Dr. A. L. Hawkins,
Georgetown, Texas

My Dear Boy -

I suppose you will be surprised to see this letter, as you infer in yours that you are doubtful about hearing from me. I would say first, before I give you the genealogy of our family, that the homefolks are all moving on after the old sort - some of us making a good living, some of us not doing so well. Outside of the backly improved condition of the town, and not withstanding the great stringency in money matter, all in all, Americus and the people of the town, at least, those you would recognize, (which would be about one in five), are about as you left them. We have had quite a deal of sickness the past year, 14 M.D.'s here, all doing well. Lawyers, dentists and merchants all getting rich - "in a horn".

"Shore enough" as the boys say, I worked harder than I ever did. Dr. Brooks and myself dissolved partnership April 1st, four months ago, and my practice foots up $4,000 or $1,000 per month. I guess, though, that I am doing twice as much as any two of the balance in and I am doing more than I intended to do in the future. My health is good. I weigh two hundred pounds, can see as good as I even could. Ask your wife if she knows a girl or a very young widow that would like to pick up a find looking middle aged widower with a small Georgia fortune. I send photographs especially for your sweet wife, not to the subject.

My grandfather, my mother's father, Sion Boon, was of English descent, and raised on the James River in Virginia. He was a near relation of Daniel Boon, whom you know something of the history of. He married my father's mother Gilly Hawkins, a widow at the time of her marriage. My father being her child by a former husband, Thomas Hawkins, of Halifax County, North Carolina. Sion Boon was a widower when he married Gilly Hawkins, having children, my mother being one of them, her name was Elizabeth Boon. Gilly Hawkins son, Willis A., my father, married Elizabeth Boon, my mother and in due process of time, say about the year 1818, I was born. 1820 another brother, Dr. J. T. Hawkins who died 1850, another brother Wm. H., and then your father in 1825, 5th January, in the old Sion Boon Mansion, in Madison, Morgan County, Georgia. I was born, and the other two brothers, in the same county, I was in the house your father was born in about a year ago. Your Grandma Hawkins was a daughter of Hardy Crawford, and an own cousin of Wm. H. Crawford who was once Vice-President, United States, America. North Carolina has raised several distinguished members of the Hawkins family, a governor and two or three congressmen, and the Alston family, for whom your father was names, was on of the wealthiest, intelligent and influential families in the state, some of the descendants, and those of the Hawkins family, occupy high places in the politics of North Carolina today. The name has furnished a Governor of South Carolina and for Florida. Your own dear father was on the Supreme Court Bench in the Empire state of Georgia, a few years before his death.

I have known personally every member of the Boon and Hawkins family, all of who were men and women of fair intelligence and characters beyond reproach. Mrs. Latimer, my aunt, who was a half sister of my father and mother, is the only one living of my aunts and uncles. She lives in LaGrange, Georgia, and was born in 1810. I expect really I am the only man or woman that could have given you this sketch. I know I am, for Aunt Katherine, Mrs. Latimer, mind has been aberated for a number of years.

Our ancestors were long lived. When Sion Boon married Gilly Hawkins, he had five children, and she had four, my mother was one of his, and my father was one of hers. They afterwards had five children, and out of fourteen, every one of them lived to be over seventy years of age, except a daughter who died at fifteen years old.

He, Sion Boon, died at 69 years, my father at 87, Gilly Hawkins 87 years, my mother died here at 76 years, their children Sion Boon Hawkins, myself, John T., William H, Willis A., Gilly E., Martha Mathilda, and a little boy, Augustus Palmer, named for a Methodist Minister, as was you, all died in early life, except your father and myself. I am the only one left, and I thank God that I have lived to give you this little biographical sketch, for there is no other human being that could have done so. I have written it hurriedly, after a hard day's work and perhaps it contains some inaccuracy, in the main, however, it is correct.

Your grandpa Finn was an Irishman, your grandma Finn was raised in Augusta, Georgia, of good family and wealthy, so I am informed.

Eugene's mother was a cousin of your mother, her name was Terinda Smith, daughter of Griffin Smith, a good planter in Lee County, when your father married her. She died, and is buried in this city, she had two children, Eugene and a little girl, who died before she did.

I am your dear old uncle, all send love,

Signed - S. B. Hawkins.