John Hawxhurst (January 24, 1817 – April 17, 1881) was a nineteenth-century American Quaker from New York who moved to Fairfax County, Virginia, where he and his younger brother Job Hawxhurst farmed and operated a grist mill beginning in 1846. As Union men, they fled Virginia temporarily as the American Civil War began in April 1861. John Hawxhurst helped Union forces as a guide, lived in Alexandria, Virginia and was active in the Restored Government of Virginia. Early and family life John Hawxhurst was born near Long Island's Hempstead Harbor in Roslyn, Queens County, New York on March 30, 1823 to Townsend Hawxhurst (1779–1829) and his wife Rebecca. Townsend Hawxhurst was a Quaker minister who traveled extensively, including to Virginia. John was their first child, and he had numerous younger brothers and sisters. When his father died, John was 12, and the extended family helped by fostering some of his younger brothers and sisters. John married Jane Kissam and initially lived in Manhasset, but several of their children died young. Daniel Kissam Hawxhurst was the only one of their natural children to have children; his brother Timothy S.K. Hawxhurst married but had no children. After the death of his brother Job's wife Maria, John and Jane fostered several of the children and eventually adopted Jane K. Hawxhurst. Career In February 1846, Hawxhurst, his brother Job and their families moved to Fairfax County, Virginia, where they jointly farmed 470 acres in the Vale section (about 6 miles north of the Courthouse). They restored a gristmill to mill wheat into flour using the waterpower of Difficult Run. They worshiped at the Woodlawn Quaker Meetinghouse on the other side of the county, or during the American Civil War (when that meetinghouse was used by Union troops), the home of fellow Quakers Jonathan Roberts and his wife Abigail at Accotink. American Civil War The brothers opposed Virginia's secession after the election of President Abraham Lincoln, but were among the few Fairfax County voters to do so. Strong Union men during that conflict, they were forced to flee across the Potomac River to Washington (and sent their children to New York relatives) months after Virginia seceded in April 1861. Like Restored Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont (whose grandfather had grown up in the Fairfax Friends Meeting before leaving to enlist in the American Revolutionary War), Hawxhurst was considered a relatively Moderate Republican, despite his long-held abolitionist