USA > North Carolina > Biographical history of North Carolina from colonial times to the present; > Part 11
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Early in life he sought to improve the excellent advantages given him by his father for acquiring an education. Entering the academy at Williamston, his home school, he was prepared for
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the University of North Carolina. He matriculated at that in- stitution July, 1858, and remained there until August, 1861, when, on the fall of the forts at Cape Hatteras, he returned home to as- sist his father in his business. At the University he received first distinction, leading his class from the time he entered. At the commencement of 1867 the degree of A.M. was conferred on him by the University-it was then an honorary degree. In July. 1889, he was called back to his Alma Mater to deliver illustrated lectures on astronomy at the Summer Normal School.
At the beginning of the Civil War the subject of this sketch was in very low health. He was examined by a recruiting officer and exempted for physical disability. During the war he was similarly examined six times, and each time he was declared incapacitated for service by reason of an affection of the lungs and throat which continued for a year after the close of the war. Notwithstanding the extremely low state of his health, he served in the Winter of 1862 as Secretary of Colonel Samuel Watts of the Martin County Militia, at Fort Hill, near Washington, North Carolina, for three weeks, until the disbanding of the regiment at the fall of Roanoke Island. During the remainder of the war he taught his younger brothers and sisters when he was physically able. An older brother, Theodore Hassel!, was lieutenant of Company A, Seven- teenth Regiment and later Ordnance Officer of the Brigade and member of General Martin's staff. Lieutenant Hassell was killed in the battle of Kinston, March, 1865.
After the fall of Roanoke Island, February 8, 1862, the people of this section were subject to continued raids of Federal troops. both by cavalry and marines on land and gunboats coming up the Roanoke River. At one time these gunboats bombarded Wil- liamston seventeen hours because of a few Confederate soldiers who had been seen in their retreat up the river ; the finest resi- dence in town was burned by hot shot, and Elder C. B. Hassell's house was pierced by the fragment of a bomb. At another time, November, 1862, an army of 10,000 men, under General J. G. Foster, marched from Washington, North Carolina, through Wil- liamston to the vicinity of Tarboro, and then returned to Wash-
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ington. In their raid they plundered, shipped North, gave away, or destroyed all the goods of the merchants in Williamston-as they did in other towns in their path-and almost every other portable article of value. At yet another time a company of raid- ers brought light wood to burn the home of Elder C. B. Hassell because he was a friend of the Confederacy, but they were calmly dissuaded by him from doing so.
Elder Sylvester Hassell began his chosen profession-teaching -as principal of the Williamston Academy, where he remained from 1865 to 1868. In 1869 he went to the State Normal College of Delaware to fill the chair of Ancient Languages. While living in Wilmington, Delaware, he was married in 1870 to Miss Mary Isabella Garrell, daughter of Julius S. Garrell, of Martin County, North Carolina. He taught there and at New Castle, Delaware, until the last sickness and death of his wife in 1871, and resigned the principalship of the New Castle Graded School to rest a while and then teach in Wilson, North Carolina. Of this marriage one son, Paul, who died at the age of fifteen, was born. In 1872 he es- tablished the Wilson Collegiate Institute, at Wilson, North Caro- lina. For fourteen years he successfully managed this school. On May 3, 1876, he was married to Miss Frances Louisa Wood- ard, daughter of Calvin Woodard, of Wilson County. There were born to them seven children, four of whom, Francis, Charles, Mary, and Calvin, are now living. His wife died in January, 1889. It was while living at Wilson that his father, Elder Cush- ing Biggs Hassell, was appointed by the Kehukee Primitive Baptist Association (in 1876) to prepare its third history, and to combine with it a history of the Church from the creation. The general history of the Church Elder C. B. Hassell requested his son, Elder Sylvester Hassell, to write. Accordingly the latter purchased the most valuable church histories published in Europe and America for this purpose. He did not have time for this work, as he had six or seven teachers and a large school. His father, who had retired from business, consequently undertook the whole work. For three years Elder C. B. Hassell labored at his task. On his death in 1880 he committed his manuscript to his son to
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complete the work. He at once set about the task, which was a great and laborious one, and devoted his great talents and almost his entire time for six years to the completion and revisal of the history, bringing it down to A.D. 1885. A close student and a finished scholar, he gave the very highest authorities where there was any question as to the position he was taking. At times, in deciding upon some particular point, he frequently had open be- fore him twenty authorities of the highest character. On com- pleting this monumental work in 1886, he gave up the school at Wilson and returned to his old home in Williamston, North Caro- lina, to become again principal of the academy there and to serve the church near that place, of which he was a member and pastor. The history was published by Gilbert Beebe's sons, Middletown, New York, in 1886, in a closely printed octavo volume of 1032 pages, with a very copious Table of Contents and Alphabetical Index.
