Hickling
§1
1 - Thomas Hickling was born in Boston on 21-2-1744 to William Hicking and
Sarah
Sale. He was married in Boston on 22-8-1764 to Sarah Emily Green,
daughter of
Rufus King and
Katherine Stanbridge, who died in 1774. In February 1778 in Ponta
Delgada, he
married Sarah Falder, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Falder. He was
Vice Consul of
the United States in Ponta Delgada from his
appointment in 1776 until
his death on 1
Sept 1834. Sarah Falder died in Ponta
Delgada in 1849.
[10]
By his first wife
he had:
2 - Catherine
Green Hickling (1768-1852) , visited her father and his estates in São
Miguel from
1786 to 1788 and it is from her diaries, portions of which were
published in
Insulana[11] that we know about her
father's activities and his projects
as well as
what the island's gardens looked like in 1786. She married William
Prescott and
they became the parents of several children, three of whom survived
infancy.
Among them was the celebrated author and historian William Hickling
Prescott
(1796-1859) who visited with his grandfather in 1815.
[12]
2 - William
Hickling was born in Boston
on 14 June 1765. He died in 1794.
Thomas
Hickling and his second wife Sarah Falder were the parents of
[13]:
2 - Mary
Hickling (c. 1778-1805) married John Anglin of County Cork.
After her
death,
John Anglin married his sister-in-law Ana Joaquina.
2 -
Elizabeth Flora Hickling (1783-1832) married William Breakspeare Ivens, an
armigerous English gentleman, in 1805, who was in the Azores
with his friend
William
Shelton Burnett on a business venture. George III granted him a coat of
arms in
1816. Both men fell in love with Hickling sisters. By the time he died
in
1851, the orange blight and a financial scandal left him and his family in
They
were the parents of eight children, among them:
3 - Robert Breakspeare Ivens was born in
Ponta Delgada
on 9 Mar 1822 and
died in Lisbon
on 20 Feb 1889. He was married to Luisa Soares Borralho by
whom he had two children.
By
Margarida Júlia de Medeiros Castelo Branco, born in Água de Pau in
1832 to José Jacinto Raposo do Rego Castelo Branco and his wife Ana
Jacinta Matilde, he had two illegitimate children:
[15]
4
- Roberto Ivens was born in Ponta
Delgada on 12 June 1850 and died in
Lisbon
on 28 Jan 1898. He was a famous geographer and explorer of the
African continent. The expedition to the African continent by Ivens and
Brito Capelo, ranks
with the exploration of the Louisiana Purchase
by the
Americans Lewis and Clark. A monument to his memory stands in Ponta
Delgada near the Esperança Convent.
4 - Duarte Ivens was born in Ponta Delgada on 31 Aug
1852.
2 - Sarah
Clarissa Hickling (1783-1849) married her brother-in-law's friend,
William Shelton Burnett.
2 - Ana
Joaquina Hickling (1785-1824) and John Anglin have descendants in the
United
States as well as in the Azores. A grandson, Dr. João Hickling Anglin,
was the
rector of the local lyceum and was a respected researcher who published
many scholarly
works.
2 - Charlotte
Sophia Hickling (1787-1877) married Jacinto Soares de Albergaria.
2 - Frances
Hickling (1789-1867) married Joaquim António de Paula Medeiros, a
local
physician. They have many descendants in São Miguel,
some of whom
have married
into the local nobility.
2 - Frederick
Hickling was born on 1 Oct 1791 and died in August 1794.
2 - Harriet
Frederica Hickling (1793-1853) married John White Webster, a Harvard
professor. He met Harriet while doing some
research on the geological formation
of the
island.
[16] The salary of a Harvard
professor was more an honorarium in
those
days, than a decent salary. Harriet aspired to social prominence and
entertained lavishly at their Cambridge,
Massachusetts home, spending well
beyond
her means. Professor Webster went into debt to support his wife's
lifestyle. One of his creditors, Professor George Parkman, pressed
Webster for
repayment
and threatened to take legal action which would have ruined Webster.
Professor
Webster murdered Parkman and dismembered and incinerated the
body.
Nevertheless he was discovered, tried, condemned and was hanged in
August
1850. Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs.
John White Webster, became
one of
the most famous cases in American jurisprudence because of the missing
Two of
their daughters went on to marry Dabneys from Faial,
another Yankee
family
established in the Azores. Harriet Wainright
Webster married Samuel
Wyllys
Dabney, who was United States Consul in Horta.
[18] The Consulship of
Horta passed on to succeeding Dabney
generations, as did the Vice-consulship of
Ponta Delgada to
succeeding Hickling generations. The Dabneys resigned their
consulship in 1891 when a new State Department rule prohibited consular
officials
from engaging in commercial enterprises in their posts. Wyllys and his
family
returned to the United States
and established Fayal Ranch in California.
[19]
2 - Samuel
Hickling (1795-1799).
2 - Amelia
Clementina Hickling (1796-1872) married Hugh Chambers in 1822 and
settled
with her husband in New Bedford
where he died in 1823. She was
pregnant
and returned to the Azores where her daughter
Emmeline was born in
1823. Amelia then married Thomas Nye in New Bedford in 1827 and
had several
more
children.
