Hood River-Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Hawkes, Edward May 1859 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com October 23, 2009, 12:58 pm

Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 73-74
Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     The famous Hood River valley is indebted for its development and 
prosperity to the earnest and indefatigable efforts of those who took up the 
land, cleared off the timber and brush and planted the soil either to grain or 
to the fruit orchards for which it is now so widely known. Among this number 
must be included Edward Hawkes, who has lived here for thirty-five years, 
during which period he has achieved success and is now numbered among the 
substantial farmers of the valley. Mr. Hawkes was born in Indiana, in May, 
1859, and is a son of John and Mary Edna Hawkes, the former born in Indiana 
and the latter in Maryland. The father enlisted for service during the Civil 
war and was killed at the battle of Gettysburg, and the mother died in 
Indianapolis, Indiana.

     Edward Hawkes attended the public schools and studied three years under 
Prof. H. B. Brown at the Valparaiso Normal School, at Valparaiso, Indiana. 
Going then to Danville, Illinois, he learned the carpenter trade, after which 
he went west and in 1884 obtained employment at bridge construction work on 
the Denver & Rio Grande railroad. He followed carpenter work in the Rocky 
mountains until 1889, when he located in Portland, Oregon. There he worked at 
his trade until 1892, when he came to the Hood River valley and took up a 
homestead of one hundred and sixty acres, five miles south of Hood River. The 
land was heavily covered with timber and brush and, after building a small 
house, he entered upon the task of clearing the land. Between times he worked 
at his trade for the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, being engaged in 
the building of bridges, and later went to California where he was employed at 
the same kind of work on the Southern Pacific railroad, working from 
Sacramento north to the Oregon line. He remained in that state three years and 
then, returning to his ranch, settled down to its improvement and cultivation. 
He continued to clear more land and planted twenty acres to apples. He created 
a fine ranch, but later sold the homestead and bought ten acres of timber land 
adjoining it, which he cleared and planted to fruit, and is still living on 
this place. He has a goodly number of apple and peach trees and a nice young 
cherry orchard, one tree of which, in 1927, yielded six hundred pounds of 
cherries, or a gross income of seventy-two dollars. His land lies high up on 
the east side of the valley and is practically free from frost when the trees 
are in bloom in the spring. In 1906 he built a fine, modern home, situated on 
an eminence and commanding a magnificent view of the Hood River valley and 
across the Columbia river into Washington.

     In May, 1897, Mr. Hawkes was united in marriage to Miss Anna Sears, who 
is a native of Missouri and a daughter of Nelson and Josephine Sears, both now 
deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Sears came to the Hood River valley in 1891 and located 
on a ranch, which Mr. Sears bought and which was heavily covered with timber. 
This he cleared off and then planted a good orchard, and there he and his wife 
spent their remaining years. To Mr. and Mrs. Hawkes have been born two 
children: Mary Edna, who graduated from the Hood River high school, and from 
Whitman College, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, is the wife of N. W. 
Battey, of Wenatchie, Washington. In 1917 Mr. Battey enlisted in the Twelfth 
Regiment Oregon Infantry, with which he served in France and with the army of 
occupation, and received several medals for bravery in action. He has a 
daughter, Barbara Jean, three years of age. Helen Josephine, who was graduated 
from the Hood River high school, is also a graduate of the Oregon Agricultural 
College, at Corvallis, where she majored in art, music and home economics.

     Mr. Hawkes is greatly interested in the welfare of his locality and has 
held a number of public offices, having served five years as a member of the 
board of county commissioners and for several years as a member of the Pine 
Grove school board. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America at Hood 
River and he and his wife belong to the Pomona Grange, of which he was one of 
the first directors. He has been a consistent advocate of good schools and 
improved roads and has been influential in promoting both. He is a man of 
sound judgment, progressive ideas and enterprising methods, and commands the 
respect and confidence of all who know him and who appreciate his integrity of 
character and his worthy life.

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