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Arthur and Carrie Hickox and daughter, c.1898

Photo courtesy of Adventist Heritage Centre, Australia.

Hickox, Arthur Swain (1862–1930)

By Milton Hook

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Milton Hook, Ed.D. (Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, the United States). Hook retired in 1997 as a minister in the Greater Sydney Conference, Australia. An Australian by birth Hook has served the Church as a teacher at the elementary, academy and college levels, a missionary in Papua New Guinea, and as a local church pastor. In retirement he is a conjoint senior lecturer at Avondale College of Higher Education. He has authored Flames Over Battle Creek, Avondale: Experiment on the Dora, Desmond Ford: Reformist Theologian, Gospel Revivalist, the Seventh-day Adventist Heritage Series, and many magazine articles. He is married to Noeleen and has two sons and three grandchildren.

First Published: December 17, 2021

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Arthur Swain Hickox was an Australian evangelist in the 1890s.

Early Years

Arthur Swain Hickox was born in Napa County, California, on October 20, 1862, to George Washington Hickox, a miner, and Tamar Lillian (Ritchey) Hickox. He was the eldest of five children.1 The 1882 voter registration lists Arthur as a twenty-one-year-old working as a “carriage porter” in San Francisco.2

Years of Service

Arthur began his ministry in 1888 as a single young man at Susanville, a remote town in a north-east pocket of California. The following year he was appointed to work in the Healdsburg area.3 That year, on July 24, 1889, he married seventeen-year-old Lillian May Otis in Fresno, California. Elder John Loughborough performed the wedding service.4 He continued to minister in the Healdsburg/Sacramento vicinity.5 On December 28, 1890 Lillian gave birth to a daughter they named Lillian Humberta who became popularly known as Helen.6 It was a birth with complications and tragically Lillian, Snr., passed away six weeks later on February 18, 1891. She was laid to rest in the Oak Mound Cemetery at Healdsburg. Her tombstone bears the message of faith, “Waiting only for a little while.”7

In 1893 Elder Arthur Daniells asked the General Conference officials to urgently provide more evangelists for the Australasian field of which he was president. American headquarters responded by appointing a team of four comprising Arthur Hickox, Dr Merritt Kellogg and Elders John Corliss and Willard Colcord. They arrived in Australia mid-year and on January 20, 1894, at the Middle Brighton camp meeting in Victoria Arthur was ordained, Corliss and visiting General Conference President Ole Olsen taking part in the service.8

Arthur united with other ministers to conduct a tent mission at Seven Hills, in the western suburbs of Sydney,9 a crusade which continued into the early months of 1894.10 The successful campaign culminated with the organisation of a new church group at nearby Prospect.11 During that same year, 1894, in Sydney, Arthur married Catherine “Carrie” Mary Gribble,12 a New Zealander renowned for her gospel singing at evangelistic crusades.13 Later she rendered a duet with John Paap during the 1900 bon voyage meeting for Ellen White and company.14

Following their marriage Arthur and Carrie joined Elder George Starr in a pioneering crusade at Rockhampton, Queensland, during the latter half of 1894.15 The year 1895 was virtually time out from active duty because Arthur and Carrie returned to Carrie’s homeland for the birth in August 1895 of their only child, William Martin Hickox.16 When Arthur re-united with the ministerial team in Australia in 1896 he assisted other evangelists in a tent crusade at Prahran, suburban Melbourne.17 During the months of June through December 1896 Arthur was absent from his family, canvassing Home Handbook in the country towns of New South Wales such as Hay, Carrathool and Corowa.18 This was a most unusual assignment, not usually expected of ordained individuals. The final years of his ministry in New South Wales were spent in the Hunter Valley region at Maitland and Hamilton, near Newcastle.19 After approximately eight years overseas Arthur returned to America in 1901 to study medicine, forging an entirely different career path.

Back in America

On completion of his medical degree Arthur established a practice in Oakland, San Francisco, as a physician and surgeon. He became a member of the nearby Fruitvale branch of the Masonic Lodge.20 Carrie passed away on June 24, 1921, aged fifty-nine. The funeral service was held in the Oakland Seventh-day Adventist church and she was laid to rest in the Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland.21

Arthur had drifted from his church but was re-baptised in 1922 by his life-long friend, Seventh-day Adventist Elder Elmer Adams and he continued as a member of the Oakland church. He married Mildred Ross and successfully carried on with his medical work until June 4, 1930, when he was suddenly stricken with a fatal heart attack while walking in his garden. Appropriately, Elder George Starr, Arthur’s associate evangelist in the Rockhampton crusade many years earlier in Australia, assisted Elder Adams with the funeral service.22 Arthur was laid to rest in Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland.23

Sources

Adams, E[lmer] H. “Arthur Swain Hickox.” Pacific Union Recorder, July 24, 1930.

“Arthur Swain Hiscox.” FamilySearch.org, Intellectual Reserve, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VTX9-VXN.

“Arthur Swain Hickox.” FamilySearch.org, Intellectual Reserve, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/K2X2-78Y.

“Arthur Swain Hickox.” Find A Grave Memorial.com, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/124510667/arthur-swain-hickox.

