Timothy Hawkins

Biography

Life summary. Timothy Hawkins maintained a household in Watertown, Massachusetts, with Ann or Hannah and their children. His land included a home lot and a separate upland farm. After his death in 1651, his widow administered the estate, and his daughter Mehitable’s inheritance remained identifiable more than twenty years later.

Timothy Hawkins’s resources in Watertown extended beyond the ground around his home. A land inventory assigns him a ten-acre home lot and a separate sixty-four-acre upland farm in the fourth division. The home lot adjoined William Hammond’s land. In this agricultural settlement west of Boston, the family’s holding consisted of separated pieces rather than a single compact farm. ^609-1

Such a holding joined a domestic base to land elsewhere in the town. Working it meant reaching those different parcels and bringing useful produce back to where it could be stored or consumed. Watertown’s economy of agriculture and grazing made those connections practical necessities. Timothy’s wife was known as Ann or Hannah, and their children included Hannah, Timothy and Mehitable; the family reconstruction identifies Ann as William Hammond’s daughter. ^609-2609-3

Timothy died in 1651. His estate was inventoried on 27 September, and on 7 October the court granted administration to his widow. The household’s resources now had to be settled through an estate, with Ann responsible for its administration and the children retaining interests in what their father had left. ^609-2

Those interests continued as the children grew older. Mehitable’s inheritance passed through arrangements involving her stepfather Ellis Barron and her uncle John Hammond. On April 1, 1673, Benjamin Garfield acknowledged the legacy due to his wife Mehitable from Timothy’s estate. Property originating in Timothy’s household had become a resource of his daughter’s married life, more than two decades after his death. ^609-4