Who was James Hawkins, and why is a road named for him?

Trying to answer a question about local history can lead to some interesting details. Take, for example, the origin of James Hawkins Road in Moriches.

A Google search turned up a Facebook entry that stated it wasn’t named for one man but two, the result of a land transaction between James Downs and William Hawkins, with each man supplying half the street name.

But as Wendy Polhemus-Annabell, head librarian of the Suffolk County Historical Society, explained, there’s a lot of incorrect information out there.

Jane E. Wilcox, noted professional genealogist and Hawkins family member, had always meant to ask her grandmother, but had missed the opportunity. She, too, was curious.

Thanks to Wilcox, a trip to the Suffolk County Museum yielded access to the extensive 1939 “Hawkins Family Genealogy,” by Ralph Clymer Hawkins (later revised).

This old and influential family, with roots in England, has had a strong presence on Long Island, including within the Moriches community, and to the road in question.

At the beginning of the 18th century, local roads were laid out and maintained for public use through a combination of government oversight and public activity. In 1703, Montauk Highway was known by several names, including Merrick Road—still in use in Nassau County—South Country Road, Sunrise Highway and Montauk Highway.  Brookhaven Town Commissioners of Highways formally designated Montauk Highway as Main Street in Center Moriches. This was a well-traveled stage road, but many others passed through private land owned by farmers. It fell to town trustees to procure easements for public use. And, during a time when conveyances were powered by horses, these roads were regulated, but for the most part, unpaved.

In 1704, Brookhaven trustees decreed that inhabitants were responsible for “clearing the highways… working four days each year to clear the commons and repair the highways,” some of which were made of logs laid across existing paths.

Around this time, William Hawkins purchased from James Downs farmland south of Montauk Highway in Moriches.  In May 1784, his wife, Jemima (Moore) gave birth to their son, Jonathan.

On Feb. 14, 1818, Jonathan married 18-year-old Eliza Blackman Sowden, who had come from Virginia on horseback with her brother, James.

Jonathan was also a farmer. He and Eliza lived on his father’s land and raised five children: William S. (b. 1820), Eliza McLane (b. 1822), Jane Evelyn, John (b. 1827) and James S. (b. 1829). 

When Jonathan died in 1844, his farm was divided among his three sons, William, John and James S.  John also received possession of the house that predated his grandfather’s arrival in Moriches. John’s third child, “Captain” James Ezra Hawkins—called “Ez” or Ezra (b. 1862)—was captain of the Forge River Life Saving Station and also worked his father’s land. James S. married Almira Chichester (b. 1832), daughter of Mahlon and Eliza (Brush) Chichester. They had one daughter, Emma, who later moved to Roswell, N M.

All three families lived, and farmed, on a dirt road that at its north end, intersected Montauk Highway.

During this time, the area was changing. In Center Moriches, what is now Railroad Avenue was laid out in 1852. In its first years it was called Church Road and Manor Road, indications of significant destinations to be found there. It was widened in 1881 to accommodate increasing traffic.

Union Avenue was surveyed in 1855 and included on town maps that year. Ocean Avenue (1859) connected Main Street to the bay.  Beach fern was a path during this time.

According to Field’s “The Illustrated History of the Moriches Bay Area,” many of the roads we recognize today were added by men who developed them.  But during James Hawkins’s lifetime, the roads were few.

The 1873 Beers Map shows the largest concentration of residents and shops along Main Street/Montauk Highway. Most of the land south of that thoroughfare was farmland, cleared of trees and open enough that one could see all the way to the Great South Bay. The Fields relate a story of a dramatic rescue of ship passengers, thanks to a member of the Chichester family who observed the ship’s distress from his porch on Main Street. Among the farms located down a dirt road east of the Forge River was that of James S. Hawkins.

Almira, his wife, died in 1892, aged 60. James died on Dec. 30, 1909. Photos shared by Jane E. Wilcox of the Hawkins family farm, in Moriches, shows the road was still unpaved in 1915.

Brookhaven Town was unable to find a record of the exact date of its paving. But we may surmise it was named as a signifier of the family who lived at this location well into the 20th century, many of whom are buried in a family cemetery there.

Sources: Field, Van and Mary, “The Illustrated History of the Moriches Bay Area”; 1873 Beers’s “Map of Brookhaven Town”; Hawkins, Ralph Clymer, “The Hawkins Family Genealogy,” 1939 (revised edition); Jane E. Wilcox, “FGBS, Forget-Me-Not Ancestry”