There had been two other histories of the Kehukee Association, one by Elders Burkett and Read, published in 1803, and one by Elder Joseph Biggs, father of Judge, and afterwards United States Senator, Asa Biggs, and published in 1834. These were confined chiefly to the association, and did not purport to be his- tories of the Christian Church.
The "Church History" of Elders C. B. and S. Hassell contains succinctly an account of all the leading religions of the world and of all denominations of Christianity, and states substantially the - fair and full truths as found by the authors, irrespective of the creeds of their Church or any other Church. They endeavored to . write a non-sectarian history. The work passed through two editions, and a third edition is much in demand. It is a candid, faithful, truthful, and scriptural "History of the Church of God from the Creation" to A.D. 1885.
After returning to his home, Williamston, and teaching there from 1886 to 1890, he, by reason of failing health, discontinued teaching and traveled and visited churches in several States.
We have thus far given his history, and an account of his nat- ural services to his fellow-men. By far the greater and better part
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of his great and useful life has been spent in his unselfish service to his God and the churches, in writing and preaching. Before proceeding further, it may be well to say just a word about the Church with which he has been allied.
Before, during and since the war between the States there was and has been and is a wonderful unity of belief and affection be- tween Old School or Primitive Baptists, North, South, East and West, though of course there are some differences of expression and forms among some of them. The ministers are often led (as they believe of the Divine Spirit) to visit distant counties and States and sometimes other nations to preach the Gospel of the Son of God, and they are kindly received and treated, and the God of Providence sustains them and their families in these labors without the aid of any human societies. While the most of the churches do not have any large increase at any one time, still their numbers gradually increase with the population of the country. In 1892 Elder Hassell became associate editor of the Gospel Mes- senger-a monthly religious magazine founded in 1878, and at the time owned and published by Elder J. R. Respass, of Butler, Georgia. After the death of Elder Respess in 1895, he purchased the paper in 1896, and has continued its owner and editor-in-chief until the present time. It is now published in Williamston, North Carolina, and is devoted entirely to the defense and the dissemina- tion of the doctrine and truths of the Word of God. There are four editors associated with him in the work, Elders J. G. W. Henderson and S. W. Stewart, of Alabama, Lee Hanks, of Georgia, and J. H. Oliphant, of Indiana. The paper's circula- tion extends to twenty-six States and Canada.
Elder Hassell is an accomplished linguist. He has been a stu- dent all his life. His fine library of about 3000 volumes, which he has been many years collecting, is the library of a scholar and theologian. Most of his fellow-ministers know only the English language and have had very limited educations (though there are a few very highly educated) and have few books besides their Bibles and hymn-books, yet they are well acquainted with the spirit and letter of the Word of God. All the ministers of
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the Primitive Baptist Church serve their churches without any charge or stipulated salary.
Elder Hassell has never been a member of any moral or re- ligious order or society other than his Church. His just convic- tions of a religious nature began when young ; and as he was ar- rested by supernatural power and shown the deep depravity of his carnal nature, he fled first to the Law and then to the Cross for mercy, and found peace and pardon in the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He received the evidence that his sins were forgiven August 17, 1863, and joined the Church at Skewarky, near Williamston, January 7, 1864. He began his labors in the ministry December 10, 1871, at the age of twenty-nine, and was regularly ordained to the full work of the Gospel ministry August 9, 1874, by a presbytery consisting of his father and Elders David House and William Whitaker. He has had the pastoral care of his home church, Skewarky, since 1881. Besides, he has labored extensively in his own State and Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Florida, Louisi- ana, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, Massa- chusetts and Canada. He has been the Moderator of the Ke- hukee Association-the oldest Primitive Baptist Association in the United States, having been formed in Halifax County in 1765- almost continuously since the death of his father, and has recently been chosen by that body as their permanent presiding officer. His wise and timely counsel is always faithful and always for peace and harmony. He is still laboring with tongue and pen for the glory of God and the good of the churches and his fellow- man, "speaking the truth in love" and publishing the glorious Gospel of Christ-"Glory to God in the highest : on earth peace and good-will to men." He is to-day justly regarded by many as one of the most learned, honest, able, and truthful expounders of the Word of God now living, and he is still humbly laboring for the cause which is dearer to him than life itself, without the promise or hope of any earthly reward, but with the desire for the triumph of truth, and with a conscience void of offence toward God and man. M. L. Lawrence.