Daniells, A[rthur] G. “Australian Seventh-day Adventist Conference Proceedings.” Bible Echo, February 5, 1894.

District of Granville. Marriage Certificates. Government of New South Wales Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Sydney, New South Wales.

“Farewell.” Union Conference Record, October 1, 1900.

“Lillian Humberta “Helen” (Hickox) Anderson.” Find A Grave Memorial.com, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/54465343/lillian-humberta-anderson.

“Lillian May Otis.” FamilySearch.org, Intellectual Reserve, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZ3P-H3S.

“Lillie May (Otis) Hickox.” Find A Grave Memorial.com, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18558449/lillie-may-hickox.

“Mary Catherine (Gribble) Hickox.” Find A Grave Memorial.com, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/212097327/mary-catherine-hickox.

McCullagh, S[tephen]. “Notes from New South Wales.” Bible Echo, April 23, 1894.

McCullagh, S[tephen]. “Organisation and Dedication at Prospect, New South Wales.” Bible Echo, October 1, 1894.

“Meetings have been commenced…” Bible Echo, September 15, 1893.

“Melbourne Items.” Bible Echo, April 6, 1896.

“Monthly Summary Australian Canvassing Work.” The Gleaner, July 1896.

“Pastor A.S. Hickox baptised five…” Union Conference Record, May 1, 1901.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook. Battle Creek, Michigan: Review and Herald Publishing Company, 1888-1892.

“The meetings in Rockhampton…” Bible Echo, July 30, 1894.

“William Martin Hickox.” Find A Grave Memorial.com, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/55699656/william-martin-hickox.

“Word has reached us…” Australasian Record, October 3, 1921.

Notes

  1. “Arthur Swain Hickox,” FamilySearch.org, Intellectual Reserve, 2020, accessed July 25, 2020, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/K2X2-78Y.↩

  2. “Arthur Swain Hickox,” FamilySearch.org, Intellectual Reserve, 2020, accessed July 25, 2020, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VTX9-VXN.↩

  3. “Workers Directory,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Battle Creek,Michigan: Review and Herald Publishing Company, 1889), 15.↩

  4. “Lillian May Otis,” FamilySearch.org, Intellectual Reserve, 2020, accessed July 25, 2020, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1;1:KZ3P-H3S.↩

  5. E.g., “Workers Directory,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Battle Creek, Michigan: Review and Herald Publishing Company, 1890), 9.↩

  6. “Lillian Humberta “Helen” (Hickox) Anderson,” Find A Grave Memorial.com, 2020, accessed August 11, 2020, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/54465343/lillian-humberta-anderson.↩

  7. “Lillie May (Otis) Hickox,” Find A Grave Memorial.com, 2020, accessed August 11, 2020, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18558449/lillie-may-hickox.↩

  8. A[rthur] G. Daniells, “Australian Seventh-day Adventist Conference Proceedings,” Bible Echo, February 5, 1894, 38.↩

  9. “Meetings have been commenced…” Bible Echo, September 15, 1893, 304.↩

  10. S[tephen] McCullagh, “Notes from New South Wales,” Bible Echo, April 23, 1894, 126.↩

  11. S[tephen] McCullagh, “Organisation and Dedication at Prospect, New South Wales,” Bible Echo, October 1, 1894, 310.↩

  12. District of Granville, Certificate of Marriage no. 3909 (1894), Government of New South Wales Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Sydney, New South Wales.↩

  13. “Word has reached us…” Australasian Record, October 3, 1921, 8.↩

  14. “Farewell,” Union Conference Record, October 1, 1900, [1]-2.↩

  15. “The meetings in Rockhampton…” Bible Echo, July 30, 1894, 240.↩

  16. “William Martin Hickox,” Find A Grave Memorial.com, 2020, accessed August 11, 2020, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/55699656/william-martin-hickox.↩

  17. “Melbourne Items,” Bible Echo, April 6, 1896, 109.↩

  18. E.g., “Monthly Summary Australian Canvassing Work,” The Gleaner, July 1896, 4.↩

  19. “Pastor A.S. Hickox baptised five…” Union Conference Record, May 1, 1901, 15.↩

  20. “Arthur Swain Hickox,” FamilySearch.org, Intellectual Reserve, 2020, accessed July 25, 2020, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/K2X2-78Y.↩

  21. “Mary Catherine (Gribble) Hickox,” Find A Grave Memorial.com, 2020, accessed August 11, 2020, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/212097327/mary-catherine-hickox.↩

  22. E[lmer] H. Adams, “Arthur Swain Hickox,” Pacific Union Recorder, July 24, 1930, 6.↩

  23. “Arthur Swain Hickox,” Find A Grave Memorial.com, 2020, accessed August 11, 2020, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/124510667/arthur-swain-hickox.↩

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Hook, Milton. "Hickox, Arthur Swain (1862–1930)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. December 17, 2021. Accessed October 14, 2024. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=9IHY.

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Hook, Milton. "Hickox, Arthur Swain (1862–1930)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. December 17, 2021. Date of access October 14, 2024, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=9IHY.

Copy to clipboard Download Word File

Hook, Milton (2021, December 17). Hickox, Arthur Swain (1862–1930). Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. Retrieved October 14, 2024, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=9IHY.

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