Albert Gallatin Hawes

Albert Gallatin Hawes (April 1, 1804 – March 14, 1849) was a United States Representative from Kentucky, a member of the Jacksonian Democratic movement, and part of a prominent political family that extended its influence across several states and generations. He was the brother of Richard Hawes, who later served as the Confederate governor of Kentucky; the nephew of Virginia congressman Aylett Hawes; the granduncle of Missouri senator Harry Bartow Hawes; and the cousin of Kentucky representative Aylett Hawes Buckner. Through these connections, he was linked to a broader network of antebellum political leadership in both Virginia and Kentucky.

Hawes was born near Bowling Green in Caroline County, Virginia, on April 1, 1804. In 1810, when he was still a child, he moved with his parents to Kentucky, where the family settled in Fayette County near Lexington. Growing up in the Bluegrass region during the early years of Kentucky’s statehood, he came of age in a frontier society that was rapidly developing its agricultural economy and political institutions. His family’s relocation from Virginia to Kentucky reflected a broader westward movement of planters and professionals seeking new opportunities in the trans-Appalachian West.

Hawes pursued classical studies at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, an institution that served as a leading center of higher education in the early West and educated many of the region’s lawyers, politicians, and clergy. Although specific details of his course of study are not recorded, a classical education at Transylvania in this period typically included Latin, Greek, rhetoric, moral philosophy, and elements of law and political theory, training that prepared many of its students for public life. After completing his studies, Hawes did not follow the legal or professional path taken by many of his contemporaries but instead turned to agriculture as his principal occupation.

Following his education, Hawes moved to Hancock County, Kentucky, and settled near the community that would become Hawesville, a town closely associated with his family. There he engaged in agricultural pursuits, managing farm operations in a region tied to river commerce along the Ohio. Like many landowners of his time and place, Hawes was a slaveholder, and enslaved labor formed part of the economic foundation of his agricultural activities. His position as a planter and slaveholder placed him within the social and economic elite of his locality and provided a base for his subsequent entry into political life.

Hawes was elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-second, Twenty-third, and Twenty-fourth Congresses, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1831, to March 3, 1837. His alignment with the Jacksonian movement placed him among supporters of President Andrew Jackson and the broader Democratic program of the era, which emphasized opposition to the national bank, advocacy of limited federal government in many domestic matters, and support for the interests of agrarian and western constituencies. During his three consecutive terms, Hawes represented Kentucky at a time of intense national debate over banking policy, internal improvements, and the balance of power between the federal government and the states.

Throughout his entire congressional tenure, Hawes served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Post Office Department in the Twenty-second, Twenty-third, and Twenty-fourth Congresses. In this role, he was responsible for overseeing and reviewing the financial operations and spending practices of the Post Office Department, then one of the largest and most far-reaching federal agencies. His chairmanship placed him at the center of efforts to monitor postal expenditures, an important function in an era when the expansion of mail routes and postal services was critical to communication and commerce across the growing nation.

After leaving Congress in March 1837, Hawes returned to private life and resumed his agricultural pursuits. He later moved to Daviess County, Kentucky, where he settled near Yelvington and continued to engage in farming. In this later period, he remained part of the rural planter class that shaped local economic and social life in western Kentucky, though no record indicates that he again sought or held public office after his service in the House of Representatives.

Albert Gallatin Hawes died near Yelvington in Daviess County, Kentucky, on March 14, 1849. He was interred in the Hawes family burial ground on the Owensboro and Yelvington Road. His life and career, though relatively brief, were intertwined with the political and social development of early nineteenth-century Kentucky and reflected the broader patterns of migration, agricultural expansion, and partisan conflict that characterized the antebellum United States.