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 Posted at 09:06 a.m. EST; Friday, July 06, 2001
THE HAWLEY FAMILY.The name "Hawley is fragrantly significant of blossoming and sweetly perfumed hedge rows and rich verdant pastures, threaded with meandering brooks and dotted with clumps of clustering oaks. Its old Saxon derivation is expressive of the quiet and content of rural life. "Haw" means a green plot in a valley or a small field in meadow; but it is more frequently construed as a fruit or wild berry, like the berries of the pink and white hawthorn so common by the roadsides and laneways of the Old Country. "Ley" or "lea" as it is written, is a pasture field, and is commonly used in England being a favorite word with the poets. The name Hawley is one of great Sherry's "Norman Conquest, " and mention is made in antiquity. It occurs in two or three different guises in Sherry's "Norman Conquest," and mention is made in the "Rose of Battle Abbey" in the Eleventh Century of a Hansard Hastings Hawley, one of the Normans who came over with William the Conqueror. The founder of the family in American was JOSEPH HAWLEY, who was born in Derbyshire, and emigrated to the Colony of Massachusetts about 1640. The prominent part which he played in the early settlement of Connecticut, and the esteem in which he was held by his fellow colonists, is evidenced by the fact that he was elected the first Yeoman and Recorder of Stratford, in which place he settled shortly after his arrival in the New World. At the two-hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Stratford, which was held a few weeks ago, there was present GENERAL JOSEPH R. HAWLEY, a veteran of the American Civil War, who has been Governor of Connecticut, and is now a U.S. Senator from that state. General Hawley, like all the Hawleys on the continent, is a direct descendant of Joseph Hawley, who was also the ancestral progenitor of the Hawleys in Canada. Joseph Hawley had a son SAMUEL who was born at Stratford in 1647. Samuel has a son EPHRAIM who was born at New Milford in 1692. Ephraim has a son CAPTAIN JEHIEL who was born at Newtown in 1712. Jehiel Hawley subsequently removed from Connecticut to Vermont, where he had a son JEPTHA born at Arlington in 1740. JEPTHA HAWLEY lived at Arlington until after the Revolutionary War, when he emigrated with his wife and seven children to Canada. He settled at Bath, and took up a large tract of U.E.L. land. The family, whose names were: MARTIN, RUSSELL, DAVIS, SHELDON, AZOBA, AMARILLA, and ESTHER, became prominent persons in the locality, as well as in the other parts of Canada in which they or their descendants have since settled, and emulated the prominence attained by their ancestors and connections in the United States. Two of the grandsons of Joseph Hawley, JOSIAH and SHELDON, both of whom were born at Bath, the former in 1792, the latter in 1794, were among the pioneer merchants and lumber dealers in Trenton, where they settled in 1817. Not only were they very successful, owning a business which, for the times, was a very large one, but they became active factors in the affairs of the community. The two brothers had the entire confidence of the community, and the name of Hawley was a household word throughout the district, and even in Montreal and Quebec, to which places they shipped large quantities of lumber, returning with good with which to supply their extensive country trade. Josiah Hawley, who was a good citizen in all that the phrase implies, was of a retiring disposition, and not so active a participant in local affairs as Sheldon Hawley. After several prosperous years he sold out his interest and partnership to his brother, who continued the business for many years afterward. Records show that Sheldon Hawley served as Captain in the War of 1812, and as Lieut.-Colonel in the Rebellion of 1837-38. During the latter troublous times he gave the Government the use of his storehouse in which to store warms, ammunition and provisions. The storehouse was burned down by the Rebels, who, it was supposed, also burned Sheldon Hawley's house on Hawley's Hill. It was in 1837 that Sheldon Hawley with EDMUND MURNEY, CLARK POTTER and others brought the Government money from Kingston to Trenton, where they put it in the old stone barracks for safe keeping. Sheldon Hawley was a man of great executive ability, and naturally a leader; but his interests were not alone confined to secular matters; he was a strong churchman. He used his most strenuous endeavors to have Trenton, which prior to that had only been an out station of the Church of England at the Carrying Place, become a separate parish church. In support of his wish, besides donating the land on which, in 1845, St. George's Church was erected, he subscribed one hundred pounds; the Right Rev. Bishop Strachan having previously given a like amount. Sheldon Hawley was among the first Wardens elected for the church, and held the office until his death. He was a generous man, not only in church matters, but with reference tot he poor; and he turned away no deserving object empty-handed. While his bounty was ever largesse for the needy, his hospitable latch-string always hung on the outside of the door. He entertained many persons of importance, and his strong personality and conversational powers especially fitted him for the task. After a useful and strenuous life, Sheldon Hawley died in 1868, aged seventy-four years, and his brother Josiah in 1875, aged eighty-three years. In their deaths, Trenton lost two of its most respected and prominent citizens. Of Sheldon Hawley's fmily it may be mentioned that SUSAN M. married ALONZO SHAVER, and later PHILIP CARMAN; she, with her sister MERCY, (who is the widow of the late prominent barrister, CHARLES FRANCIS), reside in their comfortable home in Trenton. NANCY married CHARLES RYKERT, a barrister of ST. Catharines. AMANDA S. married DAVID ROBLIN, formerly of Trenton. ROBERT married PAULINE HOWARD and settled in the United States. Josiah Hawley had two sons: JOSIAH H., who was killed in the American Civil War; and ALBERT D.C., who became prominent in the business affairs of Trenton. He was born in 1830, and for many years, and until his death in 1870, was the leading druggist and stationer of the town. He was a man of affairs, and before Trenton reached its present size, was Reeve, and afterwards Councillor. He was also a Captain in the Militia, an active and prominent member of the Church of England, a member of the Loyal Orange Lodge, and , like many other members of the Hawley family, a strong Conservative. His son, ALBERT W. HAWLEY, in 1877, succeeded him in his business, which he still conducts. He takes a leading part in the affairs of his native town, and has been its Mayor, a member of the School Board for over twenty years, Chairman of the Conservative Association, and Warden of St. George's Church. HAROLD H. HAWLEY, the third son of Albert D.C. Hawley was educated for , and became a physician. He was very skillful and is mentioned by leading people of Trenton as the cleverest young man that that place has produced. He died at the early age of thirty-six, when at the threshold of success, and unmarried. CHARLES L. HAWLEY, L.D.S., is a graduate of the Royal College of Dental Surgeons, Toronto, and has practiced his profession at Trenton since 1881. He is a member of the Church of England, a Conservative in politics, and has been a member of the Town Council. AMANDA HAWLEY, youngest daughter of DAVIS HAWLEY and granddaughter of Joseph Hawley, married SAMUEL MILLER, (see Andrew Miller Family). Two of her grandchildren, and therefore of the sixth generation from the Canadian pioneer, are, F.F. MILLER, C.E., and his sister, MRS. F. T. DIBB, of Napanee. JEPTHA HAWLEY The Children and Grandchildren: I Davis Hawley, m. and has issue: 1) Jehiel, 2) Rachael, 3) Sarah, 4) Joseph C., 5) Clarinda, 6) Josiah, 7) Sheldon, 8) Mary A., 9) Amanda, and 10) Abijah. The Grandchildren and Issue: See I The Davis Hawley Branch:
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