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Francis Lister Hawks
Dr. Francis Lister Hawks (1798-1866) had a diverse career as a lawyer, clergyman, educator, historian, and author. He was born in New Bern, North Carolina, to Francis Hawks and Julia Airway Stephens and was a grandson of John Hawks, the supervisory architect of Tryon Palace, the governor’s home in New Bern. The family was fairly wealthy and held thirteen slaves in 1820. Francis L. Hawks graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1815 at the top of his class and then studied law under Judge William Gaston and John Stanley and was admitted to the bar in 1820 and practiced law. He also became a respected orator and represented New Bern in the House of Commons in 1821. In 1826, he began training for the Episcopalian ministry and studied under Reverend William Mercer Green and was ordained as a deacon by Bishop Ravenscroft in New Bern the following year and soon after was ordained as a priest. By 1833, he was the highest paid clergyman in the entire United States and was famed for his oratory skills as the rector of
St. Thomas Church in New York City where he remained for twelve years. In 1832, he received his Doctor of Theology from Columbia College. During this period, he also taught at the seminaries, and he was the historiographer of the Episcopal Church of the United States and conservator of documents and traveled internationally for his studies.
In 1838, he was accused of sexual affairs by blackface actor, singer, and newspaper editor George Washington Dixon who launched attacks against many members of the upper class. Dixon was charged with libel and eventually plead guilty and later claimed Hawks had paid him to do so. Regardless of the credibility of the claims, the accusations and his failed leadership of a boy school led him to resign from St. Thomas Church in 1843, and he subsequently hopped between various churches in the South and served as the first president of the University of Louisiana (Tulane University today) in 1847. He returned to New York as the minister at Calvary Church in 1849 and remained there until 1862. During the Civil War, he worked at Christ Church in Baltimore and then
220 returned once again to New York in 1865.