USA > Connecticut > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 11
USA > Rhode Island > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 11
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Mr. Jewell having business connections in the Provinces, earnestly desired to
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bring the two countries into eloser relations, and accordingly, with the consent of the President, he obtained an interview with the Hon. George Brown of Toronto, who laid before the Postmaster-General of Canada, Mr. Jewell's plan of uniting the two countries on a common postal system, and on Christmas Day of 1875 he had the pleasure of presenting this privilege to the people of the United States and Canada.
On the 18th of July, 1876, Governor Jewell returned to private life, and has sinee devoted his energies to the business undertakings of P. Jewell & Sons. His past publie serviees refleet unblemished honor on his private relations; for they were rendered in the spirit of unselfish patriotism, and with pure desire for the promotion of the general welfare. The citizens of Hartford expressed the national estimate of his abilities and worth in the rejoieings with which they weleomed his return. Illuminations, military displays at publie receptions, and congratulatory ad- dresses of welcome are all of (intrinsic value when they represent, as in Governor Jewell's ease, the opinions and affections that have come to maturity in presenee of a noble and patriotie eareer.
In the Presidential campaign of 1880 Mr. Jewell was again ealled upon by his party, and was chosen chairman of the Republican National Committee.
On the 6th of October, 1852, Mr. Jewell was united in marriage with Esther, daughter of William Dickinson, Esq., of Newburgh, N. Y. Two daughters are the issue of the union. The eldest studied at Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and is now the wife of Arthur M., youngest son of William E. Dodge of New York. The youngest, Florence W., married W. H. Strong of Detroit, Mieh.
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AWLEY, JOSEPH R., of Hartford, ex-Governor of Connecticut. Born at Stewartsville, Richmond Co., North Carolina. The Rev. Francis Hawley, his { father, is a native of Farmington, Conn., and a descendant of one of the early settlers of the State. His mother, née Mary McLeod, was born at Fayetteville, N. C., and is descended from Scotch ancestry. The McLcods, from time immemorial, have been one of the most powerful and war- like clans in the west of Scotland. Rev. Francis Hawley removed to the South at the age of twenty-one, and entered into mercantile business. He then married, devoted himself to the work of the Christian ministry, and after fourteen years of residence and labor in North and South Carolina, returned to his native State in November, 1837.
The primary scholastic education of young Hawley began in the district school, was continued in the Hartford Grammar School, and, on the removal of the family to Cazenovia, N. Y., in 1842, in the Oneida Conference Seminary at that place. Matriculating at Hamilton College, N. Y., in 1844, he entered thc Sophomore class, and graduated with honors in 1847. As a linguist and orator he excelled. Politics naturally attracted him; and the wide range of miscellaneous reading in which he delighted supplied him with illustrative material in the debates to which he was an efficient party. Physical exercises and amusements contributed to superb physical development, and thus aided to prepare him for the influential part he was destined to play in the great drama of national life. By the students he was unanimously elected the valedictorian of one of the two literary societies into which the college was divided-namely, the Union. This was the highest honor within their power to bestow. Subsequent to graduation, like William H.
Seward and other historic politicians, hc taught school. While thus engaged he also studied law, and in May, 1849, entered the office of John Hooker, Esq., of Farmington, with whom he contracted partnership, and on September Ist, 1850, opened a law office at Hartford under the style and title of Hooker & Hawley.
Mr. Hawley's entrance upon public life was marked by pronounced identifi- cation with the Free-Soil party. The Carolinas have given birth to some of the most intelligent and resolute antagonists of American slavery, and among the most ardent of these he was numbered, and that from his carliest years. In the begin- ning of 1851 he was chosen the chairman of the Free-Soil State Committee, and held that position until those who thought and acted with him in relation to national polity were blended, together with himself, in the Republican party. Active agitators necessarily use the newspaper press in pressing beneficent reforms, and Mr. Hawley, in harmony with the general law, became a frequent contributor to the Republican, the weekly organ of the Free-Soilers, and which was afterward con-
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solidated with the Press. With many irons in the fire, the young lawyer knew how to keep each, and especially the principal one, from burning. The law busi- ness of Hooker & Hawley waxed large and lucrative. He, himself, was one of the most active participants in the organization of the Republican party in 1854-5; and, for several months in 1856, did excellent service in the portentous political campaign of that year.
