The Hawkins Farm

In 1836 the Hawkins family was among the first to settle Convis Township. Asahel Hawkins, who had emigrated from Vermont, began with eighty acres of government land and steadily increased his holdings until they reached 240 acres. After his death in 1881, his son Asahel Myron Hawkins, the first white baby born in Convis Township, took over the farmstead. He raised a variety of crops and livestock and held several civic offices, including township supervisor, clerk, highway commissioner and justice of the peace. His son Schubail Frank Hawkins ran the farm until 1933. In 1942 the farm was converted to turkey production, and in 1968 the fourth, fifth, and sixth generations of Asahel Hawkins’s descendants opened a turkey restaurant on the farm.