 Jonas Hawkins signed the Association to sustain the Continental Congress and the Provincial Convention in Brookhaven, Suffolk County, New York, on June 8, 1775, as did his father, Eleazar Hawkins, Sr.
Jonas Hawkins was a courier for the Culper Ring during many of its early operations between December 1778 and the summer 1779.In December 1778, General George Washington's chief of intelligence and Culper Ring spymaster, Major Benjamin Tallmadge recruited Hawkins to bring messages from the Ring's chief spy in New York City, Abraham Woodhull, to Setuaket, New York where they would be forwarded to Tallmadge.Woodhull used the code name "Samuel Culper", later "Samuel Culper, Sr." to avoid detection if his letters were intercepted.