Michael Hawkins, Loyalist: A Forgotten Hawkins in the Bergen-Hudson War Zone?

Contributed by Jaime Hawkins

Note: I have Alan Hawkins’s compiled work on Michael Hawkins and descendants and can provide exact page images or citations to anyone researching this line.

I am posting this because I think Eleanor / Elaney / Lanny Brower-Brewer, wife of Michael Hawkins, may be the key to understanding Michael’s pre-New Brunswick network.

I am researching Michael Hawkins, also remembered in family material as John Michael Hawkins, a Loyalist who came to New Brunswick in the Spring Fleet of 1783. He is the brick wall in my Hawkins line — but I now believe he should be studied not as an isolated “New Jersey Loyalist,” but as part of a much more interesting and dangerous wartime network along the Hudson River, Bergen County, Weehawken, Bull’s Ferry, Fort Lee, and British-held New York.

For decades, Alan Hawkins collected and preserved the family’s New Brunswick Hawkins history. His work identifies Michael Hawkins as a native of New Jersey, a Loyalist who served in Major Ward’s Company of Refugees, and a man connected to the defense of the Blockhouse before emigrating to New Brunswick in 1783. Alan’s work also identifies Michael’s wife as Eleanor / Elaney Brower, later often written as Brewer, a woman remembered as being of Dutch/New York background.

 But here is where the story gets more interesting.

 A family letter preserved in Alan Hawkins’s work says that “great grandfather” Michael Hawkins was remembered as John Michael Hawkins, that he “came from New York,” and that he came out with the Brewer family. The same memory says he was the only Hawkins who came to New Brunswick, while two brothers — George Hawkins and Martin Hawkins — remained in New York, along with two unmarried sisters.

 That is not a minor family detail. That is a road sign.

 It suggests Michael may have had one identity in official Loyalist records — native of New Jersey — and another in family memory — John Michael Hawkins from New York, connected to the Brewer/Brower family.

Those two versions do not have to contradict each other. In the Revolutionary War, the border between New York and New Jersey was not a clean genealogical wall. The British operating zone around New York City, Bergen County, Weehawken, Bull’s Ferry, Fort Lee, Hackensack, and the Hudson River was a fluid Loyalist world of guides, refugees, woodcutters, pilots, intelligence gatherers, river men, and families forced to choose sides.

And that brings me to Joseph Hawkins of Weehawken.

Joseph Hawkins appears in the Revolutionary War story as a Loyalist guide from Weehawken, on the estate of the wealthy Loyalist William Bayard. The Journal of the American Revolution states that Joseph Hawkins was the son of a tenant of the same name on Bayard’s estate at Weehawken. Joseph guided Lord Cornwallis at the taking of Fort Lee, and later served as a guide and pilot for British army and navy operations.

The Bergen County Historical Society also identifies Joseph Hawkins of Weehawken as one of three Bergen County Loyalists who led British and Hessian troops up the Palisades during the Fort Lee operation. The same article notes that Joseph was a tenant on William Bayard’s estate.

This matters because Weehawken, Bull’s Ferry, and Fort Lee were not distant places. They were part of the same narrow Hudson-Palisades corridor.

Journal of the American Revolution, The Three Guides

Bergen County's Loyalist Population, by Todd W. Braisted

Michael Hawkins served in Major Ward’s Company of Refugees and was connected to the Blockhouse. Joseph Hawkins of Weehawken was a Loyalist guide and pilot operating in the same corridor. These were not two random Hawkins men in two distant counties. They were two Hawkins Loyalists in the same dangerous military geography, doing the kinds of work that depended on local knowledge: roads, river crossings, landing places, wooded routes, safe houses, and who could be trusted.

Then the Brower/Brewer clue tightens the circle even further.

The Bergen County Historical Society notes that Jacob Brower served in Thomas Ward’s corps of woodcutters and helped defend the blockhouse at Bull’s Ferry, now West New York.

