HICKS, ELIAS American Quaker, was born in Hempstead, L.I., New York, U.S.A., March 19, 1748. His parents were Friends, but he took little interest in religion until he was about twenty years of age. A carpenter's apprentice and farmer, by 1775 he had "openings leading to the ministry," and in he first set out on his itinerant preaching tours. He attacked slavery in his sermons, and in Observations on the Slavery of the Africans and their Descendants (1811) ; and was influential in procuring the passage in 1817 of the act declaring free after 1827 all negroes born in New York and not freed by the act of He died at Jericho, L.I., on Feb. 27, 183o. His preaching was practical and he was heartily opposed to any set creed; hence his successful opposition at the Baltimore yearly meeting of 1817 to the proposed creed which would make the Society in America ap proach the position of the English Friends by definite doctrinal statements. His Doctrinal Epistle (1824) stated his position, and a break ensued in 1827-1828, Hick's followers, who called them selves the "Liberal Branch," being called "Hicksites" by the "Orthodox" party, which they for a time outnumbered. The vil lage of Hicksville, in Nassau County, New York, 15 m. E. of Jamaica, lies in the centre of the Quaker district of Long Island and was named in honour of Elias Hicks.
See A Series of Extemporaneous Discourses . . . by Elias Hicks (1825) ; his Journal (1832) ; his Letters (1834) ; and H. W. Wilbur, Life and Labors of Elias Hicks (Iwo), also a monograph by G. W. Burnap (1851) .