Evening star., 1916-08-06

grounds are fine specimens of that
member of the bay family called the
cucumber tree and the purple-leaf
beech
Col William Hickey was born in
Washington on the east side of New
jersey avenue. close to the corner OF
3 street south The year of his birth
was 1874. six years before the removal
of the seat of the national government
to the District of Columbia. 1t may
be that the Rambler is placing the
birth date of Col Hickey n few years
too early, but that is the date as the
Rambler reads it in his notes. The
facts which cause the Rambler some
what to question either the accuracy
of his notes or the correctness of his
reading of them in the matter of Col
Hickeys birth date is that he believes
the colonel to have been mere lad at
the time of the capture of Washington
by the British, and as that was in 1914,
William Hickey would at that time, II
born in 1894. have been twenty years
old The Rambler feels that he was
not so old. and the reason for his be-
lief will be found in an anecdote of
Col Hickey's boyhood at the time of the
British invasion
The Hickey house on New Jersey
avenue was two-story brick, with
dormer windows. 1t disappeared many
years ago. and its site for a long time
was covered by Brooks Congressional
Hotel. and today the north door of the
west front of the office building of the
House of Representatives opens about
where the Hickey house stood. Will
liam Hickey was a son of James H1ck-
ey of the old Maryland family. and his
mother was lady from FREDERICK
City, Md James Hickey was in the
Maryland line of the Continental army.
his record in the War Department
showing that he held the rank and
fulfilled the duties of paymaster.
The ancestors of the Hickeys came
to this country with the colony headed
by Sir Edmund Plowden. 1t was in
1884. the year of the settlement of St
Mary's City, that Sir Edmund Powder
of Southampton. England, received
patent under the great seal of Ireland
for palatine province called New AL
bion embracing the territory now COW
cred by New Jersey, Long Island, east
ern Pennsylvania and parts of Della
ware and Maryland. A slight digres-
sion ought to be permissible here on
the subject of Sir Edmund. His name
is spelled Ployten in The Journal of
the Dutch Embassy to Maryland, by
Augustine Herman, 1853" Clayton
Coleman Hall of the Maryland Historic
piled and edited The Original Nara
tives of Early Maryland History has
written:
Soon after the settlement of Dutch colonists
under the auspices OF the putcn west iHulh
Company upon the Island of Manhattan in 1924
several attempts were made by them to effect
a settlement upon the west bank of the Della
ware river. None of these became permanent.
however and in 1881 the inhabitants at place
they called Swanendael on the Lewes river, were
all massacred by the Indians. At the time the
charter of Maryland granted by Charles
to Lord Baltimore there were no Europeans set
tied upon the west bank Of the Delaware, which
by the terms of his charter included in
Lord Batimore's grant.
In 1898 q party of adventurers from Sweden
sailed into Delaware bay and effected settle
ment at what is the site of Wilmington.
and there erected fort, which. in honor of their
queen. they called Fort Crstina. This colony
grew In strength, and, the Dutch becoming
concerned at this built in 1851 fort. to which
they gave the OF Sieuw Amstel, where
Newcastle now is; but this captured by