James Hawkins Family Monument and Tombstones, Springvale Cemetery, Tippecanoe County, Indiana

INDIVIDUAL MARKERS
James Hawkins Jane Sumner Hawkins Edward S. Hawkins Elizabeth Hawkins Bond John L. Bond James Hawkins Ditton Minerva Hawkins Ditton Isabelle Houghton Ditton Sumner J. Ditton William C. Ditton	Abigail J. Flinn William L. Flinn Leo J. Freihage Martha J. Freihage Jane Jewell Gagnon Abigail Hawkins Hart George Henry Hart Charles W. Jewell Martha H. Jewell

Mrs. Jane Hawkins

This most estimable lady, residing in Earl Park, Indiana, is a worthy representative of one of the honored and highly respected families of Benton county. She is a native of Fountain county, this state, and a daughter of Edward C. and Abigail (Cooper) Sumner. Her father was born in Vermont in 1812, but at an early day came west with his parents to Ohio, where he was reared. When a young man he removed to Fountain county, Indiana, locating near Newtown, where he purchased seven hundred acres of land. He sold this some time later and bought twenty-three thousand acres in Benton county, southwest of Earl Park, the northeast corner of this land being now marked by H. J. Caldwell's elevator. He also had five hundred acres of land at various other points, accumulating this vast acreage by timely purchase. He was an excellent business man of known reliability and sound judgment. His death occurred in 1882, when he was seventy years of age. Mrs. Sumner was born in Virginia, and with an uncle, John Barnes, went to Portsmouth, Ohio, where she was married. She is now living in Chicago, at the advanced age of eighty-six years. Mrs. Hawkins is the eldest of her three children, the others being Jesse, a resident of Milford, Illinois, who owns five thousand acres of land near that place, in Iroquois county; and Minerva, who died in 1883, at the age of forty-six years.

Mrs. Hawkins acquired her early education in the common schools near her childhood home, and for six years was a student at St. Mary's in the Woods, a convent four miles west of Terre Haute. On the 3d of August, 1858, she gave her hand in marriage to James Hawkins, of Lafayette, who was born in Hamilton, Ohio, August 16, 1827, and was brought by his parents to Lafayette when only two years old. They were farming people and bought considerable land three miles southwest of that place, where both died at about the age of seventy years. James was the youngest in their family of eleven children, the others being as follows: Eli, now a resident of Kankakee, Illinois; Jemima, now Mrs. Winship, who lives on the Wea plains, Tippecanoe county; Nancy, deceased wife of Thomas Van Meter; Eliza, widow of Moses Fowler, of Lafayette; Martha, widow of Adams Earl, of Lafayette; William, who lives in the south; Elizabeth, who married Austin Vanderbilt and both are now deceased; Hannah, deceased wife of Frank Kennedy, of Springfield, Missouri; and two who died when young.

During his boyhood and youth James Hawkins aided in the work of the home farm and attended the common schools, but later entered the Wabash University, at Wabash, Indiana, where he pursued his studies for three years. Returning home he engaged in farming for his father until the latter's death, when he took charge of his mother's and his own share of the paternal estate, but in 1876 he sold his interest in the land on the Wea plains and came to Benton county, where he bought a farm of six hundred and forty acres three and a half miles southwest of Earl Park, on which he and his wife built an elegant home according to her plans. He died at Earl Park in 1897, honored and respected by all who knew him, for he was a man of strict integrity and sterling worth. Since her husband's death Mrs. Hawkins has successfully managed the estate, being a woman of more than ordinary business ability. She still owns about six thousand acres of land in Benton county, which she leased to her son, Edward, and her son-in-law, George Hart.

Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins became the parents of six children, all born in Tippecanoe county: Edward C., born August 12, 1859, lives on the old homestead in Benton county; Abigail C., born March 22, 1861, is the wife of George Hart, who has leased a part of the estate; Minerva K., born September 4, 1863, is the wife of W. C. Ditton, cashier of the Bank of Earl Park, in which he owns a third interest; Elizabeth M.. born December 2, 1865, is living with her grandmother in Chicago; Martha J., born January 23, 1867, is the wife of Charles W. Jewell, a dry-goods merchant of Kankakee, Illinois; and Grace, born January 3, 1875, died in infancy. The family are prominent in the best social circles in the communities in which they made their home.

Biographical History of Tippecanoe, White, Jasper, Newton, Benton, Warren and Pulaski Counties, Indiana, pg.894
Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois; 1899