So in the same wartime space we have:

Michael Hawkins — Major Ward’s Refugees / Blockhouse

Joseph Hawkins — Weehawken / Bayard estate / guide and pilot

Jacob Brower — Ward’s woodcutters / Bull’s Ferry

Eleanor / Elaney Brower-Brewer — wife of Michael Hawkins

Brewer family tradition — Michael “came out with the Brewers”

That is not proof of kinship. But it is a serious cluster.

The BrouwerGenealogy blog has already discussed the unresolved identity of Eleanor Brewer/ Lanny Brower, wife of Michael Hawkins. The blog notes possible parentage theories involving Brouwer/Brower families from Hackensack, Bergen County, New Jersey, and Poughkeepsie / Dutchess County, New York, while also emphasizing that Michael Hawkins’s own land petition described him as a Loyalist and native of New Jersey.

In my view, Eleanor Brower may be the key to understanding the entire Hawkins problem.

If Michael came “with the Brewers,” and if a Jacob Brower was serving in the same Ward woodcutter/blockhouse environment, then the Hawkins-Brower connection may not have begun in New Brunswick. It may have begun in the New York–New Jersey war zone before the 1783 evacuation.

 There is also a second postwar connection that deserves attention: the Yerxa family.

 John Yerxa / Johannes Jurckse was a Loyalist from Cortlandt Manor, Westchester County, New York. His 1787 memorial says he was driven within the British lines in 1780 and joined the refugees under Colonel DeLancey, continuing in that service until he came to Nova Scotia/New Brunswick.

After the war, the Hawkins and Yerxa families were closely connected in New Brunswick. Yerxa family material states that James Yerxa married Sarah Hawkins on 8 July 1817. Sarah was a daughter of Michael Hawkins and Eleanor Brower/Brewer. Even more importantly, attached to the will of John Yerxa was a property valuation made by Thomas White, Jacob White, and Michael Hawkins Sr.

That means Michael Hawkins was not simply a distant in-law. He was trusted enough to help appraise the estate of John Yerxa, the Cortlandt Manor Loyalist whose family became intertwined with Michael’s.

 So the questions become:

Did Michael Hawkins know the Yerxas only after settlement in New Brunswick?

Or did these families already belong to overlapping Loyalist refugee networks before 1783?

At minimum, Michael Hawkins belongs in the same research conversation as:

Joseph Hawkins of Weehawken

William Bayard’s estate

Major Thomas Ward’s Refugees / Woodcutters

Jacob Brower of the Bull’s Ferry blockhouse world

Eleanor / Elaney Brower-Brewer

John Yerxa of Cortlandt Manor

DeLancey’s Westchester Loyalist refugee network

New Brunswick settlement at Keswick / Douglas

My working theory is this:

Michael Hawkins was probably not merely a generic New Jersey Loyalist. He appears to have been part of a Bergen–Hudson Loyalist network that included Hawkins, Brower/Brewer, Ward’s refugees, Bayard’s Weehawken estate, and postwar New Brunswick families such as Yerxa.

The strongest candidate lead right now is Joseph Hawkins of Weehawken.

Joseph may not be Michael’s father or brother. But given the surname, geography, military role, Loyalist allegiance, and shared Hudson corridor, he is far too close to ignore. In a world of guides, pilots, woodcutters, refugees, blockhouse defenders, and displaced Loyalist families, the idea that Michael Hawkins and Joseph Hawkins were operating in the same corridor and knew nothing of each other seems unlikely.

