Another paternal ancestor, Alexander Spotswood, erected the first iron furnace in America, and Thomas Nelson had been Governor of Virginia as well as served in the American Revolutionary War.

As a boy, Wickham often accompanied his mother to Arlington, Virginia, to meet with Robert E. Lee, who also visited Hickory Hill.

Early in the American Civil War, Wickham (supposedly aged 14) visited his father, most famously as both rode over the Manassas Battlefield, as the dead were being buried.

Wickham remained interested in the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the Sons of the American Revolution and the Episcopal Church during his adult life.

[4] Admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1870, Wickham began his legal career as a law clerk in another lawyer's office, but soon developed his own practice, as well as capitalized on family railroad connections as described below.

While Wickham had accepted many policies of the Republican federal administrations following Reconstruction, as a Democrat, he also supported President Grover Cleveland, particularly on civil service reform and tariffs.

[3] In 1918, Wickham briefly left his legal duties with the C&O to become general solicitor of the United States Railroad Administration during World War I.

[2] Wickham died on March 5, 1943, at a Richmond hotel, where he was attempting to recover from a broken hip suffered in a fall at his Hickory Hills home the previous December.