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PHILEMON HAWKINS, SR.
HILEMON HAWKINS, first of his name to settle in North Carolina, resided in the colonial P county of Bute, which was established in 1764 out of the eastern part of Granville County and which was divided into Warren and Franklin Counties in 1779. He was born in Virginia on the 28th of September, 1717. His father was Philemon Haw- kins, who was born in England in 1690, and emigrated in 1715 to Virginia, where he died in 1725. The wife of this founder of the family in America (and the mother of Philemon Hawkins, later of North Carolina) was Ann Eleanor Howard. The Haw- kins family claims descent from the renowned Elizabethan ad- miral and explorer, Sir John Hawkins.
One of the sons of Colonel Philemon Hawkins (subject of this sketch) was Colonel Philemon Hawkins, Jr., of Pleasant Hill, in Warren County, North Carolina. In a ponderous Family Bible, formerly owned by the latter, we find many interesting items about the subject of our present sketch and his family's early history in North Carolina. Following are some of the entries :
"Philemon Hawkins, father of Philemon Hawkins of Pleasant Hill, was born in Virginia. He removed to the mouth of Six Pound Creek in North Carolina ; was one of the first settlers there. He was an extremely active and industrious man, an uncommonly good husband and father,
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and one of the best providers for a family. The Creator blessed him with a great share of chattels and wealth, and he lived to be nearly eighty-four years of age. He departed this life roth day of September, A.D. 1801."
He came to North Carolina in his young manhood, about 1737, and settled in what was then the western part of Edgecombe County, later Granville, afterwards Bute, and later still Warren : being among the first to settle in that section.
Concerning the wife of the last-named is an entry in the above Family Bible which gives some account of her life and char- acteristics in the following words :
"Delia Hawkins, mother of Philemon Hawkins of Pleasant Hill, de- parted this life the 20th day of August, A.D. 1794, respected and esteemed by all her acquaintances. She was the daughter of Zachariah Martin, a respectable planter and native of Virginia. She was one of the first set- tlers upon Six Pound Creek in North Carolina, where her husband, Phile- mon Hawkins, owned a mill. The country was then a wilderness, which occasioned corn to be extremely scarce; and, when the poorest of the people came with their corn to the mill, instead of taking toll, she would add to their morsel and have it ground into meal gratis. She was uni- versally kind to the poor. The great Creator of us all blessed her with a great share of health and wealth, and she lived to be seventy-three years of age."
Next after the above entry is another recording the death of the family's most distinguished member, who was a son of Colonel Philemon Hawkins, subject of the present sketch. This was Colonel Benjamin Hawkins, the interpreter of French on the staff of General Washington during the Revolution, member of the Continental Congress, United States Senator, Agent for the Creek Nation, etc., who spent his last years at Fort Hawkins, Georgia. This reads :
"Colonel Benjamin Hawkins, Agent for the Creek Indians, departed this life on the 6th of June, at eight o'clock in the evening, 1816, in the sixty-second year of his age. He has served as a publick character in vari- ous departments and always discharged the trust faithfully for thirty-six years-a worthy, honest man."
Colonel Philemon Hawkins, of Bute County, our present sub- ject, is usually styled Philemon Hawkins, Sr., in history, to dis- tinguish him from his son, Colonel Philemon Hawkins, Jr., of
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PHILEMON HAWKINS, SR.
Pleasant Hill, in Warren County, a man of equal note, who will be the subject of a separate sketch in the present volume, as will also Benjamin and other members of the family. Both Philemon, Sr., and Philemon, Jr., fought under Governor Tryon at the bat- tle of Alamance, May 16, 1771.
