Heacox, Benjamin

Father
1811-1854

Benjamin Heacox shares a tombstone at Hice-Pershing with his wife, Margaret (Hice) Heacox, 1818-1908, who survived him by more than 50 years. This is a stone most likely erected after her death. The tombstone of their son, Robert, who died of typhoid fever while in service during the Civil War, is nearby.

Benjamin has presented a number of research challenges for his descendants --- and others (including me). He most likely is an older son, perhaps the eldest, of Benjamin Heacox Sr., a Connecticut native who settled in the neighborhood immediately across the river from Hice-Pershing --- in what eventually became St. Clair Township, Westmoreland County, prior to 1820 --- and married Elizabeth Yates. But descendants who have attempted to reconstruct the family of Benjamin Sr. and Elizabeth usually have not included Benjamin Jr. in the mix.

These were near neighbors of my ancestors, the Gasper Hill and Abraham Myers families, who no doubt could have filled me in on the Heacox family, too --- but neglected to do so.

Benjamin was by occupation a founder. There were iron foundries is this neighborhood from its earliest days and the 1845 Laurel Hill Furnace remains to remind us of that early industry.

The senior Benjamin became something of a mythic figure as years passed --- and he did live long, but not quite as long as his tombstone in Oak Hill Cemetery, Clay County, Indiana, suggests. The inscription on that stone states that Benjarmin Sr. was born Dec. 26, 1776, and died July 26, 1880, nearly 104.

Benjamin Sr. apparently was told that he was born on the day Washington crossed the Delaware during the Revolutionary War --- the night of Dec. 25-26, 1776. Benjamin most likely knew full well that the relevant part of the date was Dec. 26, not 1776, but seems to have joyfully added something like 20 years to his lifespan when he grew old to enhance the legend. His children believed his story, and inscribed the tall tale in stone.

Benjamin "Haycock" appears first in the 1820 census of Fairfield Township, Westmoreland County, as a man aged 16-26 with a wife, also aged 16-26, and two children, a boy and a girl, under 10 years of age. The family also is enumerated in 1830 and 1840 Westmoreland census records as near neighbors to my ancestors, who lived just north of the later (1865) village of New Florence.

By 1850, Benjamin and Elizabeth and their younger children had relocated in Ligonier Township, Westmoreland County, where both were enumerated as age 56, producing ca. 1794 birth dates for both. Elizabeth reportedly died in Clay County, Indiana, during 1859 --- not long after the family had resettled there.

Benjamin Sr. was enumerated in the 1880 census of Clay County --- just before his death --- as age 92, producing a birth year of 1788, still more than 10 years removed from the legendary 1776 eventually inscribed on his tombstone.

So far as Benjamin Heacox Jr. is concerned --- an 1811 birth date would mean that his parents were in the neighborhood of 17-18 when he was born, certainly possible. But my guess is that he actually was born a couple of years later, perhaps closer to 1815 (his age was given as 35 in the 1850 census of Fairfield Township, Westmoreland County).

Whatever the case, Benjamin Jr. married Margaret Hice ca. 1842. They and four young children were living with her widowed mother, Mary Hice, when the 1850 census of Fairfield (later St. Clair) Township, Westmoreland County, was taken. His occupation was given as "railroad contractor." My great-great-grandfather, Jacob Myers --- who lived nearby --- was a railroad contractor, too, so I'm guessing they may have worked together.

Benjamin and Margaret (Hice) Heacox had six children --- Robert, born ca. 1843; Elizabeth, born ca. 1845; Mary, born ca. 1847; George, born ca. 1849; Gibson, born ca. 1853; and Hiram, born ca. 1855 (perhaps posthumously).