Rectorships
In 1831, Hawks took his first church appointment, as rector of St. Stephen's Church on the corner of Broome and Chrystie streets in New York City. There his sermons attracted a large congregation. On 4 October, a mere nine months since he had moved to St. Stephens', the congregation of nearby St. Thomas Church called upon him to take over as their rector. The position offered $1,500 in annual salary with an additional $500 for other expenses. Hawks turned the offer down. St. Thomas did not give up, and Hawks eventually accepted their offer on 17 December, becoming the third rector for St. Thomas Church.
Hawks's new church experienced a boom in membership after his arrival. Much of the congregation of St. Stephen's followed him to the new post, and many more congregants began attending as Hawks's fame for oratory spread. Eventually, the church had to be expanded with a gallery to contain the overflow. Hawks's Bible classes had an average attendance of 100 students. Philip Hone, ex-mayor of New York City, spoke for many when he wrote, "I went yesterday morning to St. Thomas' where I heard from Dr. Hawks a glorious sermon." Praise came from other clergymen, as well. Bishop Thomas March Clark of Rhode Island wrote:
To hear him preach was like listening to the harmonies of a grand organ with its various stops and solemn sub-bass and tremulous pathetic reeds. The rector of one of the Washington churches, where Daniel Webster was an attendant, told me that after Dr. Hawks had preached for him on a Sunday morning, Mr. Webster said that it was the greatest sermon he had ever heard.
In 1833, Hawks's salary rose to $3000 with an additional $500 allowed for other expenditures; this made him the highest paid clergyman in the United States. He also received an assistant rector for St. Thomas. He was elected bishop of the Southwestern region in 1835, but he declined the post, citing a lack of support for his family in what was then the American frontier.
Hawks continued to participate in other church affairs, as well. In 1832, he was appointed assistant secretary to the House of Deputies of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. In 1833, he took a part-time post as Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Pulpit Eloquence at the General Theological Seminary. The following year, Hawks was named secretary of the New York diocesan convention in New York City.
Church history was another of Hawks's interests, and his writings are an important source on the early American church. In 1835, the General Convention named Hawks "Conservator of all books, pamphlets and manuscripts of this church."
Hawks's interest in history led him to London in 1835. There he copied important historical documents, which he used as material for a two-volume work on the church history of Maryland and Virginia. He also wrote some nine titles under the pen name "Uncle Philip" for the publishers Harper & Brothers, which appeared in their Harper's Boy's and Girl's Library imprint series.
While in London Hawks met the American traveller John Lloyd Stephens, later to be renowned for his exploratory work and investigations of a number of mostly-unknown ancient ruins of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Central America. Stephens had just completed a nine-month tour of Egypt and the Levant, and several letters describing his travels had been published in an American periodical. His acquaintance with Hawks encouraged Stephens to write a book on his Middle Eastern adventures, which was a popular success.
Sixteen years later upon Stephens' early death (aged 47) from a liver illness, Hawks wrote his obituary which appeared in the first issue of Putnam's Monthly Magazine. Hawks noted how "n repeated conversations with the present writer, the attention of Mr. Stephens was called to the ruins of Guatemala and Yucatan"; the two books Stephens had later written on his explorations of that region are regarded as foundational works in the then-young science of American archaeology.
In 1851, Hawks accepted the post of Historiographer of the Protestant Episcopal Church, which he held until 1866.
Finally, Hawks wrote and published material on general church affairs. In 1837, he partnered with Reverend Caleb S. Henry to put out a magazine called the New York Review. The publication, a response to the Unitarian North American Review, lasted for a few years. Afterward, Hawks helped start The Church Record, a journal of Christian education, in 1843. This was followed in 1853 by The Church Journal.
Read more about this topic: Francis L. Hawks