Southern-Style
A Downhome Perspective on All Things Southern

A Reading List for Adults

Below you will find the books that were a part of Benjamin Hawkins' Estate. 
(Hawkins was Agent to the Creek Indians--Born, August 15, 1754, Granville (now Warren) County, he died June 6, 1816, Crawford County, Georgia).  This was a frontier library.

Hawkins grew up in North Carolina with enough education to later attend the College of New Jersey (now Princeton).  When we arrogantly presume that certain books are beyond the level of ability of our children we are giving them a short shrift on their education. Those who prepared Benjamin Hawkins and his colleagues at the Continental Congress did not realize they were preparing founders for a new nation.  They merely prepared them to be educated men with a broad background to prepare them for whatever they might encounter.  There was no question as to the validity of teaching sound/letter correlation...they were taught a phonetic language phonetically.  They learned the roots of words by learning Latin and thereby extended their vocabulary.  They were taught to think by reading great thoughts in their original languages (Latin and Greek).  As Sir Isaac Newton said, "I stand on the shoulders of giants."   They were taught to write by having them write in the style of those great writers in those original languages.  Notice the "ancient" texts.  (Refer back to Marva Collins to see those she shares in common.)

Benjamin Hawkins numbered among those Princeton (College of New Jersey) students in the Continental Congress.  They would all have benefited from the instruction of John Witherspoon who delivered his initial speech to the assembled students in Latin. 

"Witherspoon was determined to make Princeton not just the best college in the colonies, but the best in the entire English-speaking world. The model he chose for its curriculum was that of his own alma mater, the University of Edinburgh. He introduced the same rigorous humanist education in Greek and Latin, as well as philosophy, history, geography, science, mathematics, and theology."  His introduction of Modern Languages including French enabled Benjamin Hawkins to serve as an interpreter under George Washington.  These men were educated to read Latin and Greek and to write in the style of great writers in their earliest education at a time when most of us have been led to believe that a child's mind is not "ready to learn" such rigorous education. 

Thank God, these men were educationally prepared to construct a nation.  Are we prepared to maintain it?

CONNECTICUT
Oliver Ellsworth 1766 (1777-1784)
Jesse Root 1756 (1778-1783)
Pierpont Edwards 1768 (1787-1788)

DELAWARE
Gunning Bedford, Jr. 1771 (1783-1785)

GEORGIA
*Joseph Habersham (1783-1784)
*John Habersham (1785)

MARYLAND
*Benjamin Rumsey (1776-1778)
John Henry 1769 (1778-1781, 1784-1787)
Nathaniel Ramsay 1767 (1785-1787)

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Samuel Livermore 1752 (1780-1782, 1785)

NEW JERSEY
Richard Stockton 1748 (1776)
Jonathan D. Sergeant 1762 (1776, 1777)
Nathaniel Scudder 1751 (1777-1779, 1778-1781)
Frederick Frelinghuysen 1770 (1778, 1779, 1782, 1783)
William C. Houston 1768 (1779-1781, 1784, 1785)
William Burnet 1749 (1780-1781)
John Beatty 1769 (1783-1785)
Jonathan Dayton 1776 (1787-1789)

NEW YORK
Walter Livingston 1759 (1784, 1785)

NORTH CAROLINA
*Joseph Hewes (1774-1777, 1779)
Benjamin Hawkins 1777 (1781-1784, 1786, 1787)
Alexander Martin 1756 (1786-1787)

PENNSYLVANIA
Benjamin Rush 1760 (1776, 1777)
Joseph Reed 1757 (1777, 1778)
Jonathan B. Smith 1760 (1777-1778)
Joseph Montgomery 1755 (1780-1782)
James R. Reid 1775 (1787-1789)
Henry Wynkoop 1760 (1779-1783)

RHODE ISLAND
David Howell 1766 (1782-1785)
James Manning 1762 (1785, 1786)

SOUTH CAROLINA
Richard Hutson 1765 (1778-1779)
David Ramsay 1765 (1782-1786)

VIRGINIA
James Madison 1771 (1780-1783, 1786-1788)
Henry Lee, Jr. 1773 (1785-1788)