Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 3247this road and had not the great country-wide panic of 1892-93 swept overthe country, his investment would have left him an ample fortune. It isneedless to repeat here the almost superhuman struggles he made, but thetime came when, in the panic, the road could no longer carry its small floating debt. The failure left him penniless but not hopeless nor friendless.Others had been similarly bereft of fortune but 110 one more than he couldfind consolation in the faith and affection of friends, for they were everywhere. He had lost, but not because of want of business foresight nor wildand unconsidered speculation, but because of events and conditions whichno man could foresee nor prophet foretell. fIn 1895 Mr. Hawkins displayed ojice more a wise business sense, one thatwas entirely creditable and that was the means of providing for the futureof his family very adequately. In Clinch County, Georgia, he found anopportunity to purchase several thousand acres of land for a nominal sum rand wild as the scheme seemed to some of his friends, he bought all the landoffered for sale. Who but he would have foreseen that the timber that coveredit would become more valuable than the' soil, and his forecast was true, asthe great forests of the North became rapidly denuded, the timber on his wildGeorgia acres advanced a hundred fold in value.On July 10, 1860, Mr. Hawkins was united in marriage with Miss Cordelia Matthews, who was a .daughter of William Matthews, a wealthy planterof Marion County, Georgia. They were permitted many years of happinesstogether, maintaining a home where all the virtues and courtesies of life prevailed, in which they reared their children to noble and cultured man andwomanhood. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins were earnest members of the churchand were deeply interested in the Sunday school, Mr. Hawkins teaching theBible class for thirty years. Although his health declined in the closingyears of his life, he still continued an unusual man in bodily vigor and inmental capacity. His death followed a stroke of apoplexy, on May 26, 1905.WILLIAM E. HAWKINS. A business organization may be adequatelyfinanced and its object one that makes every appeal to a thinking public, yet,lacking wise and discriminating care in every official branch, may fail utterlyin the administration of its affairs. The insurance field presents wide opportunity, appealing as it does to man's tenderest emotions and closest facts ofexistence, but it takes no wise statistician to enumerate the insurance companies of the last half century whose life, typically, has been as ephemeralas that of the butterfly. On the other hand, there are insurance organizationsas firmly founded as the eternal rocks, companies that have won and keptpatrons generation after generation, not, necessarily, because of great nameand capital at command, but because of the wisdom exercised in the choice ofofficials, demanding of them sterling integrity, long experimental training,,natural aptness for the line of work and an enthusing belief in it that can swayotheVs. For twenty years William E. Hawkins has been general agent forthe great Aetna Life Insurance Company for the entire State of Georgia, aposition of importance and responsibility that demonstrates his high personaland business standing.William E. Hawkins was born at Americus, Georgia, November 1, 1867,and is a son of Samuel H. and Cordelia Ann (Matthews) Hawkins. The lateSamuel H. Hawkins, of whom a sketch will be found elsewhere in this work,was one of the foremost men of his day. Both he and wife were born in Georgia and she survives, still residing at Amerieus.William E. Hawkins attended the public schools and graduated from theAmericus High School in 1884, subsequently entering Mercer University,where he was graduated in 1887. His first employers were people who hadknown him from boyhood, and he became first a clerk with the AmericusInvestment Company, later secretary of the company and still later treasurer.