On September 28, 1829, Colonel Hawkins, the younger, gathered as many relatives and friends at Pleasant Hill in Warren County as could be gotten together, and celebrated the 112th an- niversary of his late father's birth. One of the chief features of this gathering was an oration on "Philemon Hawkins, Sr .. De- ceased," delivered by Colonel John D. Hawkins, son of the younger Philemon. In this we find many interesting facts about the elder Colonel Hawkins. Concerning the distinguished part he took in the Battle of Alamance, the speaker said :
"Upon this occasion His Excellency selected our venerated ancestor as his chief aid-de-camp and assigned to him the hazardous duty to read to the Regulators his proclamation, which he did promptly. And, after the battle commenced, he was the bearer of the Governor's commands throughout the whole action. This so exposed him to the fire of the ene- my that his hat was pierced by two balls, various balls passed through his clothes, and one bullet and two buckshot lodged in the breach of his gun. which he carried and used during the action. But he had the good fortune not to be wounded. After the battle was over, he was compli- mented by the Governor for the very efficient aid given him, and for the bravery and ability displayed during the engagement."
At the family reunion, when the above quoted address was de- livered, the ceremonies were opened with prayer by Leonidas Polk, a young clergyman, whose mother was a daughter of the host, Colonel Philemon Hawkins, Jr. This youthful churchman later became renowned alike as bishop and general, and was killed while fighting for the Confederacy at Pine Mountain, Georgia, on the 14th of June, 1864.
But recurring to the history of Colonel Philemon Hawkins : not only did he distinguish himself at the Battle of Alamance, as above noted, but he filled many public posts. In Bute County he was High Sheriff ( an office of great honor and dignity under Royal rule), and he was also at one time sergeant-at-arms of the
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Colonial Assembly. At the outbreak of the Revolution, Gov- ernor Josiah Martin greatly desired to gain the Hawkins family for the King's cause. With this end in view he inserted the name of Philemon Hawkins, Sr., and of Philemon Hawkins, Jr., in a commission (January 10, 1776), directing a rendezvous of Royal forces at Cross Creek, now Fayetteville. Neither father nor son took notice of this action by Martin, and both became faithful patriots. Referring to the matter, Governor Swain, in one of his historical addresses, said :
"These gentlemen were sturdy and well-tried Whigs throughout the Revolutionary War. Governor Martin may have been misinformed in relation to them, or may have inserted their names in order to render them objects of suspicion and strip them of their influence among the Whigs."
By his wife, Delia Martin, six children were born to Colonel Philemon Hawkins, Sr. His two daughters were Delia, who mar- ried Leonard Bullock; and Ann, who married Micajah Thomas. Both of these ladies died without surviving issue. The four sons of Colonel Hawkins were Colonel John Hawkins, Colonel Phile- mon Hawkins, Jr. (subject of separate sketch in this work), Colonel Benjamin Hawkins (also subject of separate sketch), and Colonel Joseph Hawkins.
The elder Colonel Philemon Hawkins, whose life we have at- tempted to portray herein, was offered a brigadier-general's com- mission in the beginning of the Revolution, but declined. For a short while, however, he was a lieutenant-colonel of militia. Some civil appointments were conferred upon Colonel Hawkins, and these he accepted. He was a Justice of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, first for the county of Bute, and later of Warren County. As heretofore mentioned, his life was the sub- ject of a memorial address delivered in 1829 by his grandson, Colonel John D. Hawkins. A son of the latter, Doctor A. B. Hawkins, of Raleigh, recently had this address reprinted.
Marshall De Lancey Haywood.
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Phil Hawking,
PHILEMON HAWKINS JR.
PHILEMON HAWKINS, JR.
OLONEL PHILEMON HAWKINS, JR., of Pleasant Hill, in the county of Warren (for- C merly Bute) was the second son of a gentle- man of the same name whose life has been de- picted in the foregoing sketch. He was born on the 3d of December, 1752, "at two o'clock in the afternoon," as his precise family record tells us. At the age of nineteen he rode as a trooper in his father's company of Bute County Light-Horse when Governor Tryon marched against the Regulators in 1771 ; and, on the 16th of May, in that year, was a courier attached to the staff of His Excellency at the Battle of Alamance. Tryon had a strong sense of the value of the services of both father and son in the fight here alluded to, and presented young Hawkins with a handsome rifle in recognition of his valor and good conduct.
