"Peter Force, printer and document collector, intended to publish rare pamphlets, correspondence, and proceedings relating to the 'Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the Colonies in North America' that covered the time period 1763-1789. After years of work, the final (but unfinished) result was 9 volumes of material covering the years 1774-1776."
But even better, in terms of ease of searching, is the fact that this very large opus is also online at "http://dig.lib.niu.edu/amarch/detailed.html". Actually touching (albeit through white gloves) the signature of Thomas Hickey was really quite exciting. But reading through nine volumes of small print paper looking for similar occurrences of his name would be pretty tedious - even with an index.
Thanks to modern technology I didn't have to.
"Since this material is of extreme importance to scholars of the Revolutionary War period, and is collected in this one source, Northern Illinois University Libraries received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in order to provide free electronic access to Force's American Archives. Through the use of sophisticated indexing and searching software provided by the University of Chicago, as well as the thematic indexing of this material by a subject expert (Allan Kulikoff, Abraham Baldwin Professor of the Humanities at the University of Georgia), this project is able to provide a uniquely new way to access these documents."
As a result it took less than two hours at my Mac computer to determine the following.
There are eighteen references in ten separate documents to Thomas Hickey:
1) Court Martial for the trial of Thomas Hickey and others (4 references)
2) Council of General Officers held at Head-Quarters in New-York
3) Letter from General Washington to the President of Congress
4) Warrant for the execution of Thomas Hickey, at Headquarters, New York, June 28, 1776 (4 references)
5) June 28 Directive of the Warrant for the execution of Thomas Hickey
6) General Orders, from June 27 to June 30
7) General Orders, from June 28 to June 30
8) Deposition of Israel Youngs
9) Michael Lynch and Thomas Hickey committed to prison, Letter to General Washington, enclosing Affidavits (3 references)
10) Complaint by Mr. Jay of the handbill published by General Scott
Unfortunately none of the original documents contained any information as to Hickey's town of residence, his past military history, or his desertion from the British Army.
I decided to look into one more reference source and then come to whatever conclusion I could with the information that I had. The work was the Pulitzer Prize winning, seven-volume George Washington, a Biography written from 1948-1957 by Douglas Southall Freeman. The Connecticut State University Library System (CONSULS) tells me that the book is available at the Central Connecticut State University Library and the librarian there tells me over the phone that I do not need to be a CCSU student in order to use the library.
(Douglas Southall Freeman)
Like the Connecticut State Library, most of the patrons were busily working on their laptops. Unlike that institution, here there were several librarians, all neatly and professionally attired, one of whom guided me slowly through the stacks of books and set me up at a small nearby table.
Volume 4 of the work contained the now familiar Thomas Hickey story, which I quickly read through looking for either new information or, more importantly to me, substantiation of Hickeys Wethersfield connection.
"The most obdurate suspect was a man Isaac Ketcham had mentioned, namely, Thomas Hickey, one of two continental soldiers jailed for an alleged attempt to pass a counterfeit bill of credit. Hickey was believed to be a former deserter from the royal army who had resided in Wethersfield, Connecticut, for a number of years."
There was a footnote for the first sentence pointing back to the Peter Force American Archives materials that I had already researched. And, as I've come to expect, there was no annotation for the residential history of Thomas Hickey.
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