Elias S. Hawley, the son of Seth and Susan (Sill) Hawley, was born in Moreau, Saratoga County, New York. Elias attended district school winters and worked on the farm most of the time summers until he was 15 years of age. He was fitted for college at Cambridge Academy, Washington County, New York, then in charge of Rev. Nathaniel Scudder Prime, D.D., son of S. Irenceus Prime, being his mate during this time. Elias S. Hawley is the author of The Hawley Record.

He graduated at Union College, Schenectady, New York in 1833, third on the roll of merit in a class of eighty students. After teaching some time in Weston Academy, Connecticut, and at Glen’s Falls, New York, he removed to Buffalo, New York in the autumn of 1836, and formed a co-partnership with the Rev. Philos G. Cook in a private school; and when the public schools of the city were first made free, in 1838, he was appointed teacher for No. 8, the first school opened under the new system, where he remained until his health failed from overwork, when he entered the office of Barker & Hawley for the study of the law, and after three years was admitted at New York city to practice in the Supreme Court of the State; and the next year he was admitted at Saratoga Springs, at the office of Chancellor Walworth, to the old Court of Chancery.

After practicing a short time in partnership with Jesse Walker, afterwards Judge of the Erie County Court, he abandoned his profession and engaged in other occupations.

He was Superintendent of the public schools in Buffalo, in 1844, 1846 and 1847; was alderman of the city in 1867 and 1868, during which term he was largely instrumental in securing the land now owned as the City Park of Buffalo.

He was for twenty-three years Superintendent of the extensive Iron Works and Blast Furnaces at Black Rock, now Buffalo; and in 1883 was a member of the State Assembly. For a number of years he has been in charge of large real estate interests, and is now Secretary and Treasurer of the Buffalo State Insane Asylum. He was a member of and Director in the Buffalo Historical Society; a life member of the Buffalo Library Association; a member of the Y.M.C. Association; of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin; of the New-England Historic Genealogical Society, and of the Buffalo Republican League.