John B. Hawkins

I am going to start another blog entry about John B. Hawkins.  Several of the researchers that I have communicated with over the years believe that he could have been father to my Thomas R. Hawkins.  Every time that I tried to make it work, I talked myself out of this possibility.  Now that I know more about all of the Hawkins families, I want to look at it one more time.  So here is what I know, suspect, and am trying to prove about this man.

John B. Hawkins may have been named John Bourne Hawkins.  But I have never seen anyone who had proved that fact.  He was the son of Benjamin and Nancy/Ann Bourne Hawkins.  Both Benjamin and Nancy/Ann died in Mercer County, Kentucky.  They had moved to Kentucky by 1790.

Benjamin was probably the son of John and Elizabeth (Butler?) Hawkins who died in Richmond County, Virginia leaving six small children.  In John's will, he asked Henry Wood to take the oldest son, William, as apprentice to learn the trade of plasterer.  He asked Richard and James Butler to take the smaller children to raise. He named the children as Sarah, Elizabeth, John, Benjamin, and James.  James Butler died soon after the death of John Hawkins and thus Richard Butler was left to raise the five younger children while Henry Wood took William.

You can see a transcription of John's will made by Janet Shahmiri at:

http://jaceychasinghistory.blogspot.com/2012/07/transcript-of-john-hawkins-will.html

Mid 1700's Benjamin Hawkins moved to the area of Orange County that is near Chestnut/Clarks Mountain.  My blog entries dated Wednesday, November 28 and Sunday Feb 24 explain this in more detail.  I think it likely that others of the six orphans may have moved there in that time frame as well.

Benjamin and Nancy/Ann Bourne Hawkins were married in Fauquier County, Virginia 29 Oct 1764 according to Fauquier County, Virginia, Marriage Bonds: 1759-1854 and Marriage Returns: 1785-1848 by John K. Gott.  [I would like to take time to figure out why married there?  Was that where the Bourne family was living in this time period?]

I remember why I kept throwing out the idea that John B. Hawkins was NOT father to Thomas R. Hawkins!  It was because researchers who look at the family of Benjamin and Ann/Nancy Bourne Hawkins tell me that indeed the couple had a son named Benjamin born about the right time for Thomas R. Hawkins' Uncle Benjamin, BUT this Benjamin moved to Kentucky with the rest of the family and was married to Elizabeth Harmon and owned land in Anderson County, Ky