HAWCOTT, RICHARD F.

HAWCOTT, SHAW

Posted By: Jean Kramer (email)
Date: 3/25/2004 at 09:29:37

Biography reproduced from page 233 of Volume II of the History of Kossuth County written by Benjamin F. Reed and published in 1913:

Richard F. Hawcott owns and operates a good farm of eighty acres on section fourteen, Burt township. He is a native of England and was born in Oxfordshire, June 11, 1868. He remained in his native country until he was seventeen years of age and in 1885 crossed the Atlantic to America in company with his older brother. They located first in Woodford county, Illinois, where Mr. Hawcott worked at anything he could find to do. He also attended public school for one winter in Illinois. He laid aside his books in order to work as a farm hand. His residence in Kossuth county dates from 1893, in which year he made permanent location here, renting a tract of land in the western part of the county and bringing it to a high state of cultivation. In 1894 Mr. Hawcott’s father-in-law purchased eighty acres and several years after his death Mr. Hawcott purchased the farm. He has since made extensive improvements upon the property, has built new barns and outbuildings and remodeled the house until it is one of the commodious and pleasant dwellings in this section of the country. He has erected granaries, cribs and sheds for the protection of his stock. He carries on a general line of agriculture and has met with a gratifying degree of prosperity.

On March 7, 1893, Mr. Hawcott was united in marriage to Miss Nellie Shaw, who was born, reared and educated in Woodford county, Illinois. Mrs. Hawcott is a daughter of Oliver Perry Shaw, a native of Ohio, who moved to Illinois in his early youth. In 1894 Mr. Shaw purchased eighty acres of land in Kossuth county and spent the last years of his life upon this property. He died here in 1903 and his wife survives him and makes her home with a daughter in Burt. Mr. and Mrs. Hawcott have two children: George Perry, and Lottie A.

Mr. Hawcott is affiliated with the republican party and takes an active interest in politics. In 1908 he was elected assessor of Burt township and is now serving his second term in that capacity, doing efficient and practical work in that office. He is interested in education and is a member of the school board. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church and both are active workers in that organization. Mr. Hawcott has served for four years as superintendent of the Sunday school and his wife is prominent in the affairs of the Ladies’ Aid Society.

Mr. Hawcott deserves great credit for what he has accomplished in an agricultural way by reason of his intelligent activity and his upright and honorable life. He has added to the resources of a great farming country eighty acres of productive land and has gained a prosperity, based upon integrity and unflagging industry.