Our Sixth Ancestor in America

James Hawes was David's tenth child. He was born at Penobscot (now called Brooksville), Maine, on October 12, 1799, said by some to be 1800. He died at Belvidere, Illinois, October 16, 1865.

He married Frances Hancock Lawrence on June 21, 1826. She was the daughter of Roger and Frances (Hancock) Lawrence of Castine, Maine. She died at Beloit, Wisconsin, in February 1887.

Of this union there were nine children, all born at Corinna, Maine:
Rebecca
Rowland
Frances Ann
Laura
Martin Van Buren
Sarah E.
Byron
Jesse
Frederick Webber

Rebecca married Benjamin R. Bicknell, Bangor, Maine, a businessman.

Rowland was a sailor, marital condition unknown.

Frances Ann married John Rogers, Stetson, Maine, businessman.

Laura never married, schoolteacher.

Martin Van Buren, schoolteacher, farmer and merchant. He married "Aunt Libbie," nice person, think her name was Ambrose??(1)

Sarah E., schoolteacher. She married W. F. Thompson, Denver, Colorado, lumber dealer.

Byron, shoemaker, Civil War veteran, farmer, married Sarah Denney of Oswego, N.Y.

Jesse, married Clementine Rockwell, Greeley, Colorado. He was a Civil War veteran, author, physician, and surgeon.(2)

Frederick Webber, married Harriet Lovisa Wilson, Genoa, Illinois. He was a saddler, fur buyer, merchant.

I got this information about marriages and occupations from papers sent to me by Dr. Colin Hawes. I hope the Doc has it diagnosed OK; otherwise, make the necessary changes.(3)

I offer these occupations so that it may be impressed on your minds how quickly this family, engaged in farming for six generations in America (and untold generations in England), either educated or married itself out of farming. In one generation they changed from producing their own to buying everything from somebody's store.

In James's will, probated Boone County, Illinois, November 21, 1865, the home in Belvidere is left to his wife, and there are cash bequests to each of the children mentioned above.

James, at different times while the family still lived in Maine, was a schoolteacher, Justice of the Peace, Postmaster, local preacher, and farmer. Also he was quite an extensive dealer in real estate[,] as the records at Bangor, Maine, and other towns will show.

If you have been reading carefully, you will have noted that from Edward to and including David, we are farming folks, and home owners, although all or nearly all were trappers or fur buyers in the wintertime. Now with James we break with the old traditions. The advent of small items of machinery and the changing modes of life begins with the insidious change which has grasped the entire nation-- partly for our own good, I grant you, but much too rapidly. The Hawes family no longer is a race of farmers.

Also, if your attention has not been diverted as I moved these six actors across the New England stage to entertain, instruct and pacify you, you should have (and I hope you did) catch the crucial point in the play. It was the home and family life of these forefathers of yours.

It is not given to everyone today to see six generations of men and wives in a row (Edward to James), six families with a complete absence of cheapness of conduct. There was no living beyond their means. There was no fear of falling into a rut, or guarding against it by "stepping out."

To me, it reads like a page of history brought down from the age when the human race was younger, less grasping, less envious, less usurious, and closer to Providence than we are today. The ancients of [B]ible days were not without sin, of course; but how much have we moderns surpassed their bedrock virtues?

Ancient animals have improved and had certificates to prove it. Not so with humans. There is cheapness everywhere... too much greed and war to attain it.

I hear the cannons roar, and the war planes scream, and I think of my forefathers' efforts to place me beyond it. Surely there should be something to hope for more than death by "six-shooter with your boots on." Anyhow, we can get ready, be ready, and stay ready.

All the evidence I have given you is correct, for it is wills, administration papers, Town records, and other papers officially recorded. Traditions, opinions, etc., are kept separate. I tell you where you can see the originals, or get certified copies if you care to go to the expense. Even in great libraries you can see a part of it. This is different genealogy... for it is all true.

Just one statement do you have to take my word for. To really appreciate such forefathers, you should have lived part of your life in some wilderness, and part in towns and cities to enable you to make comparisons.(4)

The home of Grandpa James and Grandma Frances at Corinna, Maine, was a large story-and-a-half, hewn[-]log structure. They had a fair-sized farm for those days. The part in cultivation produced a very fair crop of rocks at each spring plowing, which had to be hauled away and added to the stone fences before the grain and vegetables could be planted.

There was a mammoth wooden clock, so big an average man could hide behind the pendulum. It ran several days at each winding.

Grandpa James had a wool carding plant on the farm and carded wool for himself and the neighborhood. On the farm they raised cattle, hogs, sheep, chickens, etc., and all their grain, vegetables and food except what they got by hunting and fishing. There was always a year's supply ahead.

Grandma and the older girls spun and wove the cloth and made clothes for the entire family. They produced their own leather, and a traveling shoemaker came every year and stayed enough days to make shoes and boots for the entire family.

It was an independent unit in the civilization that then existed.

