The next meeting of the Tazewell County Genealogical and Historical Society will be on Tuesday, March 10th at 7 PM. The program will be Celebrating America 250! — Zeally Moss Society, Children of the American Revolution presented by Hayden Fay, Gabe Padesky, Sam Padesky, and Claire Domaszewicz.

All history is local until it is woven together with other stories to become part of the National fabric, and there is no aspect of National history that doesn’t touch Tazewell County. Pekin even had its own Temperance leader.

Mary E. Martin Hawley

Mary was born April 1, 1848, at Waynesville, Dewitt County, Illinois, to James P Martin (1804-1880) and Eleanor Skean Martin (1811-1883). James was a noted Temperance Advocate, the result of being driven from a rum-cursed home after his broken-hearted mother went to her grave, leaving three children to fend for themselves.

When he came west in 1847, he brought a wife and six sons, and the following year, Mary came. The family moved to the Delavan Prairie just three years later, and when Mary was 17, the family moved to Pekin. Mary wed Norman Hawley on her 18th birthday and again moved to a farm where they would have five children, of whom four survived to adulthood.

Unfortunately, Norman had a fall from a boxcar, which injured his brain, so that Mary had to attend to the financial affairs and superintend their coal mine and grain elevator in addition to looking after the farm and home and board several employees during the busy season.

It was during that time that she became interested in the ravages of the rum traffic and the misery it brought to the families of the coal miners, especially the poor women who would come to her seeking protection from their drunken husbands.

That prompted her to begin holding gospel temperance meetings in her home and, in so doing, succeeded in doing good among the families. Her husband, however, was opposed to the meetings, so she opened up and named an upper room at the mine “Mission Hall,” where she conducted a Sunday school for several years along with temperance meetings through the week. She was appointed a delegate to the State and National Prohibition Conventions, and at one election, she went to the polls and voted on the school question, contending for her right to do so as she had paid taxes for years on over a thousand acres of land. About the same time, her two oldest sons came of age and cast the proudest and only votes in their township for the home against the saloon. Mary’s oldest son would later be nominated for circuit clerk on the temperance ticket.

The unfortunate mental condition of Mary’s husband, caused by the accident when he fell, led him to violently oppose his son’s candidacy. Norman was bitter about his wife’s prominence in their Cincinnati Township community, and he was instigated by violent political partisans in the neighborhood. He was so tormented that on October 17, 1892, he shot his wife as she was driving by to a schoolhouse to conduct a Gospel Temperance meeting. She escaped death but wore a scar on her forehead made by the bullet. Mary was subjected to vindictive and relentless persecution at the hands of the saloon advocates. She defied them with her tongue and pen; their vile calumny could not subdue her proud spirit nor daunt her purpose.

The April 28, 1892 issue of the Peoria Journal Star included an article, “At the Tazewell County Prohibition Convention, held at Mackinaw, Tuesday, April 26th, our young friend James M. Hawley, of Hawley Station, was nominated for circuit clerk. Although the honor was unexpected and unsought, he has accepted it and we think he will make a successful candidate, as he is a man of intellectual ability, spotless reputation and great decision of character, an instance of which he displayed four years ago, when he cast his first vote for “Home vs. Saloon,” it being the pioneer and only vote cast in his township for the then forlorn hope—Prohibition: thus verifying the old prophecy: ‘And a little child shall lead them.’” 

Mrs. Hawley has been the Temperance representative for this area leading assemblies and conventions throughout the state. In 1888 she was sent to Indianapolis by the Illinois State Prohibition Convention.

The Pekin Times wrote on August 9, 1888 that “When the Hawley Coal Company leased out their mines, Mrs. Hawley reserved the upper story of the large two-story building known as the ‘company store.’  She is now fitting it up into a hall and will conduct a Mission Sunday School there every Sunday, at 3 p.m. for the benefit of the children at the mines, commencing August 11th.”

Also, from the same paper was taken an incident that often occurred in the work inspired and directed by Mrs. Hawley at this place:

Gospel temperance meetings are being held in Mission Hall, Hawley coal mines, two evenings each week, and during last month 35 names were signed to the abstinence pledge. Reader, this means more happiness in several families and homes, better clothes and food for rum-cursed women and children. One of these now reformed miners was arrested about two weeks ago for being drunk and disorderly, and his wife had to sell their last pig to pay his fine and release him from the calaboose. A week ago, he was induced to sign the total abstinence pledge, while at the gospel temperance meeting and last Saturday while in the city, a prominent merchant of whom he had purchased a bill of goods, offered to treat him, but the once slave to strong drink had the moral courage to say NO and then was enabled to return home a sober man for the first time in a year.

Also, last week at the Temperance Lyceum at Mission Hall, Cincinnati Township, singing, short speeches, and recitations were the order of the evening.

Again, Mrs. Hawley has worked up quite a debating society at the Mission Hall that is being largely attended. They are held twice a week.

The Pekin Daily Times, March 6, 1895 had the following: “We are informed that Mrs. Mary E Hawley, a prominent and wealthy temperance advocate, living a few miles south of this city, has decided to take the platform in behalf of the temperance cause. Efforts are being made to have her open the lecture course in this city at an early date.”

Mary’s booklet contains a certificate of introduction for Mary from the Golden Gate Lodge 248 AF & AM at Prairie City, dated 1895 and signed by GW Hamilton, EE James and WL Kreider. The certificate mentions that Brother James Skean was her near relative.

Another certificate was from Pekin Lodge AF & AM signed by Louis Zinger and John Wildhack.

[The previous details were taken from Mary’s autobiographical pamphlet. TCGHS has the original in our Archive.]

The 1890s were turbulent, to say the least, for the Hawley family. The couple did divorce, and Norman did live out his life in the Jacksonville Asylum. The 26 July 1901 Pantagraph included a short that read, “The Hawley coal mine, a few miles south of Pekin, has been abandoned.”

The Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society is an award-winning 501c3, all volunteer organization that has been in continuous service to our members and the public for 47 years. TCGHS operates an archive, library and research facility at 719 N. 11th St., Pekin. Visit our website at www.tcghs.org to learn more about us. If you have any point of interest that you would like to know more about, stop in at TCGHS or drop us a line.