Where Are You

Horatio Sicher?

Although there are hints that Horatio Sicher may be of German-Jew ancestry that immigrated to American around 1850, because of the rarity of his surname and his proximity to the Sicher's of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania at the time of his marriage, we are taking the liberty to assume that he may be of the fourth generation of the descendants of Jacob Sicher. He is attached to David Sicher because after a dozen years of research a positive connection to this family has not been found and it is a convenient link until which time a confirmed family connection can be made. It is believed that Horatio may have been born about 1848 in Lehigh County. He later removed to Carbon County to work on the railroad there. It was there in Lausanne Township where he met and married Mary, daughter of James and Martha Dodson Cooper in September of 1870. Mary bore Horatio two sons, the first being James Edward, born in April of 1871. Her second son, William Cooper, was born on Penobscot Mountain in Luzerne County, March 16th, 1873. The severity of the inherent German personality and characteristics seemed to have manifested in Horatio Sicher. It was said that Horatio was a cruel man. The cruelty of the man can be seen in an incident during Mary's second pregnancy in 1773. For some unexplained reason and in an uncontrolled outburst of temper, Horatio kicked his pregnant wife in the stomach. She survived the attack and the child was born without physical handicap. In about 1876, after suffering about five years of Horatio's brutality, Mary fled her home in terror with her three year old youngest son, leaving behind her first-born son, James Edward. Little has been found concerning Horatio Sicher. He seems to have completely disappeared from historical record since he was divorced by his wife Mary in 1879 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Certain assumptions can be deduced concerning him. First of all, Mary and her sister Anna were the only two daughters left behind in Weatherly when their mother returned home to Harveyville, Huntington Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania after the death of their father James Cooper. Secondly, there is a wedding picture of Horatio and Mary taken in Easton, Northampton County, Pennsylvania. There is also a photo of their first son taken in Catasaqua, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania about 1872. Mary was born and probably married in Weatherly, Carbon County, Pennsylvania and their second son William was born in Penobscot, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Drawing a line between these localities we note that this is the route of the Beaver Meadow Railroad Company. Mary's sister Anna married a man by the name of Jacob Miller from Weatherly who himself was an engineer on the Beaver Meadow Railroad. It is easily conjectured that Jacob and Horatio could not only have been acquaintances and fellow employees on the railroad in Weatherly, but perhaps even good friends. Horatio Sicher was most probably a railroad man. His eldest son James Edward removed to Salt Lake City, Utah, probably with his father after the divorce. The only tangible record of what became of Horatio Sicher can found in the military enlistment papers of his son William in 1891. On the 'Form For The Physical Examination Of The Recruit' are the questions: Are both parents living? Which William wrote in 'Mother'. If either has died, state cause? William filled in the blank with the words 'Father Killed'.