Individual Details

1635 Robert Hawkins built a mill upon the Charlestown town hill and it was known for many years as "Windmill Hill". This hill was also the home of the First Church, then know as Town Hill and later Hill Fort per NEHGR 1870 Vol 24 page 284. Charlestown was on the north side of the Charles River and Boston on the south side of the river.

1636 New England Historical and Genealogical Register 1871, Vol 25, page 148: Eleazar Hawkins baptised on 25 Oct 1636, son of Robert and Mary Hawkins, per the Record Book of the First Church in Charlestown, MA.

Family Search notes on Robert Hawkins:
History of Robert Hawkins (ca.1610 - ca.1650)
Contributed By Garry Bryant · 6 October 2014 · 0 Comments
by Garry Bryant
Robert Hawkins
(ca.1610 - ca.1650)

To date it is not known if Robert Hawkins was a descendant of the Hawkins who lived at Nash Court, nor a descendant of Osbert de Hawkynns, or even entitled to the use of the above described heraldic arms. However, one Hawkins family genealogist Mrs. Emilt J. Hawkins, states that Robert Hawkins was born in 1610 in County Essex.1 Robert came from Braintree parish, Essex County, England.2
It was in the later end of the month of April in 1635, that Robert Hawkynns (occupation - Husbandman) and his wife Marie, ages 25 and 24, boarded the ship ‘Elizabeth and Ann,’ with Captain Roger Cooper at the helm. The Hawkynns were not members of any apostate faith, but members of the Church of England. The record of the register at London reads;

“In the ELIZABETH & ANN Roger
Coop (Cooper) Mr: Theis pties hervn-
der expressed are to be imbarqued for
New-England having taken oaths of
Allegeance & Supremacie & likewise
brought Certificate both crom the Min-
isters & Justices where their abiding’s
were latlie of their conformitie to the
discipline & orders of the Church of
England & yt, they are no Subsedy
Men.”

The meaning of subsedy men is that Robert Hawkins was a free man traveling to New England. He was sent here as an employee of a company who paid his passage nor was he indentured as a servant to someone in New England who paid his passage.
The ‘Elizabeth & Ann’ arrived in Boston harbor a couple of months later and the Hawkins family built a house and a windmill on the hill in the neighboring town of Charlestown, where Mary Hawkins was admitted to membership in the First Church of Charlestown on the 8th of January in 1636 and her husband was admitted a few months later on the 17th of April. Ralph C. Hawkins, author of The Hawkins Family, writes that “This undoubtedly was an epoch in their lives in the colonies as church membership was opened only to those who met the exacting standards set by the Puritan fathers.”
The covenant that the Hawkins made upon membership to the First Church of Charlestown is found on the second page of the membership records of the church which was founded on the 2nd day of the 9th month in 1632. The covenant reads;

“The Covenant proposed to particular
persons for their consent when they
are to be admitted, viz. You doe av-
ouch the only true God (father Son &
Holy Ghost) to be your God according
to the tenour of the Covenant of his
grace wherein he promiseth to be a
God to the faithful & their seed after
them in their generations & taketh
them to be his people; and accordingly,
therefore, you do give up yourself to
him & doe solemly & religiously, as in
his most holy presence, covenant,
through his grace, to walk in all your
waies, & in communion with this
particular Church in speciall, as a mem-
ber of it, according to the rules of the
Gospell.”
Besides the membership admission of Robert and Mary Hawkins, the baptisms of three of their children are to be found:

1636. 10th month: day 25. Eleasar
Haukins the son of Robert Haukins
and of Mary his wife was baptised.
(page 203)

1639. 8th mo. day 25. Zachary
Haukins the son of Robert Haukins
and of Mary his wife was Baptised.
(page 206)

1642. 2nd mo. day 3. Joseph
Haukins the son of Robert Haukins
and Mary his wife was Baptised.
(page 210)

But obtaining membership in the church wasn’t the only epic event for Robert Hawkins. For several months later he took the ‘Oath of a Freeman’ on the 25th of July. By being made a ‘Freeman,’ several opportunities and privileges were open to him and he was now among the elite in social status. Some of those privileges being the right to franchise and to hold office, also to vote.
At the home next to the windmill on the hill, the family lived until 1638 when Robert sold the house to a foreigner. He made the sale without the consent of the town directors and was fined. Also in this year he witnessed the will of Edward Wilson of the 19th of June.3
By 1638 Hawkins had received from the town authorities several grants of land which are recorded as two acres at Southfield with a house upon it (which is probably his residence), 1 3/4 acres of cow commons, two acres of fresh meadow, ten acres of woods, four acres at Linefield, and twenty-five acres at Waterfield. On the 9th of May in 1646, the cow commons was sold to Gardy James, and the town granted Hawkins meadow land in 1644-1645.
Hawkins appears to have bought a lot at New Haven Colony (Connecticut) around 1649 according to Donald Lines Jacobus, but he never lived there. By the records he appears to have died about 1650. [The Great Migration, pp. 273-75.]
A Robert Hawkins is recorded in the town records as having died on the 11th of September in 1704. Which funeral was great, and was buried the following day.
Robert and Mary (???) Hawkins only had three known sons, however it is quite certain that they had several daughters who are yet to be discovered.
CHILDREN

1. Eleazer Hawkins - Migrated south-westward
and settled in the area of Philadelphia. No re
cord has been found of him in this vicinity, or
any descendants.
2. Zachariah Hawkins - Settled at Setauket, Long
Island, New York, around the year 1661.
3. Joseph Hawkins - Married on 8 April 1668, to
Abigail Holbrook. He died in 1682.

SOURCES

1 Ralph Clymer Hawkins, A Hawkins Genealogy 1635 - 1939. Volume 1 & 2. (Richmond Hill, New York: The Hawkins Association. 1939 & 1973) (BYU-HBLL CS 71.H394 1939 VOL. 1 & 2.)

2 Charles E. Banks, Topographical Dictionary of 2885 English Emigrants to New England, 1620-1650. (Balitmore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1981) P. 41. (FHL-USA/CAN 974 W2ba 1981.)

3 Thomas B. Wyman, The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1629-1818. (Somersworth, Massachusetts: New England History Press, 1982 [reprint]) P. 482. (FHL-USA/CAN 974.46/C2 D2w 1982.)

4 Susan Woodruff Abbott, Families of Early Milford, Connecticut. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc., 1979) Pp. 330-331. (FHL-USA/CAN 974.67/M2 D2a.); Donald Line Jacobus, compiler, History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield. Volume I & II. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1976) P. 263. (FHL-USA/CAN 974.69/F1 D2j 1976, vol. 1.)

5 Donald Lines Jacobus, The Hawkins Family of Derby, Connecticut. Pp. 244-245.

Birth	Abt 1610	Plymouth, Devon, England
Emigration	1635
Freeman's Oath	25 May 1636	Charlestown, Massachusetts Bay, British America
Death	11 Sep 1704
LDS Family Tree ID		MV7K-52D
WikiTree		Hawkins-150

Spouse	Mary ? (1611 - )
Child	Eleazar Hawkins ( - )
Child	Zehariah Hawkins ( - )
Child	Joseph Hawkins ( - 1682)

Notes