Politics, rather than law, was evidently the sphere to which he was best fitted ; and, in February, 1857, together with William Faxon, under the firm title of Hawley & Faxon, he purchased the Hartford Evening Press, a daily, and also the Connecticut Press, a weekly newspaper, which had enjoyed a brief existence of twelve months as the exponents of the principles and policy of Republicanism. The practice of law was then definitively relinquishcd. Within the two following years he invited Charles Dudley Warner, of Chicago, and four years after that, Stephen A. Hubbard of West Winsted, to associate themselves with him in the enterprise of editing and publishing his recent purchases. The invitation was accepted, and the connection has lasted to the present. Three years of hard labor were needful to put the Press on a paying basis, and sufficed to accomplish that object. His partner, Mr. Faxon, left the paper' for the office of chief clerk in the Navy Department, in which he rendered eight years of useful and honorable service-part of the time as Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
Events moved with gigantic step and bewildering speed, and brought the Republic to a dangerous crisis in April, 1861. The hands of slavery and secession bombarded Fort Sumter, and supplanted the Stars and Stripes by the Palmetto flag. The spirit of nationality at once caught fire, and burned in cvery loyal heart with intense and consuming glow. . President Lincoln felt that he could rely upon its help. His call for 75,000 troops reached Hartford on Monday, the 13th inst. Mr. Hawley, in conjunction with Mr. Drake, promptly raiscd a military company, and purchased rifles for them on his own responsibility, at Sharp's factory. George S. Burnham was offered the command, and accepted it; but, being promoted to the colonelcy, left the way open for the election of Mr. Hawley, who thus became captain of Rifle Company A, First Regiment Connecticut Volunteers. It was the first organization of the kind that was completed in the State, and was accepted -fully enrolled-on Thursday evening, April 16th. In company with his regiment Captain Hawley proceeded to Washington, entered Virginia in May, and bore his part in the engagement at Bull Run on the 21st of July. The battle was fiercely contested, and but for the opportune arrival of the rebel general, Kirby Smith, would unquestionably have been as conclusive a victory as it proved to be a defeat to the Union army. Human valor, undisciplined as it was, could not achieve more than it
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did on that disastrous day. Captain Hawley then won his first military laurels, and was honorably mentioned in the report of his brigade commander, General Keyes. His three months' service expired on the day of the conflict. He was then ap- pointed major by Governor Buckingham, and assigned to duty in charge of recruits at Hartford. There he and Colonel Alfred H. Terry-now Brigadier-General United States army-united in raising the Seventh Connecticut Volunteers, of whom he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel.
The Seventh Connecticut was mustered into service September 19th, 1861, ordered to Washington, and incorporated with the Port Royal expedition, under command of General T. W. Sherman. It was the first to land at Port Royal after its capture by the navy, November 10th, and had been selected to lead the assault, if assault should be necessary. In December, connected with the 48th New York, on Tybee Island, it united in the siege of Fort Pulaski. On April 10th and 11th, 1862, during the bombardment, Lieutenant-Colonel Hawley was field-officer . of the trenches and with his regiment gained the honor of being assigned to the occupancy of the surrendered fort, which they entered immediately. On Colonel Terry's promotion to the rank of brigadier, Lieutenant-Colonel Hawley succeeded to the command, and asked that his regiment might share in Benham's expedition against Charleston. It left Pulaski about May 30th, fought valiantly in the sangui- nary combat at Secessionville, June 16th, and received high praise for bravery. A few days afterward its leader received his merited commission as colonel, and for two years next ensuing took part in most of the active operations in the department of the South. He was participant in the battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina, October 20th, 1862, the capturc of Jacksonville, and the fortifications on the St. John's River, in Florida. In February, 1863, hc was assigned to the command of Fernandina, Florida, and the region contiguous. In April he was in command of Port Royal, the base of supply during the iron-clad attack on Fort Sumter. Next, he was ordered to the command of St. Augustinc and vicinity. In leading the landing on Morris Island, and in the assault on Fort Wagner, August 16th, 1863, four companies of his regiment suffered so severely that he asked and received permission of Gencral Gillmorc to rejoin it, and did so at oncc. The Seventh Connecticut sustained a conspicuous part in the siege. Captain Gray had charge of the three-hundred-pounder Parrott gun; other members of the regiment manipulated the light mortars, and others prepared ammunition at the magazines. Toward the close, Colonel Hawley was placed in charge of a brigade. When Forts Wagner and Gregg had surrendered, and Morris Island was wholly in possession of the Union forces, the regiment was ordered to St. Helena Island, and there vigorously practised battalion drill in small boats, with a view to night assault upon Fort Sumter. The undertaking was not
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attempted, although the men lay for ten days, in October, on Folly Island, expecting nightly to receive orders to that end.
