Biography
He was born in the Stratfield section of Stratford, now Bridgeport, Connecticut, in New England on November 5, 1727. The son of Gideon Hawley and Hannah Bennett who was the daughter of Lieutenant James Bennett. Hawley's mother died at his birth and his father died three years later. He was the grandson of Ephraim and Sarah (Welles) Hawley from Trumbull. He was the great grandson of Joseph Hawley (Captain), first of the Hawley name to come to America in 1629, and was twice great grandson of Thomas Welles Governor of the Colony of Connecticut. He married Lucy Fessenden, second daughter of Reverend Benjamin Fessenden (Harvard 1718) and Rebecca (Smith) Fessenden, of Sandwich. They had three sons and two daughter's. Lucy died December 25, 1777 at 50. Gideon married again to Mrs. Elizabeth Burchard, widow of Captain David Burchard of Nantucket, on October 7, 1778.
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“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
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