Aylett Hawes

Aylett Hawes (April 21, 1768 – August 31, 1833) was a nineteenth-century medical doctor, politician, planter, and slaveholder from Virginia. Born in Culpeper County in the Colony of Virginia, he received a private classical education in his youth, reflecting the educational opportunities available to members of the Virginia gentry in the late colonial and early national periods. Seeking advanced professional training, he pursued the study of medicine and completed his medical education in Edinburgh, Scotland, which was then one of the leading centers of medical instruction in the English-speaking world.

After returning to Virginia, Hawes established himself as a practicing physician while simultaneously developing substantial agricultural interests. He purchased several plantations in Culpeper County and in the area that later became Rappahannock County, Virginia, and operated them using enslaved labor. Census records document the growth of his slaveholdings over time: he owned 25 enslaved people in Culpeper County in 1810, 49 a decade later, and 70 in the last census taken before his death. These holdings underscored his status as a significant planter in the region and tied his economic fortunes to the institution of slavery.

Hawes entered public life in the early nineteenth century. Culpeper County voters elected him as one of their two representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates, where he served from 1802 to 1806. He was re-elected several times and served throughout this period alongside John Roberts. His tenure in the House of Delegates coincided with the formative years of the early republic, during which Virginia remained a dominant force in national politics and state legislators played a central role in shaping policy on issues ranging from internal improvements to the organization of the judiciary.

Building on his state legislative experience, Hawes advanced to national office as a member of the Republican Party, then commonly known as the Democratic-Republican Party. In 1810, voters in what was then Virginia’s 9th congressional district elected him to the United States House of Representatives. His service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history, as the nation confronted mounting tensions with Great Britain that culminated in the War of 1812. Following the 1810 federal census, congressional redistricting altered the boundaries of Virginia’s districts. In his subsequent re-election campaign, Hawes ran in Virginia’s 10th congressional district, while the incumbent of that district, John Dawson, was moved into Virginia’s 11th congressional district, much as Hawes himself had been shifted from the 9th. Hawes won re-election twice, serving three terms in the House as a Democratic-Republican and participating in the legislative process on behalf of his constituents during this era of party realignment and foreign conflict.

After several terms in Congress, Hawes resigned his seat and returned to private life in Virginia. He resumed the practice of medicine and continued to manage his plantations in Culpeper and Rappahannock Counties, maintaining his dual identity as physician and planter. His successor in Congress was fellow Democratic-Republican George F. Strother, who had also succeeded him in the Virginia House of Delegates about a decade earlier, reflecting the continuity of political leadership within their region and party.

In his later years, Hawes remained on his agricultural properties in the Virginia Piedmont. He died on his farm in Rappahannock County, Virginia, on August 31, 1833. He was interred on another of his plantations, in Sperryville, Virginia. Hawes was part of a politically active extended family; he was the uncle of Richard Hawes, who later became the Confederate governor of Kentucky, of Albert Gallatin Hawes, who served in the United States House of Representatives from Kentucky, and of Aylett Hawes Buckner, who also served in Congress. Through his medical practice, legislative service, and plantation operations, Aylett Hawes exemplified the intertwined professional, political, and economic roles of Virginia’s early nineteenth-century elite.