Returning to St. Helena, the regiment next joined the Florida expedition under General Truman Seymour. Colonel Hawley commanded a brigade consisting of the Seventh Connecticut, Third and Seventh New Hampshire, and Eighth United States colored troops. The Seventh led the assault in the battle of Olustec, February 20th, 1864, and also covered the retreat as skirmishers. Few, if any, engagements in the civil war were more stubbornly contested, or more destructive to the combatants. Out of nearly 5000 Union soldiers, about 1900 were killed, wounded, and captured. Of the captured the unwounded were comparatively few. Retreating on Jacksonville, General Seymour immediately fortified that post, and thence forwarded a warm recommenda- tion that Colonel Hawley be promoted for gallant and meritorious service at Olustee.
In April following the Seventh Connecticut was ordered to Virginia, and in that State, at Gloucester, Colonel Hawley was assigned to the second brigade in the First Division (Terry's) in the Tenth Corps, under Gillmore, in Butler's Army of the James. There, says the Souvenir of the Centennial : " In May all the armies moved ; Hawley was in the landing upon Bermuda Hundred, the heavy battle of Drury's Bluff, the battles in May and June around Bermuda Hundred, the movement against Petersburg under Gillmore in June, the Deep Bottom and Deep Run (or Fuessell's Mill) battles of August 14th and 16th, after which Generals Terry, D. B. Berry, and B. F. Butler recommended his promotion. Thence his command was sent to the trenches in front of Petersburg. His troops were about a month opposite the famous mine, very close to the enemy's lines, and incessantly engaged in picket- firing and fortifying." About the 12th of September he left the army for Connecticut, in order to superintend the return, paying off, and discharge of the three years' men of the Sixth and Seventh Regiments, whose terms of service were about to expire. While in New Haven he received his hardly earned promotion. Reaching camp in Virginia after midnight of October 12th, he was actively engaged by sunrise of the 13th in the battle on the Derby road to Richmond, north of the James.
In the engagement of October 27th, on the Newmarket road, he commanded Birney's division of colored troops, to which he had been temporarily assigned. Immediately afterward he was detailed to take 3000 picked men and proceed to New York, in order to keep the peace during the Presidential election. The command of the troops in the forts at the Narrows, and on ferry-boats around the city, devolved on General Hawley ; while General B. F. Butler, who was in supreme command, remained in the city. In December, General Terry, who had received orders to take Fort Fisher, turned over the command of his division to Hawley, who then held the extreme right of the whole army from Deep Bottom and Newmarket
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heights to a point near Fort Harrison. Relieved by the return of a superior officer, he sought and obtained orders to join his own brigade at Fort Fisher. General Terry . welcomed his old friend, and appointed him chief of staff of the reorganized Tenth Corps. On February 22d, 1864, in conjunction with General Schofield, the forces captured Wilmington. The fire of the discomfited rebels, as they were chased from the town, were the last hostile shots he heard in the war.
