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Rebecca Littleton Hawkins
Rebecca Hawkins (nee Butts) was born sometime between 1797 and 1800 in Putnam County, Georgia and died some time after 1860 in San Joaquin Valley, California. In 1838, while living with her family in Jackson county, Missouri, Rebecca paid her neighbor Henry Garster $150 to murder her husband Williamson Hawkins. Rebecca had previously made two unsuccessful attempts of her own, with the assistance of her slaves Mary and Ned, to kill Williamson by poisoning his food. The murder was precipitated by 20 years of abuse that Williamson, a heavy whiskey drinker, had inflicted on Rebecca. During these years, Rebecca had not only endured Williamson’s beatings, but given birth to eight of his children and traveled with him to what was at the time the outer reaches of the American western frontier. Garster was tried for murder, found guilty and hung for shooting Williamson at home while he slept in front of his fireplace. Rebecca was also tried, found guilty of poisoning Williamson, and sentenced to five years in prison. But the governor pardoned Rebecca after receiving a petition requesting clemency for Rebecca signed by 351 prominent citizens of Jackson County, Missouri. Rebecca did not serve time in the Missouri prison and made a final move to California on the overland trail in 1850.

Background
If not for the notorious crimes Rebecca Hawkins committed in 1838, she would be an obscure and typical woman who lived on the western frontier in Missouri in the 1830’s. At that time, pioneer women married at the average age 19 and Rebecca married sometime between the age of 17 and 20 years old. Rebecca bore eight children which was consistent with the average of seven to eight. Rebecca was part of a great westward migration of Americans, who moved with their extended family groups multiple times during their lifetimes, each time deeper into the violent western frontier  from the southern states, influenced by a unique cultural heritage originating from northern borderlands in Great Britain referred to by a noted historian as “southern backcountry”. White men pursued economic opportunities in droves on the frontier, especially the acquisition of property, including land that had most recently been occupied by Native Americans and of slaves, creating a society of small slaveholders. Women were discouraged from obtaining an education, were less literate than men and did not have property rights after marriage under laws rooted in the English common law tradition of Coverture. Alcohol consumption which consisted primarily of whiskey in the 1830’s was more than double the alcohol consumption in America in the twenty first century and the prevalence of domestic abuse this alcohol consumption was associated with in the nineteenth century is well documented by historians. Attitudes about the relationship between alcohol use and intimate partner violence (IPV) is still being studied by social scientists today. In the social climate of the nineteenth century temperance groups arose, led by women, in towns across the country who protested--sometimes violently--against alcohol consumption using moral, religious justification. However, socially acceptable and legal options to counter spousal abuse remained limited or non-existent, unlike today when psychological defense is sometimes successfully argued. The desperate actions Rebecca chose exposed her to dire consequences. Only a few women were incarcerated in the Missouri prison at the time, but those who were experienced brutal conditions, such as isolation in dank, freezing cells and violent rape by inmates and guards. . Ultimately social acceptability for the abuse that drove Rebecca at times to seek shelter with her extended family--appearing brutally beaten--had limits in her community even if they were not legal limits. After three plus years of trials, changes of venue, appeals and finally a conviction on the charge of poisoning Williamson in 1841 when Rebecca was on the verge of entering the Missouri prison to serve her five year sentence, the governor of Missouri pardoned her.

Early Life
Rebecca was born between 1797 and 1800 in Putnam County, Georgia, in the middle of the state on the rough rural southern frontier of America. Rebecca’s father Henry Butts was born in South Carolina and nothing is known about Rebecca’s mother who may have died soon after Rebecca was born. Henry then married Susan Upchurch, who was also born in South Carolina. Rebecca developed and maintained lifelong close connections with her half siblings who were much younger than her, all born on or after 1810 in Putnam County:

born

Salathiel         1910

Henry             1911

Jackson         1912

Eleanor           1915

Sometime before 1802 Henry Butts settled on a section of land in Baldwin County, Georgia on land recently occupied by the Creek Nation, that was later divided out into Putnam County. Henry subsequently acquired ownership of this land by land lottery in 1802 when the United States extinguished Native American land titles—through purchase and warfare--and ceded it to the state of Georgia. At the time, large numbers of European settlers flocked to Georgia to acquire 202 ½ acre sections of land for about eight hundred dollars for subsistence farming. As a child, Rebecca saw an intense contest over the land she lived on between the adults in her life and the nearby Native Americans who by 1840 would be removed west of Missouri. Her father’s farm would thrive and after the War of 1812 when the price of cotton rose compared to the price of slaves, Henry became a cotton producer and acquired seven slaves.

