During the mid-1840s, at the height of the potato famine, Lawrence Hawkins, along with his wife, Cecelia Joyce, and eleven of their twelve children (Bridget, John, Thomas, Patrick, Winnifred, Michael, Lawrence, Martin, Honora, Peter and Stephen), were evicted from their home in Kileenadeema, just south of Loughrea, County Galway, Ireland. The Hawkins' eldest daughter, Mary, and her husband, Michael Shields, and their son lived nearby. Lawrence and Cecelia had a total of 16 children, 12 of which lived to adulthood and emigrated to America.

According to Lawrence Hawkins, a wonderful Irish gentleman who currently resides on a farm in Kileenadeema, there were seven Hawkins brothers, six of which emigrated to America. Lawrence himself is descended from the one brother who remained in Ireland. My 3rd great grandfather, Lawrence Hawkins, was one of the six brothers to leave Ireland during the famine. Lawrence Hawkins says that our ancestors, Lawrence and Cecelia, were evicted from their home because their rent was late. However, he said the rent had not yet come due. Supposedly, the landlord wanted them off the land and conspired with the local sheriff and parish priest to have them evicted. Since the rent wasn't yet due, the sheriff had to have been "in on it" in order to draw up an eviction notice. Then, the story goes, he gave the papers to the parish priest who was the one who served the family with the notice of eviction. The family then moved into a nearby shed until they gathered enough money to pay for their passage to America.

In the writings of S.N. Hawkins, the youngest son of Lawrence and Cecelia and my 3rd great uncle, the first members of the family to emigrate would be the eldest son, John, and the second eldest daughter, Bridget. We know they settled in Meriden, County, CT. This is probably where other members of the Hawkins family settled. Then, on 3 May 1849, Lawrence, Cecelia, and three of their sons, Thomas, Patrick, and Michael, would sail from Galway to the Port of New York aboard the M. Mellon. They would settle with John and Bridget in Connecticut. Later, on 26 November 1849, Winnifred Hawkins would bring Peter and Stephen. They would sail from Liverpool to New York aboard the Wm. H. Harbeck. Nearly a year later, Larry (Lawrence) and Martin would sail on the John Henry from Liverpool on 1 November 1850. Listed next to Larry and Martin is Bridget Joyce, age 45, and her daughter, Bridget, age 15. Bridget Joyce could be related to Cecelia (sister-in-law?) and brought her nephews over with her.

We know from S.N. Hawkins' writings that the family stayed in Meriden, CT, for a few years where some of their children would marry, then, in 1852, moved to Fitchburg, Dane County, WI (just south of Madison). Here the family lived in the Irish Lane Settlement for a couple of years. Fitchburg is where the Hawkins family met the McLaughlins and the Kinneys. Members of these families would later marry into the Hawkins family. James K. McLaughlin, along with his cousin, James McLaughlin Sr., would move with the Hawkins family to the St. Croix Valley. A branch of the Kinney family would follow later in the 1860s.

Early in 1855, Cecelia died. Later that year, Mary Hawkins Shields, and her family, would join up with her father and siblings. The family was expanding and in need of more land. They headed NW to St. Croix County, arriving in the St. Croix Valley on 4 June 1855. The story, as told by S.N. Hawkins, goes as follows:

On a bright summer morning, June 4th 1855, an emigrant train consisting of eight covered wagons, drawn by sixteen yoke of oxen, followed by a drove of cows and young cattle, might be seen emerging from the dense forest which skirted the eastern boundary line of the St. Croix Valley (known at that time as "The Big Woods"), and wending their way over the desolate and trackless prairie they halted and pitched their tents close by a bubbling spring, only a short distance from the East Fork of the Kinnickinnick River, and at a place afterwards named Pleasant Valley, but which, for many years, was commonly known as the "Hawkins Settlement."

The little colony consisted of Lawrence Hawkins and his eight sons and four daughters, who with their wives and husbands (some of them were married) and several old acquaintances who accompanied them, constituted, in all, thirty persons.

The Hawkins settlement, also known as "The Thicket," was initially in sections 30, 31, and 32, of Pleasant Valley Township. Land records show James McLaughlin obtaining a land patent for 240 acres in sections 30 and 31 on 15 June 1855.

