Hawks Francis LFrancis Lister Hawks was an American priest of the Episcopal Church. He was born on June 10, 1798, and died on September 26, 1866. After doing well as a lawyer and for a short time as a politician in North Carolina, Hawks became an Episcopal priest i 1827. He was a brilliant and impressive preacher, with livings in New Haven, Philadelphia, New York City, and New Orleans, and he turned down several offers to become a bishop. Hawks was the first president of the University of Louisiana, but he was sent to work on the American frontier because of scandals in the 1830s and 40s. He was also turned down as the bishop of Mississippi. After that, Hawks moved to Baltimore, Maryland, and then back to New York City. The most important things Hawks did now seem to be literary. He edited the one-volume Appletons' Cyclopaedia of Biography (1856), which added American biographies to the volume edited by Elihu Rich and published by Richard Griffin & Company in 1854 (London). Read More Read Less