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WETZEL COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA - BIOS: HAWKINS, Harris Clinton
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@trellis.net
September 19, 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 255
Wetzel County
HARRIS CLINTON HAWKINS is one of the energetic busi-
ness men of New Martinsville, a. young, progressive citizen,
who has succeeded in building up a widely extended and
prosperous insurance business.
Mr. Hawkins was born at Belington in Barbour County,
West Virginia, December 14, 1884. His grandfather, Wil-
liam Hawkins, spent the greater part of his life at Buek-
hannon, where he was associated with the Giffin Lumber
Company. He was in the Quartermaster's Department of
the Union Army during the Civil war, and died at Buck-
hannon. His wife was Caroline Farnsworth, who died at
Sutton but is buried at Buckhannon. Thomas Henry
Hawkins, father of the New Martinsville business man,
was born at Buckhannon September 22, 1857, and was
reared and educated there. Shortly after his marriage
he was ordained a minister of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, and for a number of years continued active in the
ministry, both in West Virginia and in Missouri. He also
engaged in business as a merchant in Belington, but in
1887 removed to Sutton, where he continued merchandising,
and in 1898 established his home at New Martinsville,
where he organized the West Virginia Monumental Works
and later resumed merchandising. He died at New Martins-
ville in October, 1912. He served two terms on the City
Council, was a republican, and after retiring from the
ministry kept up a deep and sincere interest in the working
affairs of his church and was especially prominent in the
first church of the Methodist Episcopal denomination at
New Martinsville. He was also a Knight Templar Mason.
Thomas H. Hawkins married Mary King Harris, who was
born in Henry County, Virginia, October 17, 1863, and now
lives with her only surviving child in New Martinsville.
Her older child, Bertha, died at the age of twenty-one
years.
Harris Clinton Hawkins acquired his early education in
the public schools of Sutton and New Martinsville, and
spent two years in West Virginia Wesleyan College at Buck-
hannon. Leaving college in 1903, he was for six or seven
years employed by the Brast Hotel Company of New
Martinsville, but since 1910 has been giving his time and
talents to the life insurance business, and is now state
manager for the Masonic Mutual Life Association of Wash-
ington. The main offices are in the Federal Realty Build-
ing on Main Street, New Martinsville, and also branch
offices are maintained at Wheeling, Huntington, Charleston,
Bluefield, Clarksburg, Fairmont and Bramwell, West Vir-
ginia.
Mr. Hawkins is a past master of Wetzel Lodge No.
39, F. and A. M., and district deputy grand master of
the Grand Lodge. He is affiliated with West Virginia Con-
sistory No. 1 of the Scottish Rite at Wheeling and Osiris
Temple of the Mystic Shrine in that city. When the
Kiwanis Club of New Martinsville was organized he was
elected its first president, in 1921. He is also vice presi-
dent and a director of the Ohio Valley Builders Supply
Company of New Martinsville. Mr. Hawkins is a repub-
lican and a member of the Official Board of the First
Methodist Episcopal Church. During the war he assisted
in all the drives for funds, and took charge of the Salvation
Army drive for Wetzel County.
February 27, 1913, at New Martinsville, he married Miss
Maude Amelia Funk, daughter of Thomas J. and Helen
(Fisher) Funk, residents of New Martinsville. Her father
is now retired after a long service with the Koontz Lumber
Company. Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins have four children: Mary
Helen, born February 7, 1914, Eloise Frances, born Decem-
ber 15, 1915, Harris Funk, born December 5, 1917, and
Betty Ann, born February 3, 1920.
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