Robert Hawley
Robert Hawley (1729-1799), Captain, raised provisions for the Continental soldiers during the American Revolutionary War.
Biography
Captain Robert Hawley was born in June 1729, in Stratford, Connecticut in New England. He was the son of John Hawley, Esquire, the grandson of Captain John Hawley and great grandson of Captain Joseph Hawley, the first of the name in America and the first town clerk in Stratford. He married Anna Beach, daughter of Daniel Beach and Hester Curtiss, in North Stratford, now Trumbull in 1749 and raised nine children. They lived in the house built by Robert's great uncle Ephraim Hawley on Nichols Avenue Route 108 at the south end of the village of Nichols Farms on land that had been in the Hawley family since 1673. Hawley gave the house to his son Eliakim in 1787 when he married. Captain Robert Hawley died in 1799, at Trumbull; the location of his grave is uknown.
Military service
The Connecticut general assembly named Robert Hawley the Ensign of the North Stratford Train Band or Company of the 4th regiment of the Connecticut Colony milita in October 1765. He was promoted to Lieutenant in October, 1769 and to Captain in May 1773. At a special meeting assembled in North Stratford on November 10, 1777, he was appointed to a committee to provide immediately all those necessaries for the Continental soldiers. On March 12, 1778, the parish of North Stratford made donations of provisions for those residents serving in the southern army stationed at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania under the command of General George Washington. Three Hawley's from North Stratford served in the southern army during the winter of 1778: Abraham, Nathan and Nero. Nero Hawley was a slave owned by the Hawley family who won his freedom after fighting in the American Revolution [1].
References
- Connecticut General Assembly, The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut 1636-1776, Press of the Case Lockwood & Brainard, 1885
- Reverend Samuel Orcutt, History of Old Town of Stratford, Connecticut, Fairfield Historical Society, 1886