Hulick, Mathias bio

Portrait and Biographical Album of Fulton County, Illinois: containing full page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county: together with portraits and biographies of all the presidents of the United States, and governors of the state; Biographical Pub. Co., Chicago, IL; 1890; page 414-415; Transcribed by Margaret Rose Whitehurst
Mathias Hulick and his good wife were among the early pioneers of this county who are still living among us, and it gives us pleasure to present them in this Biographical Album. They have a cheerful, cozy home in Lewistown Township, where they enjoy the comforts of life with which they surrounded themselves by the exercise of industrious habits, wise prudence and forethought.
In Heightstown, Middlesex County, N. J., our subject was born December 22, 1810. His father was Capt. John Hulick, a native of that State and a son of another John Hulick, who was born in Germany and emigrated to America and settled among the Colonists of New Jersey. About 1815 he removed from there to Ohio, and was a pioneer of Clermont County, and there he carried on his occupation of a farmer until the time of his death.
Capt. Hulick learned the trade of a carpenter and followed that in New Jersey until his death in 1822. He was an officer in the Revolutionary War. He married Annie Mount, who was also a life-long resident of New Jersey, dying there in 1817.
Mathias Hulick was very young when his parents died and he was cared for by a step-mother until he was fifteen years old. He was then sent to New York City to learn the trade of a tailor. After serving an apprenticeship of five years he made his way to Ohio and locating in Batavia, Clermont County, served two years to learn the trade of a cooper. He was engaged in that calling until 1838, when he became a pioneer of Illinois. He had married in Ohio and was accompanied thither by his wife and two children in their journey down the Ohio and up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, and finally to their destination in this county. Disembarking from the Illinois at Havana, they came to Lewistown Township with a team. He bought forty acres of land which forms a part of his present homestead. Three or four acres of it were improved and a log house stood thereon. He at once opened a cooper shop and actively engaged in the manufacture of pork and flour barrels, for which he found a ready market in Lewistown and surrounding towns. He continued in the business many years and accumulated a comfortable property. He has been a resident of the farm he now occupies since his first settlement in the county, and has added to it by other purchases until it now comprises eighty acres of choice, well-tilled land, provided with a neat class of buildings and everything needful for carrying on agriculture.
In our subject's wife we have a good type of the faithful, self-sacrificing, helpful pioneer women who have borne so important a part in the upbuilding of this country. Fifty-four years ago in the month of February, 1836, she was married to Mr. Hulick, and for more than half a century they have been faithful to the vows that then made them husband and wife. They have six children living - John, Mary J., Elizabeth, Alice, Emma, and Gertie. The death of their daughter Lou was a sad incident in their married life. Mr. and Mrs. Hulick are wonderfully blessed with good health, as their fine constitutions have withstood the wear and tear of time wonderfully, and one can scarcely realize that they have reached the milestones on life's journey that mark its eightieth and seventieth years. They are very highly thought of by all around them and are sincere Christian people, having been worthy members of the Methodist Episcopal Church for years.
Mrs. Hulick was formerly Ann Reddebaugh, and she was born in Brown County, Ohio, September 7, 1820. Her father, John Reddebaugh, was a Pennsylvanian and was reared in his native State and there married to Barbara Snider, who was likewise of Pennsylvania birth, she having been the daughter of a commissioned officer in the Revolutionary War and a farmer of that State. Mr. Reddebaugh removed from Pennsylvania to Ohio, and settled among the pioneers in the wilds of Brown County. He bought a tract of timber land and built a log house in which humble home Mrs. Hulick was born. He cleared a farm and resided on it some years prior to his coming to Illinois in 1837, when he became a pioneer of Lewistown Township. He bought a farm and lived here about ten years, but after the death of his wife in 1845 he returned to Ohio and died in Clermont County.