Woman of the Expanding Western Frontier
Rebecca was married to Williamson Hawkins and living on a new American frontier in Stewart County, West Tennessee by the time she was twenty years old according to the January 30, 1820 census. She had moved from the edge of one frontier to another. She would move with Williamson to yet another western frontier in Jackson County, Missouri in 1830 and again with two of her sons and their families to what would be her final frontier in San Joaquin County, California in 1850. Rebecca and Williamson both started off life in a part of the country that noted historian David Hackett Fischer described as “southern backcountry” that part of Appalachia that ran from southern Pennsylvania southward through Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. The roots of the Europeans who settled in these areas trace to the border countries of northern England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, often referred to as the Scotch-Irish. Fischer describes the unique cultural characteristics or “folkways” of these inhabitants who placed a high value on freedom and had a notable propensity for internal migration, regardless of dangerous circumstances, constantly in search of a better life. Daniel Boone is an iconic example of this culture, a man who left Kentucky in 1785 because its population of only 12,000 was too crowded for him. For Williamson that would mean growing his wealth by acquiring more and more property, including slaves, and expanding his business.

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase opened vast land areas west of the Mississippi for southern backcountry people to settle in once the United States government had driven out the Native American occupants. In 1806 a Compact between the United States, North Carolina, and Tennessee authorized Tennessee to issue land grants on behalf of cash strapped North Carolina for its Revolutionary War service obligations. When in1818 the Chickasaw Nation was ceded to Western Tennessee and portions of western Kentucky with a treaty known as the “Jackson Purchase” for $300,000, many of these land grants were acquired by speculators in large tracts. The land was then sold to settlers which brought a great influx of settlers into Stewart County. And in 1821 the part of Stewart County where Rebecca and Williamson had settled was subdivided into Henry County. By 1830 Henry County was the largest in West Tennessee with a population of 12,249.

Williamson purchased several tracts of land from 1821 until 1828, which totaled 97 acres, 60 of which were located on the West Sandy River. This land was adjacent to the West Sandy River, (the largest tributary of the Sandy River) which emptied into the Tennessee River. The location was good for commercial transportation and Williamson built a grist mill and acquired slaves to process crops, such as corn, grown by local subsistence farmers. By the time Williamson decided to head west to Missouri in 1830, the Hawkins’ had acquired a large household that required several wagons with draft animals to move Williamson, Rebecca (who was pregnant), six slaves, five children under age ten, trip provisions, and household and farm implements.

Another key characteristic of immigrants from “southern backcountry” is the importance of extended family groups or kin. While living in Henry County, Rebecca had close connections with the Butts and Stayton families. She and her immediate family migrated to Missouri and later to California either with members of these extended family groups or sequential to one another, following close behind in time. While living in Henry County, Rebecca had close connections with the Butts and Stayton families. She and her immediate family migrated to Missouri and later to California either with members of these extended family groups or sequential to one another, following close behind in time. This was true of Rebecca’s kin in 1830 when her siblings and their spouses also migrated to Jackson County, Missouri including: Salathiel and Hester L Stayton Butts, Moses Stayton, Henry and Jackson Butts and Eleanor Butts Baker. Later in Jackson County, Missouri their children and those of Moses Stayton would intermarry and so too would the following generation migrate together to California, although later they would scatter throughout the state.

Although steamboat travel had become common by 1830, it would not have been practical for economic or logistical reasons for the Hawkins family who likely the four to six week, 500-mile journey to Missouri overland instead. The trip began on the “Iron Banks Road”, which named for its iron ore deposits and was a main route that covered sixty miles ending in Columbus, Kentucky. At Columbus, the Hawkins party crossed the Mississippi river and continued travelling on the “King’s Hiway”, the first public road located in Missouri by the Legislature of the Territory of Louisiana in 1808. This road was called many names: La Rue Royale and Le Chemin de Roi by the French, and  El Camino Real (The Royal Road”) by the Spanish, but U. S. pioneers called it the “Illinois Road” because it led to what was then known as “Illinois Country”. This 175-mile road was originally a Shawnee trail and was not much wider than a path that led through several river towns to St. Louis. From St. Louis, the Hawkins family took a ferry 19 miles to St. Charles to begin the next 155 mile leg of their journey to Franklin, Missouri on the “Boone’s Lick Road” which passed near a large saline spring where Daniel Boone’s sons produced and sold salt. The last leg of the Hawkins journey from Franklin to Jackson County was on the old Santa Fe Trail, which had been a commercial trade route to Santa Fe, New Mexico since 1821.

