James Hawkes (missionary)

James W. Hawkes (1853 in Montezuma, Indiana – 1932), spent his formative years in nearby Rockville, Indiana. Hawkes spent two years at Wabash College before transferring to Princeton College, which granted him his undergraduate degree; he attended Union Theological Seminary in New York City in order to be trained as a missionary. In the early 1880s Hawkes began his career as a missionary in Persia. He married in 1884 and had a son a year later, which died shortly after birth. While doing missionary work in Persia, Hawkes’ wife died from typhoid fever; but he remained abroad and undertook the writing of the Persian Bible Dictionary (in Persian قاموس کتاب مقدس) and revisions of the Persian language Bible. Hawkes also founded the American School for Boys in Hamadan, Persia where he spent most of his missionary years. He died at the age of seventy-nine.