We inherited carloads of intelligence from our forefathers and piddled it off doing monkey tricks. I've told you how it used to be on our grandfather's farm. Here's the way it is now:

We telephone the grocer, "Hello, hello." (Our voice sounds sad and flat.)
"Please send a dime of one thing, or a nickel's worth of that.
And say, Mr. Grocer, do this, if you will.
I ain't got no cash today, put it on the bill."

'Tis thus our food is bought, there ain't no year's supply.
There ain't no homemade boots or clothes, nor a drop if you are dry.
With tin cans and sacks we live, and many trips to store.
We never are a year ahead, no, not anymore.

There ain't no extra cloth if by any chance
A patch should be needed on the seat of someone's pants.
Now ain't that a pretty fix for graduates to be,
With grammar and algebray and e-con-o-mee?

There weren't no payments coming due for some newfangled rig....
What we had belonged to us, from the oxen to the pig.
We don't live a life for folks, with a grandpa on the level
Who taught us Independence was the only way to outwit the Devil.

We'd better buy a tombstone at some granite store,
And chisel on it plain to see
"THERE AIN'T
NO HAWES
NO MORE"(5)

In the volumes entitled Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the American Revolution, which you can find in any state (and most large city) library, in Book VII under the letter "H" you will find some men of your name. They range from privates to commissioned officers and surgeons and ship commanders. Some of these men are called Hawes, some Haws, and some Hawse. At least half of them I have traced under all three spellings... and they are related to our Edward, and to you and me. Here are the actual figures, not by estimate or guess, but by actual count:

HAWES   68
HAWS    80
HAWSE   23
TOTAL  171

There were probably a similar number in Virginia, and some from Connecticut and other colonies.

When you add to all these, the sons of Hawes girls who had married men of other names (and probably equaled the Hawes men in number), it made a very respectable contingent to help put the King out of business. And the others remaining at home, men and women, every one was a Revolutionist, not one Tory among them.

In all other wars of the United States, the Hawes family has been well represented. We do not claim to have done more than others, but we have done as much.

It takes common sense about six months to leak out of the Average American mind. Therefore, read again the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution and its Amendments, and sing (or at least hum) ["T]he Star Spangled Banner["] and ["]God Bless America.["] Repeat this at least twice a year. Let the young folks hear you... it prevents "isms."

For God's sakes, and our own, let none of us ever be one of those TAKE EVERYTHING FOR GRANTED AMERICANS. We already have too many. Such an attitude nourishes the dangerous germ of disintegration. That our grand country exists is because enough colonial families realized this. That our grand country will continue to exist for our children's children will be because enough American families still realize it. Remember always no political platform is as great as the Constitution; no party as great as the Nation.

Great ships, great guns, trained officers and trained men must be augmented by National Patriotism, which is best taught by the patriotic home. Display the United States Flag on all National Days. It is wise to show gratitude and respect to the flag of the nation that has protected your family for so many years.

Read again enough English History to see why our folks came here. I am saying all this to myself as well as to you. We are all apt to neglect such things. The debt our family owes our government for long years of protection is paid in installments. If we do the things in Peace and War that all good Americans do, we are paying our bill.

If you wish your literary grades to reach still higher, read again Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Gray's Elegy in a Country Church Yard, and Pigs is Pigs. Dr. Elliot gives you a five-foot book shelf, I only give you five inches. Do it now.

What we are all most interested in is certain drops of blood which have flowed down to ancestral channel to each of us. Such a story should have been told in five pages; I have told it in fifty. Well, here are a lot of facts. Let us see what some other kinsman or kinswoman will do. Thanks for a copy....

I hope the youth of our family will know their family history better than I did. An American should know who he or she is....

I know all about Diogenes sitting in his tub,
And all the ancient lands and every ancient Dub.
Kings who raised the taxes and throwed you in the coop,
And lands where thinking men were always in the soup.
The Battle of Hastings, Magna Charta, Egypt, Rome,
But little of America, where our kinsmen made our home.

So 'ere's your family 'istory, my transplanted English kin.
If you could write another, please to count me in.
No longer we're called English.... American's the name.
On July 4th every year we celebrate the same.

It ain't so educated like some author's book,
But all the facts are stated, and look at the time it took.
There's traditions and legends and opinions, too,
But not too much applesauce, so read the story through.

I've wrote ten thousand letters, and some epistles, too.
I've been to Massachusetts to get a closer view.
Town and Court Records, and cemeteries drear,
I've dug deep beneath the sod for past three hundred year.

My blooming story's longer than a politician's pledge.
I had to reconcile the dates and tell about our hedge,
And explain our kinsmen's lives as to me they seem,
And add some homemade rhyme as literary cream.

I wish I had a cover to do this job in style.
What I wrote would then last for a long, long while.
It sure would be amazing, a thing I'd most admire,
To know it's on your bookshelf, not in your kitchen fire.

I've hunted kinsmen here and there, and dug the old guys out.
The right ones are in this tale without a bit of doubt.
So lift your beakers high, noses in the foam,
If more genealogies are needed, your writer ain't at home.

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