I am looking for anyone with records, family notes, land documents, church entries, Loyalist claims, or DNA clues involving:

Michael Hawkins / John Michael Hawkins

Joseph Hawkins of Weehawken

Joseph Hawkins Sr., tenant on Bayard’s estate

George Hawkins

Martin Hawkins

Eleanor / Elaney / Lanny Brower / Brewer

Jacob Brower

Major Thomas Ward’s Company of Refugees

Bull’s Ferry / Bergen County blockhouse

Bayard estate, Weehawken

Yerxa / Jurckse family of Cortlandt Manor and New Brunswick

Michael Hawkins has been sitting in the records as a lonely New Brunswick Loyalist for too long. I think he belongs back in the world he came from:

the Hudson corridor, where Hawkins, Brower, Ward, Bayard, DeLancey, Yerxa, New York, New Jersey, and New Brunswick all begin to touch.

If anyone has worked on these families or this Loyalist network, I would be grateful to compare notes. Jaime Hawkins.

For background on the above please see the posts on this website of January 22, 2015, "Who Is Eleanor Brewer, Wife of Michael Hawkins," and the follow-up post of January 30, 2015, "A Bit More On Eleanor Brewer and Michael Hawkins." In addition, see Jamie's post of May 3, 2026 on the Hawkins DNA Project website - Michael Hawkins, Loyalist (c.1750-1845), New Brunswick.

Alan Hawkins compiled work on the Hawkins family (mentioned in the first paragraph) can be obtained directly from Jaime Hawkins. 

Again, Please direct all correspondence to Jaime Hawkins.

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Brewer Families From Southside Virginia

 David Brewer has just published a new book, Brewer Families From Southside Virginia. Dave is one of the co-administrators of the Brewer DNA Project. He is focused on the Brewer families whose origins are found in the southern colonies of British North America. 

In Dave's words:

As we all know, over the past decade, several distinct branches of American families with the surname Brewer have been identified thanks to advances in DNA analysis and improved digital access to colonial and early American records. 

I've just published a new book, Brewer Families From Southside Virginia, in a further effort to sort out the ancestry of a broad group of Virginia pioneers, whose forebears mostly migrated from southwest England to the area south of the James River during the colonial period.  Among them were members of haplogroup I-Y15300, including George Brewer of Brunswick County, Thomas Brewer of Sussex County, William Brewer of Martins Brandon Parish in Prince George County, John Brewer of Hertford County, North Carolina, formerly of Southampton County, Virginia, and Benjamin Brewer of Franklin County, Georgia, formerly of North Carolina.  Their descendants have identified earliest known ancestors who lived in Indiana or southeastern states -- especially the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama -- in the decades before and after the turn of the 19th Century.  Until now, traditional record research alone has not allowed them to trace their ancestries back to the period between the mid-1600's and mid-1700's, the heart of the American colonial era.  

This book also studies the possibly related families of John Brewer (I), the Ancient Planter of Jamestown Colony, the 18th and 19th Century John Brewer line of the Upper Parish of Nansemond County, Virginia, William Brewer of Isle of Wight County, Virginia, Joseph Brewer of Warren Counties, North Carolina, George Brewer of Northampton County, North Carolina.  

Several other family groups whose founders settled in the area south of the James River also receive detailed attention.  Those groups include the family of Sackfield Brewer (died 1699), which is unrelated to the members of haplogroup I-Y15300 on the male side.  However, they had common associates and kinships in Virginia.  The book also studies the family of Robert Brewer, who appears to have been of Romany descent, and who settled in Nansemond County in the late 1600’s.  

As with my recent book about the descendants of George Brewer of Brunswick County, I've published the new book with Kindle Books in both e-book and paperback formats.  I like the e-book format.  It's less expensive, and it's reader-friendly, with an interactive table of contents and hot linked end notes.  This makes it easy to navigate.  The cost of printing makes the margins very thin for the paperback version, which, at more than 500 pages in length, is priced at $20.  The e-book is priced at $5.  You can find both versions at Amazon.

Little is tidy in this family history, but such was the stuff of life in the rapidly expanding New America.  Accordingly, this book is work in progress, meant to be supplemented and corrected by the fruits of further research, including DNA test results.  Even now, the journey proceeds.

I look forward to your comments and questions. 

 

 Dave can be contacted through the Brewer DNA Project's website.

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