Assigned by General Schofield to the command of Wilmington, he found a new elass of duties added to those of ordinary military authority. The city was crowded with refugees, of whom 15,000 were dependent on him for food. The political and social reconstruction of his native State also occupied somewhat of his thought. In March, he received from the rebels about 10,000 Union prisoners from Andersonville, Macon, Salisbury, etc. Over 3000 of them were sick. Epidemic typhus broke out among them and the refugees, but was opposed and overcome in the use of wise sanitary measures. In July, 1865, his work in Wilmington completed, General Hawley accepted an invitation from Terry to become his chief of staff at Richmond, in which he occupied the former mansion of Jefferson Davis. The position was one in which all his knowledge of eivil and military law was called into earnest exercise. Grave complications were of constant occurrence. The department was under military law. Terry and Hawley exerted themselves successfully to maintain the rights of all parties, and to reconcile the contending claims of discordant classes. The distinguished merits of General Hawley were recognized in October by the brevet of major-general, conferred for gallant and meritorious services throughout the rebellion. With final leave of absence, he returned in the same month to Hartford, but was not discharged from service until January 15th, 1866.
Within the thirtcen years that followed, the country has heard much of the Confederate brigadiers in Congress, and of the efforts to regain by subtle diplomacy that supremacy in the couneils of the nation that was forfeited by rebellion in the field. It is matter of congratulation that Connecticut has been wise enough to imitate the example of Southern States and to send one of her own best and bravest brigadiers, in the person of General Hawley, to the halls of legislation at Washington. Not at once, however, was this desirable consummation reached. More immediate domestic honors were first awarded. He was nominated for the chief magistracy of the State by the Republicans, was elected over the Democratie candidate, James E. English, and served from May, 1866, to May, 1867, with acceptance and success. Mr. English was then chosen as his successor, and Governor Hawley declined further candidacy. Private affairs elaimed his energies. He effeeted the consolidation of the Press and the Courant; and, adding W. H. Goodrich to his active partners, has published the Courant sinee 1866. Politician and statesman, in the true sense of
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the words, General Hawley has been a prolific writer and potent speaker in cach annual State campaign, and not unfrequently in the campaigns of sister States. In Presidential canvasses he has always been a prominent and effective actor, and has acted as delegate or alternate delegate to the national conventions of his own party for many years. In 1864 he attended the Baltimore Convention, and in 1868 was nominated in caucus for the United States Senate. Thc "good war Governor," Buckingham, however, obtained the honor, and with the sincere and glad concurrenec of his patriotic competitor. General Hawley was president of the National Republican Convention at Chicago, which nominated General Grant for the Presidency, and in his opening address gave utterance to wise sentiments in favor of sound financial measures. Of two or three State conventions he has also becn the presiding officer. In 1872, he was secretary of the Committee on Rcsolutions in the Philadelphia Convention, and was chairman of a similar committee in the Cincinnati Convention of 1876. Here, as in a similar committee of the Free-Soil National Convention of 1852, he had, and improved the opportunity of assisting to shape and direct the national polity. In 1872, hc received the Republican nomination for the United States Senate, but was defeatcd in the clection by the defection of dissentients, who united with the Democrats and re-elected the Hon. O. S. Ferry. In September of the same year, he defeated W. W. Eaton in the contest for the vacancy in the First Congressional District, occasioned by the death of Hon. J. L. Strong, and was re-elected in the spring of 1873. During his three years' service he was a member of the Committees on Claims, Centennial Commission, Military Affairs, and Currency and Banking.
