Norfolk County MA Archives Biographies.....Hawes, Joel 1789 - 1867
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Author: E. O. Jameson (1886)

REV. JOEL HAWES, D. D.

JOEL HAWES, son of Ichabod and Keziah (Mann) Hawes, was born Dec. 22, 1789, in
the old Barber house, on Village Street, which occupied the site of the late
residence of William H. Cary, Esq. The house is now owned by Mr. William B.
Hodges. The ancestors of Dr. Joel Hawes were among the early settlers of New
England. They came from Lincolnshire, England, and settled in that part of
Dedham which in 1673 became Wrentham, Mass. The Medway branch of the family came
from Brookfield, Mass. The Rev. Dr. Hawes had a brother, Lewis Hawes, who lived
and died upon the place now owned by Mr. Chadwick, on Village Street. He says of
himself: "I was a wild, heady, reckless youth, delighting in hunting, fishing,
trapping, and in rough athletic sports, which tended to invigorate my
constitution, but added nothing to my mental or moral improvement." At the age
of fourteen, his father returned to Brookfield. Here Joel had still fewer
advantages for improvement, living three and a half miles from church and two
from any school. He went in a few years to visit two uncles and seek his fortune
in Vermont. He there learned the cloth dressing trade, and in 1806 he came back
to Medway and was employed by Mr. George Barber, who had purchased the old
homestead and was a clothier. He says he was here brought into bad company and
spent much time in dissipation and card playing. He was, however, ambitious to
earn money, and chopped wood by moonlight to increase his little store. He
attended church for the first time in two years. The thought that he had
desecrated the Sabbath awakened by that Sunday service, "pierced him like an
arrow of the Almighty that drinketh up the spirit." Among his associates in
Medway was Cyrus Kingsbury, afterward a missionary to the Choctaws, who was
learning the cabinet maker's trade of Maj. Luther Metcalf. Young Kingsbury,
while mowing on the Fairbanks lot, started a rabbit and rushing to catch him
came in contact with his scythe and cut a main artery in one leg so that he came
near bleeding to death. Hawes watched with him, and his pious resignation and
conversation is supposed to have confirmed him in his purpose of a new life. He
entered Brown University in 1809, and in 1810 taught school in Medway, at
eighteen dollars per month. He kept a diary, and he writes Jan. 5, 1811: "Dined
with Esquire Sanford by invitation and was very liberally received by him and
Mrs. Sanford." He writes out in full the cards of invitation received and sent,
which, though agreeable to fashion, were evidently not to his taste as he
disliked all mere conventionalisms, as he then regarded them. He taught the next
winter, and says his "residence in Medway has been pleasant and in many respects
profitable." He was here in the midst of the great excitement occasioned by the
introduction of cotton spinning and its attendant industries and he says, "the
people are apparently in the very last stages of the hectic of avarice. They are
rapidly increasing wealth and as rapidly do they grow in the love of it." He
graduated in 1813 from Brown University, Rhode Island, studied theology in
Andover, was duly licensed, supplied the pulpits in Newburyport, was afterwards
called and ordained, March 4, 1818, pastor of the First Church in Hartford,
Conn. He married, June 17, 1818, Miss Louisa Fisher, daughter of William C. and
Lois (Mason) Fisher, of Wrentham, who, upon her mother's side, was a descendant
in direct line from John Mason, who came in the May Flower in 1620, from
England. Dr. Hawes' pastorate continued forty-four years from 1818 to 1862, and
added to his church 1,681 persons. Among them were thirty-seven candidates for
the Christian ministry, seven of whom became missionaries, who with other lay
workers from the church numbered in all thirty-five. The number of his printed
publications were fifty-one. The other Congregational churches in Hartford were
largely composed of colonists from his own. Whether Dr. Hawes was a great man or
not is a question which some answer in one way and some in another. He made good
proof of his ministry; was always a power in Hartford and accomplished great
results, and has gone to his reward. He was always interested in Medway Village,
and was much pleased to be invited to preach the sermon at the dedication of the
Village Church, June 15, 1838. He remarked "that looking upon the hills over the
river he was reminded of the wildness and wickedness of his youth." He was the
reckless son of a rough, intemperate man. The Rev. Dr. Hawes continued pastor of
the First Church in Hartford, Conn., until his death, which occurred June 5,
1867, in Gilead, Conn. His monument, a horizontal sarcophagus facing the east
and overlooking the city of Hartford, in Cedar Hill Cemetery, is inscribed as
follows:

"REV. JOEL HAWES, D. D., 
TENTH PASTOR OF THE CHURCH AND FIRST ECCLESIASTICAL SOCIETY OF HARTFORD.
Born at Medway, Mass., Dec. 22, 1789. 
Died at Gilead, Conn., Junes, 1867."

   The most enduring inscription is in the traditions and upon the very hearts
of the people of Hartford. Drs. Hawes and Bushnell were twin pillars upon which
rested, for a generation, the religious life of Hartford.


Additional Comments:
THE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PROMINENT PERSONS,
AND
The Genealogical Records
OF
MANY EARLY AND OTHER FAMILIES
IN
MEDWAY, MASS. 1713-1886.
Illustrated
WITH NUMEROUS STEEL AND WOOD ENGRAVINGS.
BY
E. O. JAMESON,
THE AUTHOR OK "THE COGSWELLS IN AMERICA," "THE HISTORY OF MEDWAY, MASS." ETC.
MILLIS, MASS. 1886.

Copyright, 1886.
E. O. JAMESON, MILLIS, MASS.
All Rights Reserved.

J. A. & R. A. REID, PRINTERS, PROVIDENCE, R. I.


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