SAUGUS — Adam Hawkes, Saugus’s inaugural white settler, could not have foreseen the historic legacy he and his descendants would create.

John Adams, the second President of the United States, is the great-great-great grandson of Hawkes, and the great-great-great-great grandfather of the sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams.

Hawkes was born in January of 1605 in Norfolk England and came to the Americas on the Winthrop Fleet in 1630.

The fleet was led by John Winthrop, one of the first governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, on June 12. The fleet consisted of 11 different ships and had taken many Puritans to the New England colonies. 

Alongside the livestock, notable passengers were not limited to Hawkes,  Thomas Wiggin, the first governor of New Hampshire, and Samuel Cole, who established the first tavern in the new colony were also on board.

Hawkes initially began his time in Massachusetts in Charlestown, where he was a husbandman, a cow commissioner, and a surveyor.

Hawkes married Ann Hutchinson in 1631, and the two had three children together, however, any children Hawkes had with his second wife, Sarah Hooper, after Ann’s death in 1669, are difficult to determine as records were burned by the British in 1775.

After his first marriage, Hawkes sold his property in Charlestown to move Lynn, which was then-named Saugus, in 1635, potentially because of the marshes in the area at the time. After moving to Saugus, Hawkes built a cabin near the Saugus River, however during the wintertime, it had caught fire, leaving Hawkes and his family without their possessions.

In 1642, Hawkes helped to build the Saugus Iron Works, which had a capacity of eight tons a week, producing mostly pots and kettles. The Pine Tree Shilling, the currency within the colony, was also produced there.

In his later years, Hawkes farmed tobacco after a prohibition on it had been lifted. During this period, most of Massachusetts was woodlands and undeveloped, making it ripe for farming and agricultural pursuits.

When Hawkes died on Jan. 13 in 1671 or 1672 at age 64, townspeople flocked to his home for funeral services.

Hawkes left his belongings, including land to his widow Sarah, his daughter by the same name, as well as friends and associates receiving livestock, crops, and household goods such as a looking glass, saws, and pots and kettles.

Signage which is located eastwardly across from the Saugus Plaza Shopping Center, was erected to commemorate Hawkes in 1930 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony-Tercentenary Commission to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.