Site of Old Hawkins Springs

The Hawkins family claimed land under the Peters Colony, and the Handbook of Texas explains the bargain. The empresarios promised settlers 320 acres for a single man and up to 640 for a family, but could keep as much as half of a grant as payment for surveys and title work. The colony's last extension, signed in 1843, ran to July 1, 1848, the date the plaque gives for the 28-day log-hauling rush to hold the Hawkins claims. The Handbook adds that years of confusion over who owned the colony discouraged immigration.

What the plaque says

Site of Old Hawkins Springs William Alden Hawkins (1800-67) and wife Anna Eddy (1800-95), from La Porte, IN., arrived with family at this site in May 1848, becoming first settlers in area. The family included Marcellus Tolbert (1824-96); Mary Melissa (1824-84), with her husband Harrison F. Hinkley and child Annie Lucretia; Benjamin Franklin (1828-91) and wife Mary; James Emerson (1829-1912); William Alden (1831-89); Elizabeth Ann (1838-1903); David Peter (1838-63); John Wesley (1841-76); and George Washington (1842-1931). As a member of Peters Colony, Wm. A Hawkins and adult children claimed about 2500 acres of land. In a critical period of 28 days prior to July 1, 1848, logs were cut and hauled from Dallas County cedar brakes to build five houses, to sustain the claims. Hawkins Spring, about 100 feet from the Wm. A Hawkins' home supplied water for all households and often for passers-by. Upon the organization of Ellis County in 1850, William A. Hawkins (1800-67) was appointed first Chief Justice (County Judge). Currently situated on Hawkins' family lands are part of Midlothian business district east of Santa Fe Railroad, on the Wm. A Hawkins' survey; Northridge Shopping Center, on Harrison Hinkley survey; First United Methodist Church, on B.F. Hawkins' survey. (1971)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cedar Ridge Preserve — 10 mi
  A 633-acre Audubon Dallas preserve at the western edge of Dallas County, with about nine miles of trails through prairie, woodland and escarpment hills.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 11 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 23 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 23 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.

More markers nearby

• Midlothian Presbyterian Church — 1.1 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Midlothian — 1.1 mi
• Site of Polytechnic Institute — 1.2 mi
• Shiloh Cemetery — 5.4 mi