James McLaughlin and grandson Bunny

Winifred, my 2nd great-grandmother, since she was the oldest unmarried daughter, became the "mistress" of the Hawkins household. She married James K. McLaughlin and had three daughters. James McLaughlin had come to the US in 1848, and settled in New York before moving to Fitchburg, then on to St. Croix County with the Hawkins family. He was from Crookstown, Narraghmore Parish, County Kildare. The 1860 Federal Agricultural Schedule shows James McLaughlin owning 156 acres of land, with only 14 of those acres being improved upon. The total cash value of his farm was $540, with the farming implements and equipment worth a total of $30. He had two milk cows, two oxen, four other types of cattle, and three pigs worth a total of $164. During the year he had produced 121 bushels of wheat, 20 bushels of Indian corn, 58 bushels of oats, 12 bushels of Irish potatoes, 100 pounds of butter, and 10 tons of hay. He had slaughtered animals worth $30. According to S.N. Hawkins,

My sister Winnifred married James McLaughlin Jr., one of the members of that group who came with us from Dane County, Wisconsin. They settled on a farm adjoining my father's farm in Pleasant Valley, where they always remained until the time of their death. She died many years ago, and as there were no cemeteries at that time out in the country, her remains were buried in the Old Cemetery at Hudson, Wisconsin. I do not remember as to her age, but she was, comparatively speaking, a young woman, perhaps 32 to 36 years old. Their children were: Catherine, who married Christ Fable, a German-American farmer of Hudson Township, died some years ago leaving a family who are strangers to me. Mary, who married Henry Kinney, a farmer of Hudson Township. He was a son of Edmund Kinney - a member of the Kinney family with whom our people were well acquainted in Dane County, Wisconsin. He died several years ago. Winnie - who married M. O'Connell of Hammond Townhip. They, all in turn, have families of their own, all of whom reside in St. Croix County, Wisconsin. Mr. McLaughlin took unto himself a second wife, and one of his sons by that second wife - Robert - married Margaret Ring, a daughter of Honora Hawkins Ring.

According to family history, Winnie died when her youngest daughter, Margaret, was born in 1860. Winnie is buried in an unmarked grave in the Willow River Cemetery. James McLaughlin remarried, but he didn't, as S.N. Hawkins states, remain on his farm in Pleasant Valley until his death. According to his obituary in The Hammond News (16 Jan 1908):

(Typos are from original obituary notice.)
James McLaughlin died at the home of his son Robert (shown at right) in St. Paul last Saturday, Jan. 11, 1908, of general disability. He was born in Ireland 84 years ago and came to this country in 1848 when he located in New York where he remained for five years, in 1853 he came west and located in Madison where he remained several years then coming to Pleasant Valley where he bought a farm and on which he lived until 1895.
He was married in 1853 to Winneford Hawkins who died five years later, and in 1859 he married Bridget Tagget who died in 1885. After the death of his second wife he sold his farm and returned to Ireland for an extended visit, after returning from Ireland he has been living with his daughter Mrs. Fable of Tray, until two years ago, since which time he has been living with his daughter Mrs. M. O'Connel of the town of Hammond and his son Robert in St. Paul at whose home he died. He leaves two daughters, Mrs. M. O'Connell of Hammond and Mrs. Kinney of Hudson, and one son, Robert of St. Paul to mourn his loss.
The remains were brought from St. Paul last Monday and services were held at the Catholic church in the village. Interment was made in the cemetery in the town of Hammond. Father Duffy officiating.

Obviously, some of the dates and information in the obituary must be incorrect, but we do know James McLaughlin didn't live on his farm until his death. The 1900 U.S. Federal Census for Troy Township, St. Croix County, Wisconsin, shows James McLaughlin, age 77, living with Chris and Catherine McLaughlin Fable (shown at left) and their family. It seems that when Catherine McLaughlin Fable died in 1905, James McLaughlin went to live with his daughter, Maggie O'Connell, then with his son, Robert. James' death certificate shows he died at his son, Robert's, home at 389 Snelling Avenue, St. Paul, MN, and that he had been living with his son for two years before his death from arterial sclerosis.

Most of the Hawkins family is buried in the Old Hawkins (Hammond) Cemetery, with Winnie being buried in the Willow River Cemetery in Hudson, Patrick buried in St. Bridget's in River Falls, Honora in St. Patrick's in Erin Prairie, and S.N. buried with the majority of his family (killed in the 1899 cyclone) in the Immaculate Conception Cemetery in New Richmond.

S.N. Hawkins wrote about the Hawkins family and his first-hand experiences many years ago. His writings contain most of what is currently known about the Hawkins family. Copies of his writings (A Pioneer Colony and Arrival of the Emigrants) can be found at the Area Resource Center in the Chalmer Davey Library at the UW-River Falls campus, the Friday Library in New Richmond, on microfilm with the Church of the Latter Day Saint (Mormons), and with many of his descendents. One can only imagine the stories contained in his early writings, lost when his law office was destroyed during the 1899 cyclone.