3 -
Emmeline married Edward Coffin Jones of Nantucket in 1844 and they
lived in the magnificent Rotch-Jones-Duff mansion, today a house and
garden museum open to the public in New Bedford.
2 - Mary Anne
Hickling (1800-1888) married her brother-in-law, William Ivens, in
1833 in
the Protestant Chapel in Ponta Delgada.
They had several children. One
daughter,
Catherine (1836-1933) married Ricardo Júlio Ferraz and they are the
ancestors
of a very numerous Ivens-Ferraz family, including Generals, Admirals,
Finance
Ministers and a Prime Minister of Portugal.
[20]
Senator John Forbes
Kerry: the Hickling Connection
Edward Coffin Jones and Emmeline Hickling Chambers were the
parents of Sarah Coffin Jones (1852-1891) who married John Malcolm Forbes
(1874-1904), a railroad company executive and a great-grandson of the Reverend
John Forbes (1740-1783) and Dorothy Murray. They had several children. After
Sarah’s death, John Malcolm Forbes married Emmeline’s cousin Rose Dabney
(1864-1947) and they had three children. Rose Dabney was the granddaughter of
Harriet Frederica Hickling and the ill fated Professor John White Webster.
Senator John Forbes Kerry (1943- ) is the son of Richard
Kerry and Rosemary Forbes, maternal
grandson of James Grant Forbes (1879-1955), and great grandson of Francis
Blackwell Forbes (1839-1908). Francis Blackwell Forbes is also a great-grandson
of the Reverend John Forbes and his wife Dorothy. Thus, Thomas Hickling’s
descendants by his great granddaughters Rose Dabney and Sarah Coffin Jones, and
the descendants of Francis Blackwell Forbes and his wife Isabel Clark, are
cousins. Former presidential candidate
Senator John Forbes Kerry, like his Hickling cousins, is a great-grandson of
Francis Blackwell Forbes.
If there is an after life, Thomas Hickling must have an
enormous grin on his patrician face.
[1] José Manuel Bela Morais, “Descendants of Thomas
Hickling”, MS, Lisbon,
n.d.
[2] Isabel Soares de Albergaria, Quintas, Jardins e Parques da Ilha de São Miguel, Lisbon, Queluz Editores:
2000.
[3]Sacuntala
de Miranda,
O Ciclo da Laranja e os gentlemen
farmers
da Ilha de S. Miguel: 1780-1880, Ponta Delgada: Instituto
Cultural de Ponta Delgada: 1989.
[5] Francis Millet
Rogers, “Boston Brahmins in the Azores” Atlantic Islanders of the Azores and Madeiras,
North Quincy:
The Christopher Publishing House: 1979.
[6] Bela
Morais,“Descendants of Thomas Hickling”.
[7] Francis
Millet Rogers, “Boston Brahmins in the Azores” Atlantic Islanders of the Azores and Madeiras,
[8] Bela
Morais,“Descendants of Thomas Hickling”.
[9] Isabel Soares
de Albergaria.
[10] José Manuel Bela Morais, “Descendants of Thomas
Hickling”, MS, Lisbon,
n.d.
Francis Millet Rogers, “Boston Brahmins in the Azores” Atlantic Islanders of the Azores and Madeiras,
North Quincy:
The Christopher Publishing House: 1979.
[11] Catherine Green Hickling, Diário: 1786-1789 in Insulana,
Ponta Delgada,
Instituto Cultural de Ponta
Delgada: 1993.
[12]Author
of
The Conquest of Mexico,
The World of the Aztecs,
The World of the Incas,
History of the Reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella, the Catholic,
The Conquest
of Peru,
The Rise and decline of the
Spanish Empire.
[13]These
are the children which this author has been able to document.
[14] José Manuel Bela Morais, et al, Ivens Ferraz: Origens e sua Descendência, Lisbon: 1999.
[15]Francisco
de Simas Alves de Azevedo, in
Centenário:
Hermengildo Capelo e Roberto Ivens, Conferências e Comunicações. Comissão
das Comemorações do Primeiro Centenário da Travessa da África por Hermengildo
Capelo e Roberto Ivens, Academia Portuguesa da História. Lisbon: 19-6-1985.
Carlos Maria Machado, Genealogias, MS,
Biblioteca e Arquivo Regional de Ponta Delgada, n.d.
[16]John
White Webster,
A description of the island of St. Michael, comprising an account of
its geological structure. Boston:
1821.
[17]Helen
Thomson,
Murder at Harvard, Boston, Houghton Miffin:
1971.
Robert Sullivan, The
Disappearance of Dr. Parkman, Little, Brown, Boston: 1971.
[18] He was the son of the second consul, Charles William
Dabney and grandson of the first consul, John Bass
Dabney. (see Joseph C. Abdo, "The
Dabney Family of Faial" and Francis Millet Rogers, “Boston
Brahmins in the Azores”)
[19] Bela Morais, “Descendants of Thomas Hickling”.