04/19/2026
Maria Rodman Hicks: The Quiet Schoolmistress Who Out-Endowed Mill Owners
Maria Rodman Hicks (1844–1912)
In a world run by powerful men whose deaths were front-page news for weeks, the passing of a quiet former schoolteacher revealed wealth that stunned the city.
Fall River in 1912 belonged to the mill owners: Borden, Durfee, Chace, Shove—names on plaques in the banks, the hospitals, and heavily inked in the newspapers. They built granite palaces, crushed strikes, and when they died their estates made front-page news for weeks. Their names live on today on buildings, organizations, and city streets in Fall River, MA.
Then, on October 19, 1912, a former schoolteacher and principal died quietly in her house on High Street.
Born on September 1st 1844 to Captain William Bates Hicks and Eliza Seabury Hicks in Westport Point, MA. She moved to Fall River after her fathers death in 1851 and a brief stop in Adamsville, R.I. She had been principal and taught for 12 years at the June and Bedford street schools. She stepped away after her sister Sarah’s sudden death in 1877 at 31 years old. In an era where common folk were not often written about in obituaries, Sarah was mentioned by the school board and covered in the paper. "The decease of Miss Sarah B. Hicks, one of our energetic female teachers, removes a lady who had won a warm place in the hearts of all who knew her... She will long be remembered."
After retiring from teaching in 1877, Maria lived simply and took care of family members for two decades. She lived with her mother Eliza Seabury Hicks until her death in 1892. She then lived with and cared for family members like her aunt Mrs. Caroline Seabury Borden, widow of Philip D. Borden. By the late 1890s, that quiet caretaker life had become overwhelming. Caroline’s mental decline accelerated with confusion, wandering, and delusions, and in November 1899 the Fall River Evening News reported a probate court hearing to determine whether she needed a guardian. The petition was brought by her stepson Frank Borden and her niece Miss Maria R. Hicks. Maria was not a bystander; she was one of the two people asking the court to intervene. Four months earlier, in July 1899, she had already purchased the land on High Street, a decision that reads very differently once you understand the crisis unfolding around her.
After she built her home in 1899, Maria lived with her aunt Ellen Seabury Ball, and later with her nurse Laura W. Wood at 544 High Street.
What no one outside her small circle knew was that Maria had spent decades tending a handful of inherited bank and mill shares, quietly reinvesting every dividend, while giving liberally to charities. She had inherited nearly $100,000 from her uncle, whaling tycoon Andrew Hicks of Westport Point, MA, as well as from various other relatives. By the time she died, those shares had grown into almost a quarter-million-dollar fortune, about seven million in today’s money.
In 1899 she paid cash for the Queen Anne mansion at 544 High Street, designed by Joseph Darling’s firm. She opted for a stately Queen Anne transition home, distinguished by its steep cross-gabled roof, its elaborate cornices featuring dental molding, and a graceful curved entry porch topped with a classical balustrade. Inside the house has quarter-hewn “tigerwood” paneling, a grand staircase with hand-spun spindles under a stained-glass skylights, and four tiled wood mantled fireplaces.
While cancer slowly took her strength, she quietly paid for the entire Nurses’ Home at Truesdale Hospital, the large, ornate building that now anchors The Highlands apartments at 1800-1820 Highland Avenue. A massive, symmetrical Colonial Revival structure defined by a commanding gambrel roof and a row of five arched dormers. The building featured a classical central entry portico and distinctive multi-story open-air verandas on the ends, designed to provide fresh air and respite for the nursing staff.
Two days after her death, with her obituary, the Fall River Daily Evening News ran a photograph of the nearly finished building. It was her last gift made public, a dignified home for the young nurses and nursing students who had cared for her in her final years.
Eleven days after her death, every Fall River newspaper carried stunned headlines:
“CENTRAL CHURCH RECEIVES $10,000”
“WILL OF THE LATE MARIA R. HICKS – Provides Quarter of a Million”
“BIG ESTATE DISPOSED OF by the Will of Maria R. Hicks, Late of This City”
They all repeated the sentiment of her generosity. “Her contributions to charitable institutions were many and liberal… Nearly every organization of the city was in receipt of generous donations.”
She gave away everything. Ten thousand to her church, five thousand to the Children’s Home in memory of her mother, a thousand each to ten other charities, cash to cousins in Adamsville and Little Compton, endowments for her churches and organizations. One hundred dollars to the Ladies Beneficent Society of the Central Congregational Church of which she was treasurer for 12 years. The great remainder, more than one-hundred thousand, was divided in seven equal shares among The Children's Home, Women's Union, Home for Aged People, American Board for Foreign Missions, Congregational Home Missionary Society, Union Hospital, and relatives. In the end her estate was valued at $159,771. In 1912 a loaf of bread cost about 5 cents and an hours wage could be as low as 14 to 50 cents depending on skill.
The house on High Street was sold at auction in January 1913 for $18,600 to James B. Kerr of the Kerr Thread Mills, winning out over James H. Waring. Her effects were given to her nurse Laura and her cousin Eudora M. Thompkins. Her nurse and friend Laura was granted use of the house for two months as well as shares of BMC Durfee Safe Deposit and Trust and Richard Borden Manufacturing company worth about $17,000 at the time.
Maria Rodman Hicks had never married. She traveled to places like Alaska and California, and summered in Bethel, New Hampshire with her mother. Maria is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery with her mother, father, and sister.
In a world run by powerful men, one of the quietest women on the hill financed two of the city's grandest buildings, and several institutions, gave away a fortune, and left no name on a single plaque.
