Randolph  County,  Indiana

William  L. Hawkins


            Inheriting the thrifty and frugal habits of a sturdy pioneer father who, before the days of railroads left his native hills in the old Tar state under Southern skies and threaded the wilderness to the land of the Hoosiers to seek his fortune in the new country, it is little wonder that William L. Hawkins, erstwhile farmer and merchant, but for a score of years past successful real estate dealer in Winchester has won a definite goal in life, and won his spurs on the field of the industrial strife. The people of Randolph county have known him for many years, and they extend to him every good wish, for his dealings with his fellow men have ever been honorable and they repose in him the most implicit confidence.
            Mr. Hawkins was born in Randolph county, Indiana, July 29, 1854. He is a son of William and Agatha (Teagle) Hawkins, whose family consisted of ten children, seven daughters and three sons.
            William Hawkins, father of the subject of this sketch, was born in North Carolina in 1808 and his death occurred in 1879. He spent his boyhood in his native state, and when twenty-two years old, in 1830, he made the long overland journey from his native state to Wayne county, Indiana, on horseback, carrying an old flint-lock rifle which is now in the possession of the subject of this sketch. William Hawkin's mother died when he was six weeks old, and his father, John Hawkins, bound him out to a distiller of peach brandy and apple-jack, and he remained with the distiller until reaching his majority, then received for his services five dollars, a jeans suit of clothes, horse, bridle and saddle. He then worked a year for fifty dollars. He married after coming to Wayne county, where he lived about a year, and then removed to Randolph county becoming well situated through his industry and close application. His father and brothers all remained in North Carolina and he lost track of them upon the outbreak of the war of the Rebellion. His wife, our subject's mother, was born in 1809, in Virginia, and she died in 1897, at the advanced age of eighty-eight years.
            William L. Hawkins, of this sketch, grew to manhood on the home farm in Randolph county and he received his early education in an old log school house in his neighborhood, in fact was located on the farm he now owns. Two of his neighbors and his own family, contributed thirty-one children to the school. He remained on the home place until he was twenty-one years of age. For the past twenty years he has been engaged in the real estate business in Winchester, and he has built up a large and lucrative business. Perhaps no man in Randolph county is a better judge of real estate values, both city and farm, than he. He has dealt promptly, courteously and honestly with his fellow men and he therefore has the good will and respect of all. He has been very successful in a business way.
            Politically, Mr. Hawkins is a Republican. He is a member of the Free and Accepted Masons, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Encampment. He attends the Friends church.
            Mr. Hawkins was married May 4, 1883 to Etta Moore, a daughter of James Moore, a farmer of Randolph county. She is one of two children, having a sister, Minnie E.
            Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, named as follows: Minnie, born in 1885, married Harry Iliff, who is in the employ of the National Cash Register Company, of Dayton, Ohio, and they have one child, Henrietta; Winnie died in infancy; Lionel M., born May 2, 1888, is secretary and treasurer of the East Arkansas Lumber Company; he lives at Paragould, Arkansas, and married Willie Walters, of Springville, Tennessee; they have one child, William Moore. Charles J., the youngest child of our subject, was born November 3, 1891, and is now working in Chicago for Carson, Pine, Scott & Company.
Past and Present of Randolph County, Indiana, 1914.
Contributed by Gina Richardson

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