Not uninteresting is his past. Richard S. Hawes has been identified with the vicissitudes and triumphs of Silver City since Sept 17, 1872.For several years thereafter he was night shift boss of the Empire and Poorman mines.
From 1885 until May 1894 was a restaurateur here. Moved to DeLamar but shortly to return to his first love in Idaho, Silver City.
Cornwall, England,is his nativity, Jan 2, 1848, when born. A lad of 18 he chose the United States for his future home and a more loyal and patriotic citizen the old world never gave to the new.
After short sojourns in New Jersey and Connecticut, he sailed to California via the Isthmus. Mined there in Grass Valley for twelve months, then went to Virginia City and mined there until coming here.
Is prominent in the A.F.& A.M. and I.O.O.F. circles, and ex officer of thegrand lodge of Masons. Has served three terms as justice of the peace in Silver City. Wedded Miss Phillipa Edwards of Grass Valley, April 3, 1874 on the heights of War Eagle Mountain. A wedding "high" in life indeed, about 8000 feet above the sea level.
A young man aged 35 is one of whose citizenship Silver City and all Owyhee county is proud with reason, and the state generally shares in the envied sentiment. Never installed in public office until he grasped the gavel in the senate chamber in Idaho 1899, the veteranlike expedition with which he discharged his duties and dispatched public business surprised all and was a matter of great gratification to his armies of friends.
As a boy and not many years since he was a "route carrier" on the Denver Times and the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado, and by this and other means of self help as janitor of one of the Denver public schools, etc. he achieved his scholastic training.
His school days over, mining engaged his attention, and under the tutelage of his father, James Hutchinson, a veteran skilled and well known mining man, he early gained a masterful knowledge of the industry. Was elected chairman of the board of the Colorado Mining Stock Exchange in 1890 and after two years of service in that office served as secretary, treasurer and manager of this institution. When he resigned and came to Silver City to assist his father, who was then and is still the superintendent of the Trade Dollar Consolidated Mining co., while the subject of this mention is the assistant superintendent of the same.
In 1896 returned to preside over the Colorado Springs Mining Stock Exchange and handled the stocks throughout the Cripple Creek stock "boom." Returning to Idaho January 1 1897, to permanently interweave his destiny with that of the state, and natural the affinity between the spirits of young Idaho and this young man, their past, their present, and perhaps their hopes are akin; at all events brilliant the progress of both.
Mr.Hutchinson has also been manager of the Mining exchange Clearing House in Denver; was secretary of the first silver club ever organized in the Union, at Denver; was secretary of the National Bimetallic convention held in Chicago in 1893; was the Idaho representative and was elected secretary of the Bimetallic Union formed in Salt Lake City in 1895, and was delegate to the National Silver Convention which endorsed William Jennings Bryan for president in 1896 at St. Louis.
A boy of twenty he was a volunteer Indian fighter in Colorado, and was chosen by General Reardon to carry the news of the battle of Rangley to Governor Adams at Glenwood Springs.
Married Miss Helen Hays, daughter of Senator C.M.Hays, of Ada County June 15, 1896. Asked once what were his political principles he replied, "My country first".