As mentioned in the foregoing sketch, Josiah Martin, Royal Governor, made vain efforts at the beginning of the Revolution to win over the services of Philemon Hawkins, Sr., and Philemon Hawkins, Jr., of the then county of Bute, by inserting their names in a commission directing a rendezvous of Loyalists at Cross Creek, where the town of Fayetteville now stands. Not only was Martin's commission ignored by father and son alike, but both en- tered heart and soul into the cause of the Colonies.
In the Summer of 1775, after there had been a clash of arms
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at the North, there was a general arming throughout North Caro- lina, and independent companies were then formed, which, how- ever, were disbanded by order of the Congress which met in Sep- tember, 1775, and arranged for a permanent military organiza- tion of the people of the State. It was apparently during that Sum- mer that a company was formed in Bute, the association paper being printed in the ninth volume of the Colonial Records, page 1104. As illustrating the sentiments of the people in those trying times, we make some condensed extracts from the same :
"We, therefore, the trusty and well-beloved brothers and friends, to each other, of Bute County, North Carolina, . . do most seri- ously, religiously, join our hearts and hands in embodying ourselves into an Independent Company of Freemen, to be in readiness to defend our- selves against any violence that may be exerted against our persons and properties, to stand by and support to the utmost of our power the salva- tion of America; and do most humbly beseech our Lord Jesus Christ, of his great goodness, that he be pleased to govern and guide us to his glory, and to the good of our distressed country; and with full dependence thereon, we the subscribers do constitute and agree that this Company consist of ninety rank and file, two drummers, eight sergeants, one en- sign, two lieutenants, and a captain to command, with full power, to our
glory and our country's good. We will coincide with the majority of the Company, should we ever be called for by the Command- ing Officer of the American Army. Being now cheerfully enlisted in this Independent Company of brothers, neighbors and friends, we do engage to stand by each other with life and fortune; and, through whatever fate should befall either, to cherish each other in sickness and in health; and do furthermore most cordially promise to each other, under all the ties of virtue and humanity, that should either of us survive the dreadful calami- ties of war, that we will religiously cherish and support to the utmost of our power each other's desolate and loving wife and tender, affec- · tionate children, being poor orphans, from poverty and want; and for the faithful performance of this our brotherly and friendly covenant which we mean to perform, so help us God."
The expressions in this paper show the solemnity of the enlist- ment. It appears that young Philemon Hawkins was captain of the company.
When the Provincial Congress convened on April 4, 1776, the town of Halifax was its meeting-place, and Philemon Hawkins,
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Jr., was at the age of twenty-three a member of that body. On May 3d this Congress advanced Hawkins to the full rank of colonel, placing him in command of a regiment drafted from the districts of Edenton and Halifax for the special purpose of sup- pressing an insurrection in the Currituck district. On May 9th the Committee on Claims in the above Congress recommended an allowance to Colonel Hawkins "for the services of his regi- ment of militia on the late Currituck expedition, and against the insurgents." Colonel Hawkins was a member of the Pro- vincial Congress at Halifax in November, 1776. While the Rev- olution was in progress he also served as a member of the Gov- ernor's Council and often sat in the Assembly both during and after the war.
By Chapter 19 of the Laws of 1779 Bute County was divided, and out of it were created the counties of Warren and Franklin- the two latter named for Revolutionary patriots, Joseph Warren and Benjamin Franklin. The residence of Colonel Hawkins lay in that part of Bute which became Warren County; but by sub- sequent enactments and re-enactments his home was at different times placed in the counties of Granville and Franklin, as well as Warren, but eventually his home place became permanently a part of Warren. At seven sessions of the General Assembly, beginning in 1779, and extending -- with one intermission-till 1787, Colonel Hawkins represented Granville in the North Caro- lina House of Commons ; and was sent to the same body from Warren at the sessions of 1787, 1789, 1803, 1805, 1806, 1817 and 1818. He was also State Senator from Warren at the sessions of 1807, 1808, 1810, and 1811.
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