When the Hawkins arrived in Jackson County, Missouri, it had most recently been a part of a larger region occupied by approximately 5000 Osage Native Americans. This land in turn was part of the Louisiana Purchase, the vast territory west of the Mississippi River. In 1808 the U. S. government had negotiated a treaty with the Osage to establish Fort Osage, a fort and fur trading factory on a site on high bluffs overlooking the Missouri River. The location had been identified as a good spot for a fort by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark after their return from their “Voyage of Discovery” to the Pacific Ocean. Under the terms of the treaty, the Osage relinquished nearly all the Missouri Territory they had occupied (and moved to present-day southern Kansas) except for the area that would become Jackson County, a 22-mile-wide area, referred to as the “Twenty-Four Mile Strip”. After Missouri was admitted as the 24th state of the United States in 1821, pressure from settlers who wanted to expand into the new state intensified. In1825 the Osage relinquished their claim to the “Twenty-Four Mile Strip” by treaty and in 1826 the Missouri General Assembly organized Jackson County.

In 1830 Williamson settled his family on land he did not own near the Little Blue River. The Hawkins were initially squatters on public seminary land, the most valuable and fertile land available, worth $5 an acre at the time. And then in 1831 Williamson purchased the land for $2 an acre, the minimum price allowed by the legislature who protected school or seminary lands. Intent on purchasing land at the lowest cost, settlers such as the Hawkins devalued property they occupied prior to purchase by damaging the land and wasting its resources by burning timber while clearing the land They further threatened violence to anyone who paid more than the minimum government price and to jail a local circuit judge. Consequently, the State Seminary Fund suffered long term financial injury.

Marriage and Childbearing
There is no known record of Rebecca and Williamson’s marriage, but together they had eight children. Women who migrated westward like Rebecca married at an average age of nineteen and their daughters married at an average age of twenty. These women bore children for at least twenty years on average. The number of children Rebecca had was typical for fertility rates of seven to eight children for each woman in America at the beginning of the nineteenth century with the rate being higher in the South than the North. It was also consistent on average with the fertility rates of her sister, sisters-in-law, and her own two daughters. Notably, each of Rebecca’s brothers lost their first wives to early death, presumably by childbirth. By 1850, the national fertility rate had dropped to 5.4 children per woman and to 4.5 children per woman by the end of the century. In 1830 there were 2.5 children under the age of ten for every woman in back-country regions, higher than in rural or urban areas in the Northeast.

Several of the Hawkins children were involved in their parent’s lives, but others became disconnected over time.

William Henry Hawkins was born February 28, 1820 in Henry County, Tennessee and died in 1883 in Cottonwood, Arizona. He married Harriet M. Stayton, also born in Henry County, Tennessee, by a Justice of the Peace of Jackson County, Missouri. William Henry was eighteen years old when his father, feeling ill, made William Henry co-executor of his will and manager of his mills and land. William Henry left home by twenty years old and was the first in his family to go to California in 1846 when it was still Mexican territory as did other well-known neighbors from Jackson County, Johann A. Sutter and the Donner Party. And as did many of his neighbors, William Henry and Harriet remarkably migrated back and forth several times between San Joaquin County, California and Jackson County, Missouri before the transcontinental railroad. William Henry and Harriet had eleven children.

James J. Hawkins was born in Henry County, Tennessee in 1822 and died in Jackson County on June 10, 1848. He remained single.

Eli W. Hawkins was born in Henry County, Tennessee in 1823 and died sometime after 1880 in Los Angeles County, California. He may have lived in Texas during the 1860’s. His wife is not known but he lived with three of his children in Los Angeles. Eli went with his brother Pendleton Biddle and wife, Elizabeth Ann Butts to California with their mother Rebecca in 1850.

Pendleton Biddle Hawkins was born in Henry County, Tennessee in 1824 and died sometime after 1883 in Hueneme, Ventura County, California. He married Elizabeth Ann Butts on March 14, 1850 by a Justice of the Jackson County Court. Elizabeth Ann was Pendleton’s first cousin and the daughter of Rebecca’s brother Salathiel. Elizabeth Ann died on the journey to California somewhere between Independence and a point 240 miles west of Fort Kearney. Pendleton married Adeline Dickey in 1855. Pendleton was a miner for three years after arriving in California, then became a rancher in San Joaquin six years and afterward in Oregon until going to Idaho when gold was discovered to work in ranching and freighting. In 1869 he bought a 200-acre farm in Hueneme. Pendleton and Adeline had ten children.

