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White House, N. J., Jan. 21.—"The Pidcocks always did kind of like to keep their money" is about all that White House has to say about it. White House never goes very far in criticism of the Pidcock family. To find why the people of this village are so careful it is necessary to consult the town and county records.
The present occasion for the remark as to the conservatism of the Pidcocks about letting money escape from the family circle is the filing of John Falks Pidcock's. will for probate. The will leaves $1,000 to the testator's loving and faithful wife, Jeanette Davis Pidcock, and after a few other bequests of trifling character leaves the residuary estate, amounting to $100,000 or more, to Mr. Pidcock's beloved sister, Nellie. Mr. Pidcock died on Jan. 11, a week ago Saturday, after an illness of two months. He was married to Jeanette Davis just before he became ill. She married him, against the protests of her father and the rest of the family, when he was about to submit to a serious operation. She nursed him all through his illness until his death. Now folks would like to know whether she is going to sue for what the neighborhood ventures to believe "her rights." Curiosity on this point was suppressed until to-day, when it was learned that Mr. Pidcock's two surviving brothers and the inheriting sister had gone South for an indefinite stay.
To-day people have gone so far as to do some of their guessing out loud. Before the Pidcocks have been gone ten days it may be that some one will even pluck up courage enough to ask Squire Davis, the widow's father, what he and his daughter are going to do about it. But there is no use, according to general public opinion, in being in too much of a hurry about these things. A fellow can't always tell just where the Pidcocks are, anyway.
Nelson Pidcock, the father of the present generation of the family, was one of the notable figures in Hunterdon county politics and finance in his day. He was Congressman from this district. Either through his acquaintance at the National Capital or through relatives living in the South he became interested in the pine lumber business in Georgia. He went to Moultrie, Ga., and was prominent in the organization of the Quitman Lumber Company. The concern required considerable capital. No small part of it came from the Somerset County Bank of Somerville. Congressman Pidcock was a director of the bank. A few years ago the bank went down. The receiver, William Johnson, made a trip to Georgia to see what security the bank had loaned its money on. When he came back he made such a report that the bank tried to make Nelson Pidcock responsible for the Quitman Lumber Company's paper, which he had indorsed. The old gentleman went into bankruptcy. A thorough search was made for moneys which some suspicious persons were sure he had, but no trace of it was ever found. He died about two years ago and left his wife the old family homestead and an allowance of $100 a month for life. "She had been married to him so long," said Whitehouse, "that she was almost one of the family."
The sons have done well in a wordly way since their father's death. Long before Nelson Pidcock died. John Falks Pidcock had been the president of the Rockaway Valley Railroad, which runs from White House to Morristown. This railroad had only one engine, but that sufficed for the traffic for a long time. Less than ten years ago a new engine was bought, a thoroughly modern product of American skill and ingenuity. The manufacturers were rather proud of it. One day when one of their agents went out to the Rockaway Valley Railroad to see the engine, he couldn't find it. Nobody knew where it had gone. There was a long hunt for it, and at last it was reported that the engine had been found in Quitman county, Georgia. While the search was going on John Quitman went away. So far as his neighbors knew he did not return to Hunterdon county or to the state until last fall. His return caused no little excitement in the community. He was treated with all the more respect when it was learned that he had built the Georgia and Northern Railroad, a line fifty-one miles long, from Pidcock (as the site of the Quitman Lumber Company's business is now called) to Carlisle, Ga.
It was also learned that he had been married in the South to a woman of aristocratic family and a Roman Catholic. This kept White House people busy going down to Somerville to talk—they never talk about the Pidcocks in White House, there are too many little birds around. None of the Pidcocks had ever been a Roman Catholic. The first Mrs. Pidcock died two years after her marriage.
Meanwhile James Pidcock had been suffering all sorts of impositions in Hunterdon county. One of the negro employes was insulted in a White House barroom one Saturday night three years ago, and ran home and told his master about it. James went out with the negro, and a telegraph lineman named James Kane was pointed out to him as the one who had insulted the negro. There was a fight, and Kane was shot so that he died a few days afterward. The negro escaped. Pidcock said that the negro did the shooting. The case was taken before the grand jury and that body refused to indict Pidcock. The grand jury was rebuked by the court and the next grand jury indicted him. He was tried and acquitted. In the course of the proceedings an attempt was made to inspect the minutes of the first grand jury. The county clerk, after some pressure, said that he could not give up the minutes because he did not have them. He had sent them to James Pidcock, he said, when the jury was dismissed. The negro was arrested down South last year and was brought back for trial and acquitted.
