Deacon Thomas Hawley (HR17), son of Samuel, Sr, married widow Joanna Sherwood and daughter of Ephraim Boothe in 1701. They were second cousins. This marriage was erroneously recorded on the town records as 1721, whereas in 1715, Joanna signed a document as the widow of Sherwood and wife of Hawley. In 1712, (vol 11, p.199), Land Records, Joanna styles herself wife of Thomas Hawley. John Sherwood, her first husband, died before 1696, when the inventory of his estate was taken, and as she was in 1701 only twenty three years of age, and was certainly Thomas Hawley’s first wife, the date of marriage was 1701. This is further supported by the 1703 birth of their first child, Ebenezer. They went on to have ten children, three sons and seven daughters.
Thomas Hawley joined the Stratfield, now Bridgeport church, by letter from Stratford in 1699; was chosen Deacon of the same in 1712; died in 1722; and was buried in the Old Stratfield Burying Ground. Like his father, grandfather and brothers, he was a large land holder.
Original Burial Site
Old Stratfield Cemetery
Bridgeport, CT
The remains of Thomas Hawley, who died in his 44th year, were transferred to the Tower Crypt of Bridgeport’s United Congregationalist Church in 1926, along with those of four other local religious leaders of the colonial and early American era. Mr. Hawley had served the community as a Deacon for ten years, from 1712 until his death in 1722.