When the U. S. Centennial Commission was organized, in May, 1872, he was elected president, and was subsequently re-elected annually. He had intelligent faith in the usefulness and success of a national industrial exhibition, if properly managed, and hold that as the National Government had directed its construction, it should also contribute to the cost. The financial crisis of 1873 seriously interfered with all plans. Application was made to Congress for a grant of three million dol- lars in aid, and General Hawley, as a member of the House, forcibly advocated a favorable response. The bill failed at the time, but in the winter of 1875-6 Congress loaned the Centennial Board of Finance a million and a half, which proved to be sufficient-thanks to the able aud judicious manner in which the affairs of the Exhibition were administered. In the spring of 1876, the Centennial Commission unanimously requested him to go to Philadelphia, and devote his whole time to the interests of the Great Exhibition. He did so, and in co-operation with Director- General Goshorn, Secretary Campbell, and Finance-President Welsh, of the Centennial Commission, remained on the spot until January ist, 1877-two months after the
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elose of the most brilliant and imposing international industrial exhibition yet held in the interests of human progress and welfare. At a publie meeting in Steinway Hall, New York, December, 1876 General Hawley epitomized the opinions of foreign master mechanies on the mechanical and textile fabries of the United States. In the manufacture of silk, machinery, sewing-machines, and firearms they acknowledged our excellence. " In printing-presses Ameriea leads the way. As makers of paper, scales, etc., Ameriea also stands at the head. Our woollens, hardwares, silks, marbles, and mantels were among the best. Our pianos were the best in the world. One of the finest exhibits given (and the one most worthy of profound study) was that of the American people themselves. I have seen a large number of the 8,000,000 who came into these grounds, and I never saw an intoxicated man; I never saw a quarrel or excited seene among all that multitude." In Connecticut itself, Governor Hawley was intimately and influentially identified with all the State arrangements in relation to the Centennial Exhibition, addressed an informal meeting of the Legislature in behalf of its aid, and had the satisfaction of seeing his State contribute in due proportion to the enterprise, and reap the profit. of extensive advertisement and enlarged sale of its productions. The unexpended balance of $3500 from Connectieut's appropriation to the Centennial was devoted by aet of the Legislature, in 1877, toward the display of the State's manufactures at the great International Exhibition at Paris in 1878; and General Hawley was made an ex-officio member of the Board of Managers to whom the expenditure was intrusted.
General Hawley is again a member of the National House of Representatives, having been elected from the First Congressional Distriet of Conneetieut in 1878. In January, 1881, he was the unanimous choice of his party for the U. S. Senator- ship, and was elected to succeed Senator Eaton, whose term expires in March, 1881. For him it is a fitting field of patriotie and world-wide usefulness, and few, if any, cultivators within it are better qualified for wise, powerful, and far-reaching aetion. At a large politieal meeting held in the Opera House at Elmira, in the fall of 1879, he was introduced as the orator of the evening by the celebrated humorist, Samuel L. Clemens, better known as " Mark Twain." The introductory speceh was as truly characteristic of the introduced as of the introdueer, who said: " General Hawley keeps his promises, not only in private but in publie. He is an editor who believes what he writes in his own paper. He is a square, true, honest man in polities. . . . He has never shirked a duty or backed down from any position taken in publie life. He has been right every time, and stood there. As Gov- ernor, Congressman, as a soldier, as the head of the Centennial Commission, which increased our trade in every port and pushed Ameriean production into all the known world, he has conferred honor and credit upon the United States. He is an
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American of Americans. His public trusts have been many, and never in the slightest did he prove unfaithful. Purc, honest, incorruptible-that is Joseph R. Hawley."
OLLEY, ALEXANDER HAMILTON, of Salisbury, ex-Governor of Con- necticut. Born in Salisbury, Litchfield County, August 12th, 1804. His father, John M. Holley, was born in the same town, September 7th, 1777, and was a successful merchant and manufacturer of iron.
The Holley family is of English origin. Numerous branches of the primitive stock flourish in Great Britain, her colonies, and in the United States, under the diverse but kindred names of Holly, Hawley, Halley, and Holley. Old English title-deeds reveal this diversity of orthography in the patronymic of lineal members of the same family. The first one of the name, ancestrally connected with Governor Holley, of whom certain knowledge is possessed, was Luther Holley, who was born in Sharon, Conn., on the 12th of June, 1751; and who, on attaining his majority, removed to Dover, Dutchess County, New York, in which he spent several years of his carly manhood. During his residence in that place, he represented the Assembly District in the Legislature of the State, in the year 1798. Soon after that he became a permanent resident of Salisbury, Conn., in which he spent the remainder of his life, and in which he died in 1826. He carried on the combined business of a general country merchant and of a manufacturer of iron-the ore being taken from the celebrated hematite deposits in the western section of the town. Previous to his death, he relinquished the mercantile and manufacturing departments of his affairs to his son, John M. Holley, and retired to his pleasant farm on the shores of Lake Wononscopomuc, or the Round Pond, one of the many charmingly beautiful lakes which adorn that picturesque portion of the State. There, in comparative retirement, he indulged his taste for literature, and agricultural pursuits, and enjoyed the profound respect of his fellow-citizens. He represented the town in three sessions of the General Assembly, and filled minor local offices with efficiency and general acceptance.
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