Background
Hicks, Josiah Duane was born on August 1, 1844 in Monmouthshire, Wales. Son of John and Barbara (Eynon) Hicks.
United States representative lawyer politician
Hicks, Josiah Duane was born on August 1, 1844 in Monmouthshire, Wales. Son of John and Barbara (Eynon) Hicks.
Came to Chester Company, Pennsylvania, 1845. Removed to Blair Company, 1847. Education common schools.
Removed to Altoona, 1861.
Private in Union Army, 1862-1864. Admitted to bar, 1875.
He moved to Altoona, Pennsylvania, in 1861. During the American Civil War, he enlisted in the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, as a private in 1862 and served nearly eighteen months. He reentered civil life as a clerk on the Pennsylvania Railroad.
He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1875 and commenced practice in Tyrone, Pennsylvania.
He was elected district attorney of Blair County in 1880, and reelected in 1883. Hicks was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-third, Fifty-fourth, and Fifty-fifth Congresses.
He served as chairman of the United States House Committee on Patents during the Fifty-fifth Congress. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1898.
He served as State commander of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1921.
He died in Altoona in 1923 and is interred in Fairview Cemetery.
He resumed the practice of law, and served as a member of the Altoona Board of Education from 1911 to 1919.
Married Josephine F. Barrick, of Frederick Company, Maryland., April.