William Hawkins was born in Baltimore County, Maryland, the son of John and Mary (Simpkins) Hawkins, on October 5, 1750, according to the register of St. Thomas Protestant Episcopal Church. Was in Surry Co.,NC. (Stokes, 1789) by the 26th of October 1772 where he started his settlement of 200 acres of land.
 

He joined the North Carolina Militia troops in the Revolutionary War, Upper Salisbury District. Received for his war effort, the following from North Carolina:

Cash, one pound silver. No.1291; 13th of October 1783, Land grant of 200 acres, #506; [This first grant was in Surry County, NC., signed by Governor Alexander Martin.]

10th of July 1899,1and grant # 117, 3.510 acres in Western District of NC (Tennessee). signed by H. Rutherford, D.S.

The Tennessee land was on the South Fork of Forked Deer River near present day Dyersburg, TN. His first wife is believed to be Jemima Brittain. They had three sons. William married (2) Nancy Tilley about 1789, and they had five children. He left a non-cupative will. [Stokes Co., 1804] [See Heritage of Stokes

County, NC Vol. 2, page 49 1/2,50.] He was buried in Stokes Co., NC. He died April 29, 1804 being about 54 years of age.
 

Issue of William, Sr., and Jemima (Brittain) Hawkins:

1. Benjamin Hawkins [on the 1790 census -see page 92-53 in A Lot of Bunkum.] [See also, Heritage of Old Buncombe Co. Vol. I, art.#372, page 225, and material in L/B. Sept. 1991, page 81.] It is believed he may have gone on to Tennessee.
2. James Hawkins, first appears on the 1800 census of Buncombe County. He remained in Buncombe County, until his death.
3. William Hawkins, Jr. - married a Cherokee girl before 1800, should have been in the 1800 census with one son and one daughter. Probably moved to the western district, (Tennessee) by around 1820. 

4. Nelly Hawkins.
5. Betsy Hawkins.
6. Nancy Hawkins
8. Lazarus Hawkins.
9. Joel Hawkins.

I was delighted to go further into the web site and find the petitions for establishing Buncombe County.  Sid and I looked for them in Raleigh and also at OBCGS but no one seemed to know where they were.  Our Benjamin is listed in the second listing.  Since I have found his name spelled several different ways I found it easily.  How exciting.  Now I will want to have a copy of the original document in order to have his signature.

In the 1790 census for Rutherford County Benjamin appears next to Abigail Chambers and this was the year that they both bought land from Joseph McDowell of Burke County, on the same day  using the same witnesses and their pieces joined.  Ben's deed states the property adjoins "the land where he now lives."  If I could just find out who Abigail's deceased husband was, there may be a will or something to list their children, because she had several.I have long believed that Abigail was Hanna's mother.

Thanks again for posting the correction and the pages may help others as well.  Some later DAR applications refer to Ruth as marrying a Chambers, but Lucinda was the one who married John Thadous Chambers and moved to Villa Rica GA.  Also, in the Bible pages, Ruth was spelled as "Routh".

Holt Felmet sent me a copy of his work on the Felmet family.  He has corrected a minor error that appears in his article on the web site.  In the material he sent in he has Benjamin's wife as a Hightower, which is what we thought to start with.  However, because of the land purchase from McDowell I began to think differently.  Then just a few days ago one of the cousins emailed me a portion of a letter she had from a greatgrandmother to that woman's sister in which they discussed their grandmother, Elizabeth Hawkins, who had lived with and died in the writer's home.  She tells her sister that "grandma" said her mother's name was Chambers.  She also told the granddaughter that Benjamin Hawkins was her father, and his father was William as was his father.  A small paragraph that really put the icing on the cake.  We already had a strong source for Ben's father -- William Hawkins of Bedford County, VA.  So that seems to solidify the need for further research in "south-side VA", which I plan to do later this fall.  I do have a copy of Wm's will in which he names all his sons and each name appears in Ben's family, including Robert and Littleberry.

I am sure everyone has exciting and/or strange experiences /coincidences in doing this type of research, but there have been so many unusual things happening that I am beginning to think that "Old Ben" really wanted his story told!  Hope to meet you somedayat the Old Bunkum library.  Thanks again!  Dot Mom407Dot@aol.com

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