Elias Hicks - Later Life

Later Life

At age 80, Hicks went on his final ministry trip. He covered 2,400 miles and was harassed and shunned by Orthodox Friends along the way. Suffering a stroke that left him partially paralyzed, he died soon afterward in his home in Jericho, New York. One account is that, when he was on his deathbed, someone put a cotton blanket on him. He tried to remove it with his free hand, as the cover was a product of slavery. When attendants replaced the cotton blanket with a woolen one, Hicks relaxed and nodded in approval.

long after his death, Hicks was considered a controversial figure; opponents used his name as a pejorative label. He was one of the last of the 18th century's quietist Quakers, although his combative personality marked him as quite different from most others who bore that title. He was certainly not a modern "liberal," but that label has become associated with him.

The Life of Thomas Shillitoe is a primary account by a Friends minister who knew Hicks at the time the Society divided. Shillitoe traveled in the ministry among Friends during the separation. He found many of the smaller distant rural meetings were not as influenced by the Hicksite separation. Shillitoe recorded the concern that the Friends were separating over concepts related to deism. The Congregational Church and the Unitarian Church had separated in 1825 just prior to the Hicksite separation of Friends.