Hick, William?

Ironworker.

Managed Lancashire Furnace near Patapsco River in Baltimore County, Maryland, for Principio Company (c. 1761-64). May have met Franklin on his Virginia trip (1763). Employed by William Allen to manage Union Iron Works forge in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, on recommendation of Capel Hanbury (c. 1764). Allen complained that Hick was “entirely unacquainted” with a forge,and that he was “tho’ a young man, weakly, and troubled with the Gout and Rheumatism, and from bodily Infirmities not able to go through the active Life that Business requires.”

Possibly the William Hick who was an innkeeper at Princeton (1763) and later at Perth Amboy, became a Loyalist, and died on a passage to England (1780).

Married.