Cyril Hawkins, Ohio Politician, Lawyer, & Customs Agent, Archive Including Correspondence, Photos, and Broadsides

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Jun 12, 2015 - Jun 13, 2015

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• Lot Description
  46 items pertaining to Cyril Hawkins, California Prospector, California and Nevada State Official, Superintendent of Documents – 38th Congress, Ohio politician, collector of customs, promoter of railroads, steward of State of Ohio Hospital, writer and poet, featuring:
  
  -- 26 letters from Hawkins to family, primarily wife and daughters, from employment travels to Washington, Chicago, Cleveland, Toronto and other locations;
  -- Certificate appointing Hawkins “Additional Inspector”, Collector of Customs, Port of Suspension Bridge, Niagara Falls, NY;
  -- 4 photographs: CDV and cabinet photograph of Hawkins; 10.25 x 12 in. photograph of General Merchandise Store, Yreka, CA; 10 x 12 in., mounted image of Hawkins in office as Steward, Columbus State Hosp;
  -- Gold Mine Territory certificate of appointment;
  --11pp, typed autobiography;
  --6pp story written by Hawkins, relating life of Benedict Arnold – Hawkins and George Washington were convinced Arnold was brave and brilliant in command but argued his positions too forcefully before his political and military superiors;
  --16pp story written by Hawkins about a killing in Kentucky and the defense of the accused by Henry Clay;
  --7 promotional items, including 9 x 16 in. broadside promoting Hawkins’ speech at McKinley Club, Cadiz, OH ; 3 Miner’s Meeting broadsides 5.75 x 9 in. promoting Black Diamond and Cincinnati Southern R.R.; plus 2 Financial Statements for Columbus State Hospital; 2 Poems / prose written by Cyril Hawkins; and note regarding purchasing duties as Steward, Columbus State Hospital.
  
  Although hailing from the small town of McConnelsville, OH, on the Muskingum River, Cyril Hawkins decided that the lure of gold and adventure emanating from California in 1851 required his immediate participation. Overcoming strong objections from his father and after accumulating $150 for the trip, Cyril, then 19 years old, and four friends from McConnelsville completed the dangerous, taxing and arduous trek. His 11pp autobiography included in this collection states that after crossing the Missouri River at Ft. Leavenworth, KS, I walked every step to Oregon City . . . . our great walk of over two thousand miles.
  
  Gold mining success in California proved elusive and Cyril was hired as a clerk in a grocery store, a solicitor and collecting agent for a newspaper, and then gained employment in the office of the California Secretary of State – General J. W. Denver. In 1863, Hawkins went to the Nevada Territory and engaged in quartz mining. He soon was appointed County Clerk and then elected as a member of lower house of the 1st Nevada State Legislature.
  
  Hawkins returned to Ohio on a steamer via Panama in 1865 and heard of the fall of Richmond as he entered New York harbor. Cyril married his wife Sarah Pinkerton in McConnelsville in 1866.
  
  The Hawkins correspondence offers significant insight into his varied interests. In a letter to his wife he indicates, on St. James Hotel, Washington, D.C., letterhead, the location where Garfield was shot. In April 1876, Cyril is elated at the birth of his daughter Katie. From Toronto, he describes his very positive impressions of the Loretto Abbey Catholic girl’s school in 1880. Hawkins writes to his wife of a séance he visited in Toronto and of his desire to leave New York State. Another letter discusses Cyril’s visit to a Mormon Temple in Kirtland, OH, and he details his thoughts on some of the tenets of Mormonism…They allow polygamy at the church of Salt Lake, and say Old Brigham Young was an infamous “old wretch”…They say that The Book Of Mormon, which was presented to Joseph Smith on tablets by an Angel is compatible with the bible in every particular. In May of 1887, he asks his daughter Fannie to maintain an “unsullied reputation” and to be a “good girl”. In April 1901, Hawkins assists the widow of Lt. Andrew Fouts in her efforts to regain placement on the pension rolls. Lt. Fouts died while attacking Battery Wagner guarding the approach to Charleston, SC, harbor. The Hawkins prose features a description of the beauty of the Muskingum River and Muskingum River Valley.
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