The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
State of Service: CT
Qualifying Service: Private / Civil Service
Joseph Hawkins, the son of James and Sarah (Kingsbury) Hawkins was born February 6, 1731, in the Town of Coventry, Windham County (now Tolland County) Connecticut. Little is known of this branch of the Hawkins family, which has only been traced with certainty back to Joseph’s grandparents, George and Susannah Hawkins, who migrated from Preston, Connecticut to Coventry about the year 1720.
On March 8, 1752, Joseph married Sarah Southworth in Coventry, and between 1753 and 1774, the couple had 12 children together. Sarah died on January 25, 1775, leaving Joseph a 45-year-old widower with about 9 minor children still living at home.
Just under three months after the death of his wife, Joseph, as a Minuteman in the Coventry Militia, answered the call to the Lexington Alarm on April 19, 1775. Still etched in his memory almost 60 years later, Joseph’s fellow townsman and Militiaman, Nathaniel Root, recalled what happened when the Coventry church bells were rung calling the men to arms:
“On the next day, after the Battle at Lexington, the 20th of April, 1775, he was ploughing in his field when the news came of said battle with an order at the same time to report to [the] headquarters of his regiment immediately. He took his cattle from the plough, mounted a horse, and proceeded to Pomfret in the County of Windham, the place assigned for the regiment to meet, when and where a draft was made from the regiment of about one half its number, of which the declarant was one, and ordered to proceed to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Elias Buell was Captain of the company to which he belonged. Mr. Joseph Talcott was Lieutenant and Samuel Robinson, Ensign. Thomas Brown was Major of the regiment. That he, with the above-named officers and men, marched immediately to the aforesaid Cambridge. He soon went to Lexington and saw the blood of the slain in the aforesaid battle on the floors and the houses perforated with balls. He was then and there employed in keeping guard and in military exercise….”
Having served 7 days in the field, Joseph was in all likelihood with Nathaniel Root up to that point. There is no evidence of further active military service rendered by this Joseph Hawkins. For the duration of the war, his time was consumed with tending his farm and providing for his prolific family. In addition, he served as a grand juror and continued regular military drills at the green on Monument Hill and High Street in Coventry.
On the 7th of August, 1777, Joseph married Zerviah (Hewitt) Howard, the widow of Captain John Howard who had lost his life at the Battle of Bunker Hill. With his second wife Zerviah, Joseph had 5 more children, bringing the number of offspring he fathered with both wives to about 17. With these Hawkins children and the 6 Howard children (all minors) that Zerviah brought into the marriage, they had a clan of over 23 children.
A death date of 1786 has been ascribed to Joseph; however, historical documentation clearly shows that he was still living in Coventry as late as 1796, when he made his final sale of land in that town. He and Zerviah are presumed to have departed Coventry soon after that land transaction. He would have been about 66 years of age.
Little is known of his life after he left Coventry. The Howard Genealogy states that Joseph and Zerviah migrated to Otsego County, New York where his Howard stepchildren John Howard, Vine Howard, Mary, wife of Benjamin Griffin, Sarah, wife of Samuel Huntington, and Ann, wife of Samuel Farnham resided. There in Burlington, it is said, Zerviah died, but it may have been in fact Joseph who had died there instead, for in 1810, his widow, Zerviah, was living in Henderson, Jefferson County, New York near her son, the Hon. Joseph Hawkins, Jr. and her daughter Mrs. John Porter.
On the 17th of July, 1810, Zerviah Hawkins is listed as a founding member of the First Congregational Church in Henderson. This same church recorded her death on March 19, 1812. Her husband, Joseph Hawkins, Sr., the subject of this sketch, is conspicuously absent by 1810, and is calculated to have died sometime between 1796 and 1810, possibly in Otsego County, New York, as before suggested, although his grave has yet to be discovered. Perhaps somewhere among his many descendants still exists a family bible with the missing information.
A bibliography of sources for this paper may be obtained by contacting the author at the following email address: aspens11@protonmail.com.
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