3. Old Blind Hawkins 



The ideas concerning high pressure steam that 

 Jacob Perkins spent several years of his life in 

 England trying to promote probably originated 

 with the blind man who is the subject of this 

 short chapter. Perkins hinted as much when he 

 mentioned in his 1822 British patent for a steam 

 generator "communications made to me by a 

 certain foreigner residing abroad . . . ." 3S This 

 is not to say that Perkins made direct use of 



Hawkins's scheme. Perkins, like a Fourth-of- 

 July sparkler, needed only to be lit, and that 

 was what Joseph Hawkins did. While in Phila- 

 delphia, Perkins knew also Oliver Evans, a high 

 pressure steam advocate, and talked with him 

 frequently; 39 but Evans's use of steam in his en- 

 gines represented a courageous departure from, 

 not (as in Perkins's case) an abandonment of, the 

 main stream of steam engine development. 



During the entire time that Mr. Perkins was 

 connected with these shops there was an almost daily 

 visitor; sometimes he would come feeling his way 

 with a cane, at others led by a boy. He would sit 

 for hours apparently conscious of all that was going 

 on around. Among the workmen he was known as 

 Old Blind Hawkins, although under fifty years of age. 

 His blindness, stoop and long iron-gray hair gave 

 him the appearance of a much older man. 



He usually carried with him one or two small vol- 

 umes, which he offered and from the sale of which 

 he derived his main support. From these we learned 

 all we knew of him; his name was Joseph Hawkins, 

 born in Kingsbury, Washington County, New York, 

 in the year 1772, and when about twenty-one years 

 of age he sailed from Charleston, S.C., as super-cargo 

 of the Charleston, a Guinea trader of 400 tons burden. 40 

 He sailed December 1st, 1793, and had a prosperous 



38 British patent 4732, December 10, 1822. There is no sur- 

 viving record in the National Archives of Joseph Hawkins's 

 U.S. patent of June 14, 181 6. It is listed in U.S. Patent 

 Office, List of Patents . . . 1790-1847, p. 156. 



39 Bathe and Bathe (cited in note 26 above), p. 97. 



40 Hawkins went to Charleston to make his fortune, "hearing 

 it frequently said thai a young man of moderate education 

 and industrious habits, with a good recommendation, would 

 be sure of an eligible and constant employment in the southern 

 states . . . ." (Joseph Hawkins, A History of a Voyage to the 



26 



voyage to the coast of Africa. He was sent inland 

 for a cargo, got a large number of slaves and much 

 ivory and gold dust. On the homeward voyage the 

 ship fever broke out; he took it and lost his eyesight. 

 When or how he ever attained any mechanical 

 knowledge, I do not know. [9] He was always a 

 welcome visitor to the shops so far as my brother and 

 I were concerned, not only from his enthusiasm in 

 explaining the merits of his invention, but for the 

 long yarns he used to spin of his adventures in 

 Africa. [10] 



Being a good penman, and having command of the 

 pencil as a sketcher before he lost his eyesight, he 

 never lost the power of using them. With his left 

 hand to hold the paper on the table in a manner 

 that he could use his thumb to indicate where to 

 start the lines, with a pencil he wrote very freely, 

 keeping his lines straight, and at all times he was 

 ready with pencil to sketch with sufficient accuracy 

 to aid him in explaining whatever he had to present. 



Besides the volume, the history of his early life, he 

 often had with him a portfolio filled with rude draw- 

 ings of his own make, from which he would illustrate 



Coast of Africa, and Travels into the Interior . . . and Interesting 

 Particulars Concerning the Slave Trade, Philadelphia, 1797, p. "). 