Martha Jane Hawkins Stayton was born in Henry County, Tennessee on August 22, 1828 and where she died is not known but she last lived in Porterville, Tulare County, California in 1870. She married John F. Stayton, also born in Henry, Tennessee, on April 1, 1849 by a minister of the Gospel of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Jackson County. They moved to California in 1851 with their oldest child, one-year old William. John acquired an interest in 1857 in 700 acres of a Mexican land grant called the “Chevalles Grant” located in San Joaquin County, California, and an interest in 1858 in another 390-acre tract in San Joaquin County. In 1860 John acquired a public hotel with furnishings and a stable in Woodbridge, California, and sold it in 1861 the same year he also acquired many lots in the Village of Mokelumne, San Joaquin County which he turned right around and sold to Eli W. Hawkins in 1862. In 1863 John mortgaged all his real estate in San Joaquin County and then sold it shortly afterward to a non-family member. Rebecca appeared on the 1860 census with John and Mary’s family, so she lived with them in San Joaquin County for some part of this time. Martha and John had ten children.

Elizabeth (Betsy) Ann Hawkins Butts was born in Jackson County, Missouri on November 27, 1830, the year that Rebecca migrated pregnant to Missouri from Tennessee, and died in Kern County, California on June 4, 1889. Betsy married Alexander Houston Butts, who was born in Henry County, Tennessee on December 20, 1849 by a Justice of Jackson County. Alexander was her first cousin and the son of Rebecca’s brother Salathiel Butts. Betsy and Alexander lived next to Betsy’s sister Martha Jane and John Stayton’s farm in Cass County, Missouri before moving to Napa County, California. Betsy and Alexander had nine children, one of whom was name Rebecca Elizabeth, the only granddaughter named after Rebecca.

Jesse A. Hawkins was born in Jackson County, Missouri in 1834 and little is known about him other than that he lived with his uncle Henry Butts in Jackson County in 1850 and was in San Joaquin County, California in 1856 and 1857.

Doctor Salathiel Hawkins was born in Jackson County in 1836 and little is known about his life other than that he lived with his uncle Henry Butts in Jackson County in 1850 and still lived in Jackson County in 1857.

Property Rights
Williamson acquired a significant amount of property during his lifetime and when he died was dressed in finery that suited his wealth and status. It took twelve years, until 1850, to fully probate his will not only because Williamson had been murdered but because Williamson’s estate was deemed intestate because Williamson had identified his oldest son William Henry as co-executor of his will who was still a minor at the time of Williamson’s death. Williamson had inherited two slaves and then acquired eight more by the time he was murdered in 1838. He owned a successful grist mill on the Little Blue River in Jackson County, Missouri, and much of the land surrounding the mill on either side of the river. He had just received approval from the county to build a second grist mill, that his son Henry was authorized by Williamson’s will to complete as “Superintendent of the Mill” after his father’s death. By the time of his death in 1838 Williamson’s estate was worth about $500,000 and included 10 slaves valued at $128,754 in 2020 equivalent dollars (all subsequent dollars are in 2020 equivalents).

However, as with most women during Rebecca’s lifetime, she did not have any property rights, other than her dower interests and was therefore financially dependent on Williamson. Between 1800 and 1860 in America, when a woman married, she became “one” with her husband under the law of coverture which was modelled after the patriarchal English common law. After marriage, a woman’s husband acquired all rights to her property. She had no control even over property she brought to the marriage or money she earned during the marriage. He was considered the head of the household and she was his dependent. Her limited legal rights, combined with Rebecca’s illiteracy, would have left her with few survival options without Williamson’s financial support.

Rebecca was entitled to her dower interest of one third of Williamson’s lands upon his death, but Rebecca’s case was complicated. On October 31, 1838, four days after the murder, Rebecca assigned all her rights to Williamson’s estate to her attorneys as security for her defense. In addition, Rebecca, and her brother Salathiel Butts each put up $69,975 for the murder charge and $27,990 for the poisoning charge as bail for Rebecca as she awaited her murder trial. Salathiel also became guardian for the minor children necessitating a separate legal probate for each child. Rebecca was convicted for poisoning and was sentenced to five years in the State penitentiary on July 20, 1841. Afterward, on August 16, 1841 Rebecca conveyed her dower interest to her son Henry for $18,194. Henry, who was twenty-one in 1841, in turn sold the interest to Rebecca’s brother Salathiel Butts for $4,199 on September 8, 1842.

Rebecca and the children lived on income from the estate, including slave rental income under vacillating terms while the estate was being settled and ultimately Rebecca received little from Williamson’s estate. In 1850 the estate was finally settled when Pendleton Hawkins, Betsy Ann Hawkins Butts, and Martha Ann Hawkins Staton (Stayton) sued the other Hawkins children and Salathiel Butts, who was still guardian for the three youngest children to divide the estate. James had passed two years earlier and was not included in the suit. The court left the dower interest that had been sold to Salathiel by William Henry intact, order the rest of the property sold and the proceeds distributed one thirty-second each to Rebecca and William Henry and the remainder in six equal parts to each of the other six surviving children of Williamson and Rebecca.

