Oglethorpe defended Hawkins and wrote the Trustees: “I do well know that he has attended the Sick very carefully and that he constantly went up to Darien when I was here, and I suppose he did so when I was not, It is no little thing to go in open Boats in all Weathers near Twenty Miles & no small Expence to hire Men and Boats ... for tho he is very capable of Doing his Duty as a Surgeon he is very ignorant in Accounts.”[20]
Perkins, Moore, Calwell and Allen were among the Frederica settlers who had altercations with Hawkins and two of his neighbors wrote that “if it were not for debts and demands made on Hawkins there would be little use for Court at Frederica.” In 1742 he was removed from office as First Bailiff.[21]
Beatre Hawkins and her friend, Anne Welch, wife of John Welch, who with their three children lived a few doors down the street on lot number 7, South Ward[22] thoroughly disliked the Wesleys. The Hawkins and Welch families had crossed the Atlantic in the same boat with Oglethorpe and the Wesleys. During this voyage religious services had been held for the passengers and Mrs. Hawkins had seemed greatly moved by John Wesley’s preaching and professed to be awakened to a new and better life. Charles Wesley, observing her actions, saw through her hypocrisy and warned his brother that her repentance was not genuine. She learned of this and, so, hated the Wesleys.[23]
After their arrival at Frederica these women attributed Oglethorpe’s puritanical sternness to the moral and religious influence of the Wesleys and conspired to bring about a break between Oglethorpe and the clergymen. They fabricated a fantastic story of their indiscretions and “confessed” these “misdeeds” to Charles Wesley, then told Oglethorpe that Charles Wesley was spreading this tale. It was not until John Wesley arrived from Savannah that the matter was cleared up, the truth known, and mutual respect restored between Oglethorpe and the Wesley brothers, a regard which was maintained throughout the remainder of their long lives.
After a few months in Georgia, Charles Wesley returned to England. However, Mrs. Hawkins persisted in her efforts to persecute John Wesley. On one of his later visits to Frederica she sent for him. When he entered the Hawkins house, she, brandishing a pistol in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other, threatened to shoot him. Wesley held her hands so that she could not use either weapon; whereupon, she seized his cassock with her teeth and tore both sleeves to pieces.[24]
Her altercations with her Frederica neighbors caused one of them to write, “If that W[oma]n is to be punished in this World, for her Wickedness, how dreadful will the example be? I grow sick with the thoughts of her,” and it was said, too, that Dr. Hawkins was “not atall beloved by the Inhabitants.”[25]
The Davison family, on the other hand, were good neighbors and were well liked by the other settlers. Charles Wesley called Davison “my good Samaritan” and wrote of him and his wife, “to their care, under God, I owe my life....” Davison was said to be “one of the first of the industrious villagers.”[26]
In addition to keeping a tavern, Davison was Second Constable. In 1739 he was named Overseer of the Trustees’ Servants at a salary of twenty-five pounds a year, but Hawkins took this position away from him and named to this office one of the Trustees’ servants who had just arrived from Germany and spoke hardly a word of English. In 1740 Davison was named Searcher of Ships at a salary of forty pounds a year.[27]
For a time Davison seemed to enjoy life at Frederica. Writing to friends in London in 1738, he said that “we all of us here have been wonderfully protected by Almighty providence, very few of us have died, & none sickly; we have great encrease of Children, & women bear, that in Europe were thought past their time; The Cattle and Hogs yt. were given us on Credit, thrive very well, & Fowls in great abundance, & one may venture to say yt. ye place is blest on our Accounts....”
To another friend, he wrote “my crop wch. was but very small on Acct. of our being kept back in planting Season by ye alarms of the Spaniards, ye land I got cleared being very good, gave me great hopes; now this Year I have got at both plantations 6 acres & 38 perches of Land well fenced about 6 & 7 foot high; & planted, wch. I hope in God will afford me & my family Bread;... My wife was brought to bed of a John in July last, a fine thriving child, & little Susan grows apace.”[28]