Up until now I've written about Adam and Ellen's Bedford County ancestors. I've finally worked my way down to Adam and Ellen themselves. They, along with their son, Horace, were the last of this branch of my ancestry to be born in Bedford County Pennsylvania.
Just to review, Adam came from three paternal generations of Bedford County farmers. His Bedford County roots began with his great-grandfather's land grant received for services rendered in the Revolutionary War. Adam was born and raised on his father, Conrad's, farm in West St. Clair Township. But farming didn't seem to flow through Adam's veins as he was much more of a natural born scholar. Adam began his professional career as a school teacher. In fact, if the history books are correct, he could have begun teaching in the public school system as young as age 14 or 15.
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| Schoolhouse near Pleasantville where Adam may have taught |
In December of 1863, when he was 18 years old, he married Elizabeth Ellen Harbaugh. Quite a bit was written about Ellen in my previous post about her mother, Elizabeth Callihan Harbaugh. Ellen was about a year and a half older than Adam. Their first child, John Elmer, was born 7 months following their marriage. (You can jump to your own conclusions.)
Just 3 months after the birth of John Elmer, Adam enlisted as a substitute in the Civil War. From what I understand, by early to mid 1863 both the Union and the Confederate Armies had to instigate a draft system in order to maintain their troops. A system was put into place that if a man of means was called up through the draft and did not want to serve he could pay another man to serve in his place. The fee of $300 was mentioned with regard to this type of transaction as was an amount as high as $1000. By way of comparison, $300 would be equivalent to more than $4300.00 today. I have no idea how much Adam was paid to act as another man's substitute in the war effort, but the money he received was probably instrumental in facilitating his first of many business ventures following the war. I also don't think the decision for him to act as a war substitute was at all an easy one as Ellen's brother was a casualty of the Civil War just a few days prior to the birth of their son. As the mother of a 3-month old infant, sending her husband off to war had to have scared Ellen to death.
Adam was mustered into military service for the Union Army, 91st Pennsylvania Infantry on 7 October 1864 at Chambersburg, PA by Captain Boyle. He was a private in Company I. His enlistment papers described him at 5'8" tall with a fair complexion, gray eyes, and light hair.
Among the family memorabilia Aunt Alle passed down to my dad, and then my dad passed down to me, were two buttons from Adam's Civil War uniform.
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| Aunt Alle's handwriting |
Adam was a very prolific writer and later wrote in detail his "Reminiscences of the War" which I'll include in a subsequent post. Suffice it to say here that he became part of the highly esteemed Army of the Potomac and fought in many major battles. Though we don't know exactly where Adam was stationed, his Infantry and his Company were at the Appomattox Courthouse on 9 April 1865, the day Lee surrendered to Grant. It was his 20th birthday. Adam was honorably released from military service on 6 July 1865 and began his march home.
When he returned home he resumed his teaching career. But according to his daughter, Allegra, his career soon took a drastic turn. In April of 1867 he partnered with N.H. Wright who owned a mercantile business in the borough of Pleasantville. By 1868 he had bought out Mr. Wright's store. He later bought a store from T.P. Beckley, also in Pleasantville. The Beckley store building had living quarters attached where he and his family resided. He could have acquired even more property, as the 1877 Pleasantville map actually shows A. Ickes in three different locations in Pleasantville, one of them directly across the street from his father, Conrad.
Although he was no longer actively teaching, he didn't abandon education completely. The history books indicate that with the incorporation of the borough of Pleasantville in 1871, he was one of the directors of the school system. His daughter wrote that he was a charter member of the Pleasantville Lodge #868 Independent Order of Odd Fellows and that he was very active in church work, serving the local Lutheran congregation as the organist and the Superintendent of the Sunday School. In one of his essays (which I'll write more about later) he mentioned a literary society to which he belonged.
In the meantime, Adam and Ellen added more children to their family. Conrad Stanton was born in 1866, Horace Bunn (my great-grandfather) in 1868, Sheldon Ross in 1871 who lived 3 months, Henry Beecher in 1872 who lived only 3 days, and finally a daughter, Allegra, born in 1873 (who lived to be 104).
Adam and his family seemed to have it all. The war was long over. Adam was a successful independent business owner. They were financially stable. Wasn't this, in complete actuality, living the ultimate American dream? Wasn't this exactly what Adam's great-grandfather, John, fought for as a Revolutionary War Patriot and what John's great-grandparents hoped for when they left their native Germany? Apparently Adam didn't see it that way. His dream wasn't quite yet realized. In 1884 Adam would make a decision that would ultimately change his family dynamic for generations to come in very profound ways. His motivation, I can only surmise, was a combination of a sense of adventure, a pursuit of even greater wealth, the thrill of risk taking , and it had to include a certain amount of naiveté.
Pleasantville was a tiny, conservative borough that serviced a local farming community. Adam, as a local small business owner, serving on the school board, participating in church leadership, and being active in local social organizations probably realized that was all that Pleasantville would ever be able to offer him. (From my impressions of the town, not much has changed even today.) I don't know how he found out about Sam Kellner and his dry goods store in Sidney, Nebraska, but the Ickes family would embark on a new life only akin to five generations previous who left the Palatine region of Germany for a better life in the New World. What in the world was he thinking?
All original content, images, commentary, etc. copyright © by Joy Denison 2015-2016. All rights reserved. All writings, poems, speeches, essays, images, scans, likenesses, etc. by Adam Ickes (b 1845) as well as personal histories, images, and all other content by all persons referenced and discussed within the pages and posts in this blog may not be copied, shared, or reproduced in any way without expressed permission by the owner unless included here from other referenced sources or are historical records already considered to be in the public domain.
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