Literacy
Rebecca was illiterate, so she wrote no letters and signed her name with a mark. This was not unusual for women at the time, especially in the South. Men considered education unnecessary for women and believed that even if a woman could handle the physical and mental stress, it would make her unattractive and unmarriageable. While men had considerably higher literacy rates than women in the South, literacy rates were significantly lower than in the more populous northeastern part of the country with larger towns and cities. A detailed statistical analysis of literacy prior to 1870 showed illiteracy levels in New England were 25% compared to 40%-50% in the South at the turn of the nineteenth century with greater discrimination against women becoming literate. Illiteracy was progressively higher the further west and south one moved across the country and was difficult to measure because there were no standardized tests. Rebecca’s family was a microcosm of the culture at the time. Most of the women in Rebecca’s family of her generation were illiterate. Williamson, all but one of Rebecca’s brothers and, all of Rebecca’s sons were literate.

Slaves
Williamson was a businessman, a successful Miller, who sought social status in his Southern culture which motivated him to acquire not just as much property as possible, but slaves too. The Hawkins’ move to Jackson County, Missouri served his purposes well because land was cheap and slavery, which was being questioned as moral or beneficial to society in some states, especially in the North, was legalized in Missouri in 1821. In 1821 Congress admitted Missouri as the 24th state as part of the Missouri Compromise which allowed slavery in Missouri but prohibited it in the state of Maine and north of the 36°30′ parallel except for Missouri. Jackson County, where the Hawkins’ settled, has been referred to as “Little Dixie”, a euphemism for slave society, a place where owners derived culturally accepted status from slave ownership and profited from slave labor. In the early years that the Hawkins’ lived in Jackson County, not many small farmers could afford slaves, but in this climate over time slavery flourished in Jackson County. By 1840 the number of slaves increased 613% at a time when the white population increased by only 170% or three and a half times the population growth of whites.

Williamson had inherited two slaves, Ned and Mary, a married couple who probably helped raise him and ultimately served three generations of Hawkins family members. Mary probably served as midwife at Rebecca’s births and was a confident that Rebecca included in her murder conspiracy plans for Williamson. In 1830 when the Hawkins family left Tennessee for Jackson County, Missouri Williamson had acquired four more slaves. But, by the time Williamson was murdered, he owned10 slaves valued at $128,754 in 2020 equivalent dollars who generated average annual rental income for Williamson’s estate of $8,127. Ned and Mary and the rest of the slaves from Williamson’s household were not sold when Williamson’s estate was finalized in 1850 and the rest of his property was sold. They remained with Hawkins family members and it is unknown what happened to the slaves when the family migrated to California, a free state, in 1850.

Alcohol use in the nineteenth century
Williamson was a heavy whiskey drinker as was common at the time especially in the South. He still owed vendors for several gallons of whiskey when he died. Historical records show that alcohol consumption in the 1830’s averaged 5.2 gallons per capita annually versus less than 2.5 gallons in the twenty first century making consumption more than double during Rebecca’s lifetime. Furthermore, the alcohol consumed in the 1830’s, particularly in Missouri was more likely to be hard liquor, such as whiskey with a higher alcohol content that beer or wine which is consumed more often in the twenty first century.

During Rebecca’s lifetime, recourse for women who were the victims of the effects of their husband’s excessive alcohol consumption such as the physical abuse Rebecca experienced was limited to social sanctions espoused through religious and moral movements such as the Second Great Awakening and the Temperance Movement. Since men had wide berth to exercise their corporal punishment over their wives, social influences such as the temperance movement were important. One of the primary ill effects decried by the temperance movement was the abuse and neglect of women, children and families in general caused by excessive alcohol consumption.

Women in the temperance movement protested the excessive use of alcohol throughout the nineteenth century and the movement was especially effective in reducing alcohol consumption with moral suasion during the period from 1830 to 1845. In expanding towns and cities, many businessmen also supported the temperance movement because it was problematic for them when workers showed up intoxicated and unfit to work. In the industrial age when people were migrating from farms in the rural areas to work in industrial jobs in factories, sobriety mattered more than it had on the farm. A farmer may be able to take a break after drinking whiskey and sleep it off, whereas a factory worker would not be as productive and may endanger himself or others if intoxicated while working. Temperance movements were active in all regions of the country and excessive drinking was frowned on more often in society in general which, in addition to the excessive cruelty of Williamson’s beatings, contributed to the sympathy Rebecca received from her community, including the leading citizens.

