GENERATION 12

GENERATION 11

Biography

JOSEPH HAWLEY was born about 1603, at Parwich, Derbyshire, England, about nine miles northwest of Old Derby, and four miles from Ashbourne. His will says, "I give to my sonn Samuel Hawley all my lands and buildings in Parwidge in Darbyshere in Old England, to him, his heirs and assigns."

He came to America in 1629 or 1630. He was "yoeman", the first town recorder at Stratford, Fairfield, CT, and wrote the earliest land records that are still in existence in Stratford. In the tax list of the town in 1671 his tax was next to the largest. He was Town Clerk or "Recorder" from 1650 to 1666, was Treasurer of Stratford, was chosen by the town several years to "keep an ordinary", served on committees to survey lands and adjust boundaries, and in 1687 was on a committee to draft a "Patent" for the town.

JOSEPH was elected twenty-nine times a Deputy to the General Assembly of Connecticut (election being twice a year) serving from 1665 to 1687, and was appointed "Commissioner" for Stratford, and held church offices. During eighty consecutive years, four members of the Hawley family -- JOSEPH Sr., sons Samuel and John, and his grandson, Capt. Joseph -- were elected seventy times to the Connecticut Legislature.

In 1646, he married "KATHERINE" BIRDSEY. Births of all their children, except Samuel, are entered on Stratford Records.

JOSEPH was Deacon of the First Congregational Church of Stratford. In 1924, the Society of the Hawley Family erected a granite memorial to JOSEPH HAWLEY, in the Congregational cemetery.