Governor Alvin Hawkins

Alvin Hawkins stayed steadfastly loyal to the Union, and it shaped his career. After Union forces occupied West Tennessee, he traveled the region for Military Governor Andrew Johnson, reporting on men and matters to help plan new civil governments. On the state supreme court during Reconstruction he showed independence from the Radical regime of Governor William Brownlow. In 1880 he became the first Republican governor since Reconstruction, helped by a Democratic split over the state debt. He could not settle that fight, but his honest government eased the stigma Brownlow's rule had left on his party.

What the plaque says

Governor Alvin Hawkins 1/8 Mi. W. is the grave of Alvin Hawkins, Governor of Tennessee, 1881-83. Born in 1821, he was admitted to the bar at 21 years of age. Elected Representative to the State Legislature, 1853. U. S. attorney for West Tennessee during the Civil War. Member of the Tennessee Supreme Court, 1863-68. He died in 1905.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Patsy Cline Crash Site Memorial — 5.6 mi
  An engraved rock off Mt. Carmel Road near Camden marking where a small plane carrying Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins went down on March 5, 1963.
• Johnsonville State Historic Park — 16 mi
  A Tennessee River park on the site of a Union supply depot shelled in November 1864 and of the town later drowned by Kentucky Lake, with earthworks, a railroad bed and an African American cemetery.
• Natchez Trace State Park — 22 mi
  A New Deal state park built on worn-out West Tennessee farmland, where the Fairfield Gullies show what erosion did and kudzu was planted to stop it.
• Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge — 22 mi
  A 51,000-acre refuge along Kentucky Lake and the Tennessee River, created in 1945 for migratory birds, with a visitor center in Springville and a drowned Archaic site nearby.

More markers nearby

• Gunboats & Cavalry November 4, 1864 — 8.9 mi
• Isaac R. Hawkins — 9.6 mi
• Hale Junior High School — 10 mi
• Skirmish at Mansfield — 11 mi