Abuse
Life on the frontier in the 1820’s and 1830’s was challenging and dangerous, not just outside where there was hard work, wild animals, hostile Native Americans and battles among various groups, such as the one with the Mormons that took place the year the Hawkins arrived in Jackson County, but inside the home where it was a long distance from the nearest neighbor. Given these harsh and isolated conditions and the illiteracy among women, it is difficult to know the actual extent of abuse wives experienced. However, much has been written about the abuses of the patriarchal control that was used to maintain order in a society without social welfare systems or police. Patriarchy extended husbands wide latitude in exercising corporal punishment and forcing sex on wives as illustrated by the old common law doctrine of the rule of thumb that a husband should beat his wife with a whip no bigger than his thumb.

Rebecca had few, if any, socially acceptable and legal options to counter the spousal abuse she endured. Starting in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century women who killed their spouses began to plea self-defense in their trials, sometimes successfully. Their pleas were justified by newly defined psychological syndromes brought on by the years of abuse such “battered wife syndrome” or “post-traumatic stress syndrome”. But, even today IPV and its connections with alcohol consumption is not fully understood and is still being studied by Social Scientists.

Crime and Punishment
Williamson Hawkins was murdered on the lightly snowy evening of October 27, 1838 while he dozed in his chair next to his fireplace. Henry Garster, an employee of Williamson’s, put his squirrel rifle through a chink in Williamson’s log cabin home, that Rebecca Williamson had removed for Garster, and shot him through the heart. Rebecca, Williamson’s wife had contracted with Henry Garster for $150 to shoot Williamson. It was not the first attempt on Williamson’s life. Rebecca had also poisoned Williamson earlier, probably in early September, with ratsbane, a rat poison made from arsenic. The Sheriff tracked Garster through the snow to his house, which was on the property adjacent to the Hawkins home, and arrested him within four days of the crime. Rebecca was arrested at Williamson’s burial on October 31, 1838 for murder and poisoning. Williamson’s slaves, Ned and Mary, a married couple, were arrested the same day for poisoning Williamson on October 1, 1838.

Henry and Ned were imprisoned in the Jackson County jail, but it is not clear where Rebecca and Mary were kept in custody since there were no facilities for women at the jail. Rebecca hired attorneys Russell Hicks and Richard R. Rees for herself, Ned, and Mary on October 31, 1838 for $350 which was secured by her dower interest in Williamson’s estate. Henry also hired Hicks and Rees for $150 secured by two eighty-acre tracts of land he owned. Later, Rebecca hired General Alexander W. Doniphan to be outside counsel for her murder trial in Lafayette County and Charles French as outside counselor in her poisoning case in Van Buren County and the Supreme Court. A Grand Jury of 24 white men was assembled in Jackson County and on December 4, 1838 they voted a “true bill” for an Indictment for murder against Henry and Rebecca, pursuant to Sections 1 and 3, Article 2, Crimes and Punishment of the Missouri Statutes and another against Rebecca and Mary for poisoning.

Rebecca’s brother Salathiel provided a great deal of financial and emotional support to Rebecca throughout the three plus years of her trials. The same day as the indictments came down on December 4, 1838 and after serving 35 days in custody, Rebecca was released on bail after doctors attested to her ill-health and Rebecca’s brother Salathiel and Rebecca each posted bail of  $69,975 for the murder charge and $27,990 for the poisoning charge. And the charges against Ned were dropped and he was released. On the following day, December 5, 1838 Mary pleaded guilty and was sentenced to receive thirty lashes, a penalty determined under Missouri law based on her status as a slave. Henry did not petition for bail and was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to the charges in the indictment on Friday, December 7, 1838. While awaiting his trial in jail, set for April 1839 Garster and cell mate Alpha P. Buckley escaped from the dungeon (lower level) of the Jackson County jail, but only Garster was recaptured.

Garster’s escape attempt probably biased the inhabitants of Jackson County against him but no change of venue was requested for Garster and he stood trial in Jackson County on Wednesday, April 10, 1839 and was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death by hanging. The following witnesses testified at Garster’s trial: Joseph Hansbrough, Abraham Hendrick, William Nowlin, John Nowlin, John Smith, Lewis Jones, Lawrence Flournoy, Newton J. Hockinsmith and James R. Shepherd. Lawrence Flournoy was the doctor who removed the bullet from Williamson’s chest that was later linked to Garster’s gun. Flournoy and John Smith were the Judges of the County Court.

