11 Facts About Jonas Hawkins

Jonas Hawkins was an American Patriot and a member of the Culper Spy Ring during the American Revolution.

Jonas Hawkins was the great grandson of Zachriah Hawkins, a founder of Brookhaven, New York.

Jonas Hawkins was born and lived in Stony Brook, New York.

Jonas Hawkins married Ruth Mills, a woman born 27 years after his mother who had the same maiden name.

Jonas Hawkins's task was to get the letters to Brewster who would pick up messages at Setauket and take them across the Sound to Tallmadge at Fairfield, Connecticut.

Jonas Hawkins had access to British officers through the authorship of a society column in a Loyalist newspaper and his tailoring business, as well as his interest in a coffeehouse with Loyalist newspaper owner James Rivington, who was a secret member of the Ring.

Jonas Hawkins hung a black petticoat on her clothesline at Strong Point in Setauket, which was easily visible by Brewster from a boat in the Sound and by Woodhull from his nearby farm after he began to operate from Setauket.

Jonas Hawkins would add a number of handkerchiefs for one of six coves where Brewster would bring his boat and Woodhull would meet him.

In 1786, Jonas Hawkins was a captain, and his fellow Culper Ring courier, Austin Roe was a lieutenant, in Lieutenant Colonel David Pierson's New York militia regiment in Suffolk County, New York.

Major Jonas Hawkins inherited the Hawkins-Mount Homestead in Stony Brook, later known as the William Sidney Mount House, from his father.

Jonas Hawkins died on April 24,1817, at Mills Pond, New York.