Background
Hawley was born on October 31, 1826 in Stewartsville, North Carolina, where Hawley's father, a native of Connecticut, was pastor of a Baptist church.
military officer politician statesman
Hawley was born on October 31, 1826 in Stewartsville, North Carolina, where Hawley's father, a native of Connecticut, was pastor of a Baptist church.
Hawley graduated from Hamilton College in New York in 1847.
Hawley was admitted to the bar in 1850 and practiced law in Hartford, Connecticut for six years. An ardent opponent of slavery, Hawley became a Free Soiler, was a delegate to the National Convention which nominated John Parker Hale for the presidency in 1852, and subsequently served as chairman of the party's State Committee and editor of the party's newspaper, the Charter Oak. In 1856, he took a leading part in organizing the Republican Party in Connecticut, and in 1857 became editor of the Hartford Evening Press, a newly established Republican newspaper. He served in the Federal army throughout the Civil War, rising from the rank of captain (April 22, 1861) to that of brigadier-general of volunteers (September 1864); took part in the Port Royal Expedition, in the capture of Fort Pulaski (April 1862), in the siege of Charleston and the capture of Fort Wagner (Sept. 1863), in the battle of Olustee (February 20, 1864), in the siege operations about Petersburg, and in General W. T. Sherman's campaign in the Carolinas; and in September 1865 received the brevet of major-general of volunteers. From April 1866 to April 1867 he was governor of Connecticut, and in 1867 he bought the Hartford Courant, with which he combined the Press, and which became under his editorship the most influential newspaper in Connecticut and one of the leading Republican papers in the country. He was the permanent chairman of the Republican National Convention in 1868, was a delegate to the conventions of 1872, 1876 and 1880, was a member of Congress from December 1872 until March 1875 and again in 1879-1881, and was a United States senator from 18S1 until the 3rd of March 1905, being one of the Republican leaders both in the House and the Senate. From 1873 to 1876 he was president of the United States Centennial Commission, the great success of the Centennial Exhibition being largely due to him. He died at Washington, D. C. , on the 17th of March 1905.
Member of the U. S. House of Representatives (1872-1875)
Hawley and his wife Harriet Foote Hawley adopted one of her nieces after the girl's parents died; as Margaret Foote Hawley she would go on to achieve some note as a painter of portrait miniatures. Harriet's sister Kate Foote Coe lived with the Hawleys while she was working as a newspaper correspondent in Washington.