According to Missouri law, the hanging was done on May 10, 1839 which was not less than four weeks or more than eight weeks from the date of Garster’s sentencing. He was taken by wagon to the Temple Lot, riding on top of his own coffin. His property was sold to cover his court costs which did not leave sufficient funds for his attorney’s fees to be paid. The quality of Garster’s representation appears to have been related to the amount of funds he had available for his own defense since he and Rebecca shared the same attorneys and yet Rebecca received better representation. For instance, her attorneys requested and received a change of venue on her behalf but made no such attempt for Garster.

Rebecca was charged as an accessory before the fact in the first count of murder and as a principal on the second charge of poisoning. Therefore, Rebecca could not be charged for murder unless Garster was first proven guilty of murder which is why her murder trial had been set for April 12, 1839, two days after Garster’s trial. The timing proved to be to Rebecca’s advantage as Garster was no longer alive to testify against her. On the day of Garster’s sentencing, Rebecca’s attorneys filed for a change of venue which the courted granted and the trial was moved to Lafayette County. The change of venue also delayed the trial which did not start until August 8, 1839. James R. Shepherd and Daniel King were the only material witnesses against Rebecca. And the following men were called as witnesses to the Lafayette County Courthouse at Lexington: John Nowlin, John Smith, Lawrence Flournoy, William Nowlin, John Davis, Daniel King, Lewis Jones, James R. Shepherd and Newton J. Hockinsmith. Later Dr. Amos B. Palmer was called to appear as a witness on Monday, August 5, 1839 to testify to Rebecca’s health status. Rebecca also subpoenaed Thomas Stayton, Sr., David A. Stayton, Clark Rowland, Travis G. Moore, William Crenshaw, William Portis, Polly Cole, Nancy Cole, and Moses G. Wilson to appear as witnesses to her condition and good character on Tuesday, August 6, 1839. The same day the trial began, on August 8, 1839, the jury found Rebecca not guilty of murder as an accessory before the fact in the first degree.

The last of the Hawkins’ trials, Rebecca’s trial for poisoning Williamson has the most historical record still available of the three trials. The date for this trial had been extended while Rebecca waited for her murder trial to take place and it was continued again on October 15, 1839 until April 13, 1840. On April 13, 1840, Rebecca’s attorneys requested another change of venue to Van Buren County which was granted by the Court where the case was continued on July 20, 1840, November 16, 1840 and again on March 15, 1841 and finally tried in Harrisonville, Van Buren County on July 19, 1841.

Detailed records remain that document the testimony of Daniel King, brother of Sheriff John King, Lewis ones and James R. Shepherd who took Mary’s statement the day Rebecca and Mary were arrested. It describes Mary pointing the finger directly at Rebecca as the organizer of the poisoning conspiracy. Mary tells how Rebecca sent Ned to get the poison from Henry Garster and how she then told Mary to put the poison in Williamson’s coffee cup. After Mary put the poison in Williamson’s coffee cup, Rebecca added the coffee. This is when Rebecca acknowledges that what Mary says is true but adds that her “heart failed her” and she threw out the poisoned coffee before giving it to Williamson. But after that evening’s beating Rebecca says she had a change of heart and followed through with the crime the following day with Williamson’s morning coffee. Although the ratsbane Williamson drank in his coffee brought him home early from his horse-hunting feeling sick, sick enough to write his will, he did not die from the arsenic in the ratsbane.

The doctors at the trial testified that they had treated Williamson for inflammation of the stomach and bowels, although neither diagnosed his symptoms definitively as arsenic poisoning, they suggested it could have been the cause of Williamson’s death, which was probably good enough for the purposes of the trial. Doctors at the time did not have specific training or licensure requirements, so the doctors would have had to rely on whatever medical books or treatises they could find or may have been available to them where they lived and worked. Providing their best guesses under the circumstances may have been satisfactory for the jury.

The only witnesses who testified to Rebecca’s good character at this trial were Travis G. Moore and John Stayton. And Rebecca’s defense was based weakly on just two arguments: first that Mary’s conversation was not admissible evidence under Missouri law because it was a slave’s testimony against a white person and second that Rebecca was trapped into a confession so it should be also inadmissible. Neither of these arguments held up with the jury and the next morning, Tuesday, July 20, 1841the Court found Rebecca guilty and sentenced her to five years in the State Penitentiary and the motion by her attorneys to set aside the verdict for a new trial was overruled. However, the judgement was suspended while they appealed to the Supreme Court.

