Hawkins Family History
Presented
by G. Christian Larsen
Lynn E. Garn, of Virginia,
Ronnie E. Hawkins, Snr., of Michigan, and G. Christian Larsen have traced over
5000 descendants of Zadock Hawkins and his wife Lydia Wilmot, of Derby,
Connectict to places throughout Canada and the United States. There are over 500
pages of people listed in the book entitled "The Family of Zadock
Hawkins." For more information on the book, please see: "Book
On Hawkins Descendants" or "Family
of Zadock Hawkins."
On January 16th, 2006 Larsen presented a copy of "The
Family of Zadock Hawkins" to the "Beaver Harbour Community Venture
Ltd." in memory of Lena (Dickson) Hawkins (1902-1996). Larsen has done
genealogical research on various families in and around the Beaver Harbour area
for almost 17 years now. Some of his efforts have been a continuation of work
previously done by the late Lena Hawkins. Lena worked tirelessly over the years
to preserve the history of Beaver Harbour. Much of her efforts were not
recognized or at least not duly credited to her. Larsen can’t count the number
of people he has spoken to over the years who ask about Lena. Some may not
recall her name right off, but all certainly remember she was the one they went
to for answers when visiting the Harbour to discover their ancestors. This was a
token of appreciation for her dedication to the preservation of our history.
Larsen did most of the research on the Canadian branch of
the family and furnished the majority of the information about them for the
book. He has spent almost 17 years now researching various families in &
around the Pennfield area, among them being: Barry, Bates, Best, Crickard,
Cross, Dunbar, Eldridge, Gillespie, Hawkins, Hunter, Jack, Justason, McKay,
Mealey, Nodding, Paul, Spear, Tatton, Thompson, Trynor, Wadlin, Wright and
Young. Since Oct 27, 2003 he has served as coordinator for the Pennfield
Parish pages, and on July 25, 2005 took over as coordinator for the Lepreau
Parish pages as well. He is also active in the "Beaver Harbour
Community Venture Ltd.", having served for over 6 years now as chairman of
the Archive Committee.
Author Lynn Garn resides in Virginia, and it was his great grandmother
that was a Hawkins. She died when his grandfather was only four years old. Very
little information about the Hawkins family was passed on to their part of the
family because of the disconnect resulting from her death. As he did research on
her line, he soon discovered information that fascinated him. As he continued to
accumulated more and more information and stories that Garn thought were
interesting, he wanted to tell someone. So he decided to write a book. Garn has
been doing serious genealogical research for over 30 years. He started work on
the book about seven years ago. Garn and Ronnie E. Hawkins, Senr. of Michigan
started collaborating about 7 or 8 years ago when one of them noticed that the
other had posted a query on a genealogical web site on the Internet. After a
while they agreed to collaborate. Garn was tracking a fellow named William
Wilmot Hawkins, who had served for a short time in the American Army during the
American Revolutionary War. He deserted the American Army and joined a Loyalist
unit the next day. After the war, he settled in the Pennfield area. So Garn was
looking for Hawkinses in the Pennfield area. Karen (Ward) Hawkins from Pennfield
contacted Garn in regards to her husband's family, and shortly afterwards put
Larsen in touch with Garn as well. They have been able to work together while
living so far apart mostly because they exchange a lot of emails. They use
scanners to scan documents and send them to each other as attachments to emails.
There are occasional phone calls and they sometimes send hardcopies of things by
postal service, but most of the communication is by email.
"Beaver Harbour Community Venture Ltd."
Friends and family gathered for the presentation of the recently
published book "The Family of Zadock Hawkins."
Left to Right: Barb Leavitt, Marlene Wadlin, Ruth Steele, Janet Fullerton, Lucy
Lawton, Florence Hawkins, Mavis Leavitt, Nicole Gillis, Sherman Wadlin, Frank
Leavitt, Chris Larsen, and Jim Hawkins.
Missing from the photograph: Marion Belliveau, Jeff Hawkins and Violet (Meme)
McKinley.
Chris Larsen presenting the book "The Family of Zadock Hawkins"
to B.H.C.V. president James L. Hawkins, youngest child of Arthur W. and Lena M.
(Dickson) Hawkins.
There have also been a couple of visits. Hawkins was in the
Virginia area and stopped by to visit Garn in the latter part of 1998. They
spent the day at the National Archives in Washington D.C. During the summer of
2004 Garn and his wife Karyl visited New Brunswick. Both Garn and Karyl enjoyed
their visit to Charlotte County very much. They found everyone was so friendly.
Larsen took them to visit a number of the older Hawkins relatives in the area,
and they were amazed by the vitality of their 76 to 93 year-old kinfolk. They
also visited the Beaver
Harbour Archives, located at the Community Center, and the Barry
& Eldridge store where the Garn's were able to buy a nice shirt with
"Beaver Harbour" on it.
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