JOSEPH ROSWELL HAWLEY
HAWLEY, JOSEPH ROSWELL, son of a Baptist clergyman, graduate of Hamilton college; school teacher; lawyer in Hartford from 1850; organizer of the Republican party in Connecticut; editor of an abolition journal, 1852-56, and of a daily newspaper from 1857; soldier in the Civil war, 1861-65, from first lieutenant to brevet major-general; governor of Connecticut, president of the Republican national convention of 1866; representative in congress, 1872-75, and 1879-81; president of the United States Centennial commission, 1873-77; United States senator from March 4, 1881; was born in Stewartsville, North Carolina, October 31, 1826. His father, the Reverend Francis Hawley, was a native of Farmington, Connecticut, but went South, where he engaged in business, became a Baptist minister, and married Mary McLeod, a native of North Carolina of Scotch ancestry; and in 1837 when Joseph Roswell was eleven years old came back to Connecticut, in 1842 removing with his family to Cazenovia, New York. Notwithstanding his residence in a slave state, he was an active abolitionist. The first ancestor in America, Captain Joseph Hawley, came from Porwick, Derbyshire, England, landed in Boston in 1629, and became a planter at Stratford, Connecticut, about 1640. His son Samuel, grandson Captain Joseph, great grandson Ebenezer, great (2) grandson Ebenezer, great (3) grandson Asa, great (4) grandson the Reverend Francis, and great (5) grandson General Joseph Roswell, is the direct line of descendant of the Hawley family.
The future United States senator was educated in the Hartford grammar school and at Cazenovia seminary, and was graduated at Hamilton college, New York, A.B., 1847; A.M., 1850. He taught school winters, studied law in Cazenovia, New York, and Hartford, Connecticut, and was admitted to practice in Hartford in 1850. He entered politics as a member of the Free Soil party, was made chairman of the Free Soil state committee, wrote for the press and spoke in the interest of the party on every occasion, especially opposing the then popular Know Nothing or Native American party. He called