On Friday September 10, 1841 Missouri Supreme Court Justices George Thompkins, William B. Napton, and William Scott (the same Justice who would later write the (in)famous majority opinion for the Dred Scott case eleven years later in1852, heard Rebecca’s case Rebecca Hawkins vs. State of Missouri. On September 11, 1841, the Court ruled to uphold the lower court dismissing the eight reasons she raised as grounds for reversal stating only one was worthy of consideration; That was whether the Court erred in permitting the confession of the Appellant to go to the jury. The Court determined, citing case law, that even this contention was not supportable. With the Court’s ruling Rebecca was the first woman sentenced to the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. Conditions suffered by the few women who would be imprisoned in the Missouri State Penitentiary were exceptionally cruel. The worst example was an eventually pardoned female abolitionist who, while imprisoned at the Missouri State Penitentiary was chained in her cell and repeatedly raped by prisoners and guards while calling for help. This fate was not acceptable to Rebecca’s community who came to her aid with a petition drive that resulted in four pardon petitions and four personal letters being addressed to Governor Thomas Reynolds.

The reasons for the petitions as written by Rebecca’s attorneys was fourfold: Rebecca had first of all, received the lightest sentence allowable under the law given that her confession of the crime was given under peculiar circumstances, she had been so brutally treated by her husband Williamson that her life was cursed rather than blessed, she had eight young children to care for, and she had an exemplary character that she demonstrated before the entire community despite the three years of indignity she suffered in her trials. The outpouring of support for Rebecca was remarkable. The four petitions were signed by 351 men out of a total population in Jackson County at the time of about 6, 245 people many of whom would have been women, children and illiterates who could not have signed one of the petitions. Among them were influential farmers, landowners, and officials, including Doctor Lawrence Flournoy and John Smith, Judges of the County Court, and John King, Sheriff. The four heartfelt letters the governor received were from the judge who presided in all three Hawkins trials, John F. Ryland (a separate note was also enclosed in Ryland’s letter from the Clerk of the Circuit Court, Samuel C. Owen), Circuit Attorney from Lexington, Henderson Young, the principal witness for the State in her poisoning trial, Lewis Jones and William Patterson, who later became a member of the Missouri Legislature from Jackson County. Governor Reynolds granted Rebecca’s pardon effective as of August 2, 1841 allowing her to escape a cruel fate of imprisonment in the Missouri State Penitentiary.

Final Frontier--California
In 1850 Rebecca, at fifty years old, with sons Pendleton B., Eli W., and nephew Levi Butts, struck out on a 1,960-mile, four-month overland journey, to the last frontier of her lifetime, Sacramento California. Rebecca was familiar with migrating via long journeys and nearby Independence, Missouri was a popular jumping off point for westward migration on the Santa Fe, California, and Oregon Trails. Several of her family members, including her oldest son William Henry had made the trip more than once already as did many of the Hawkins and Butts neighbors.

The Hawkins started their journey from the family home which was near the current day intersection of U. S. 40 and Interstate 470 and traveled from there on the Independence Route of the Oregon-California Trail, through Kansas, which was Native American land at the time, to Fort Kearney, Nebraska where 5,000 to 6,000 other wagons also passed with them in May 1850.The peak overland travel years were 1849, 1859 and 1852 on the California and Oregon trails. At a point 240 miles west of Fort Kearney Pendleton’s wife, Elizabeth Ann died and was buried. It was in this section of the trail that a Cholera epidemic raged in those three years and killed thousands of travelers; and diaries reported that mass graves were dug to bury six to nine people at a time.

As they traveled past Fort Laramie, Wyoming, cholera was less of a threat as the weather became drier and cooler and the air clearer. At Casper, Wyoming the trail became a single track and was about 50 miles from Independence Rock and another hundred miles to South Pass, the continental divide. Beyond the continental divide was the head of the Humboldt River in California, an area where the local Paiute Natives were known to steal livestock from emigrants. But the biggest test of the trip was next, crossing the barren, dry, rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains before the final two-hundred and forty mile trek into Sacramento City.

In April 1849 there were only 150 people in Sacramento City, and by October 1850 when the Hawkins’ arrived, Sacramento, although mainly still just a camp consisting of tents and wagons, already had a population between 6,000 to 8,000 people with gambling houses, bars, hotels, eating places and even a theatre. Sacramento was strategically located at the convergence of the American and Sacramento river s where emigrants from the East Coast would arrive on their way to the gold mines. At a time when the cost of a small house was $2000 and monthly rent averaged $500, not to mention the exorbitant food prices, the Hawkins family had enough resources to setup a “boarding house”, one of only twenty-four at the time. The Hawkins lived in Sacramento until they moved to San Joaquin County in 1856 or 1857. Rebecca then lived with her daughter, Martha Ann and son-in-law, John Stayton and their family at a time when John began making numerous real estate transactions, until at least 1860. This is the last known record of Rebecca's residence and she is presumed to have died in California probably in the San Joaquin Valley.