OLIVER ERNEST HAWKINS-Nearly a quarter of a century has elapsed since Oliver Ernest Hawkins entered into association with the Kingston Coal Company, of Kingston, as assistant secretary, a post he filled with such satisfaction that his promotion was a natural sequence and, as its full secretary, he has still further given evidence of his complete qualification in the exacting office. Endowed with a genial personality and possessed of a sincere regard for the benefits to he derived by all in honest cooperation of effort, he has conducted the affairs of his office in such manner as to win the high regard and esteem of all with whom he has been in any way associated, an estimable citizen and a man of unblemished reputation in every field wherein his activities have functioned. In civic matters he has served his fellow-citizens as ably, while in his fraternal, religious and social work he has made a host of admiring and staunch friends.

He was born in Siegfried's Bridge, Northampton, Pennsylvania, March 31, 1873, a son of Edmund Millard Hawkins, a locomotive engineer, born in 1847, deceased in 1880, and Mary (Oliver) Hawkins, born in Boonton, New Jersey, in 1850, deceased in 1895. His education was acquired in the public schools at Catasauqua, where he was graduated from high school and also studied at night for special instruction. His first work was with the Union Foundry & Machine Company at Catasauqua, Lehigh County, where he remained for two years, then going to the Lehigh Valley Coal Company and remaining with that organization for another eighteen months at Hazleton and at Centralia, Columbia County, for two years, having been made chief clerk. In 1904 he accepted an invitation to become assistant secretary of the Kingston Coal Company and in 1905 became its secretary, a position he still retains. In politics he is a Republican, in religion he is a Methodist, being a trustee of the Kingston Methodist Episcopal Church, while for four years he served as a member of the Kingston School Board. He belongs to the Franklin Club of Kingston and is fraternally affiliated with Kingston Lodge, No. 395, Free and Accepted Masons, as well as with Caldwell Consistory, of Bloomsburg, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite Masons; Irem Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

Oliver Ernest Hawkins married, in 1900, Ira Thomas, of Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, daughter of William R.. and Martha Thomas. Their children are: 1. Richard Arthur, born December 11, 1902, a graduate of Lehigh University in the class of 1924 and a mechanical engineer. 2. Helen Mary, born January 7, 1905, a graduate of Sargent College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 3. Oliver Ernest, Jr., born July 8, 1907.