As a young man, Hawkins studied law in North Carolina under Judge John Williams and at Princeton University.

James Turner to settle a dispute and arrange a settlement with those Tuscarora Indians remaining in Bertie County, North Carolina.

(The great majority of the tribe had migrated to New York state by 1722, where they settled with the Oneida people of the Iroquois Confederacy.)

In 1804, Hawkins was elected to the North Carolina House of Commons from Warren County and served a single term.

During the war, he supported the military efforts of the federal government and assisted in raising a volunteer militia of 7,000 troops.