The Thomas Hawley House at 514 Purdy Hill Road in
Monroe, Connecticut
Monroe is a town located in eastern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 18,825 at the 2020 census.
Monroe is largely considered a bedroom community of New York City, New Haven, and Bridgeport.
History
On May 15, 1 ...
, is a
historic
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
Colonial American
wooden
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin tha ...
post-and-beam
Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...
saltbox
A saltbox house is a gable-roofed residential structure that is typically two stories in the front and one in the rear. It is a traditional New England style of home, originally timber framed, which takes its name from its resemblance to a woode ...
farm house built in 1730. Hawley was the great grandson of
Joseph Hawley (Captain) of
Stratford, Connecticut, through Samuel. A drawing and description of the house was included in J. Frederick Kelly's book, ''The Early Domestic Architecture of Connecticut'' first published in 1924.
Thomas and Sarah Hawley
The Thomas Hawley house is a rare survivor from the earliest era of Stepney's settlement. It is also a reminder that until the mid-20th century, most residents made their living by farming. Present day Stepney or Monroe, was originally the northern part of Stratford, which had been settled in 1639. In the early 18th century, descendants of Stratford's original settlers, Thomas Hawley among them, carved out farms out of the wilderness. Thomas Hawley was the great grandson of Joseph Hawley, one of the original settlers of Stratford, Connecticut, who purchased most of the present town of Monroe from the Paugusset Indians in 1671. Thomas was born on September 8, 1734, in present-day
Trumbull, Connecticut
Trumbull is a town located in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It borders on the cities of Bridgeport and Shelton and the towns of Stratford, Fairfield, Easton and Monroe. The population was 36,827 during the 2020 census. Trumbul ...
, married Sarah Olcott on November 16, 1760, and raised ten children.
New Stratford
In 1761, 48 men from
North Stratford, including Thomas Hawley, submitted a petition to the Connecticut General Court for permission to form their own religious parish. The nearest meetinghouse, as Congregationalists called their house of worship, was more than three miles (5 km) away. This made it difficult for residents of North Stratford to comply with the Connecticut law requiring everyone to attend all-day worship services on the Sabbath. The Connecticut General Court granted their request, and in 1762 created the New Stratford Ecclesiastical Society. In 1823, this society incorporated as the Town of Monroe.
Building
![Thomas Hawley House Monroe, Connecticut rear view](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Thomas_Hawley_House_Monroe%2C_Connecticut_rear_view.jpg)
The house, a pre-revolutionary saltbox dwelling, is two and one-half stories high and three bays wide with a side gable roof; center entrance, and center fieldstone chimney. Its dimensions are approximately 37 by . The roof pitch is 45 degrees in the main portion, lessening to 30 degrees in the kitchen appendage, a probable indication that this was added at later date. The exterior is clapboard, painted a dark red color. The roof is a natural wood shingle. Window sash is 9-over-6 on the first floor and 6-over-6 on the second, and 9-panel single hung in the attic. None of the early farm outbuildings survive. There are no surface remnants of a barn and slave house mentioned in an early 19th-century estate inventory.
Revolutionary War
Captain Thomas Hawley played a role on the home front in the war for American independence.
CTGENWEB Fairfield County website retrieved on 2009-05-12
/ref> He is believed to have served on the Committee of Inspection appointed in 1776 to “keep watch and ward” in Stratford, of which Monroe was then still part, and which bordered the vulnerable Long Island coast.
Later years
Records show that as late as 1800, two enslaved people lived on the property . Slavery had existed in Connecticut since the 17th century. By 1800 the vast majority of the state's black residents were freed. They had been manumitted (or freed) by their owners, bought their own freedom, or been liberated by a law designed to gradually eliminate slavery in Connecticut. By 1810 Thomas Hawley no longer owned slaves. Thomas Hawley died in 1817 at the age of 83, leaving nearly of land. An inventory of Thomas Hawley's estate at the time of his death shows a house valued at $160.00, a slave house at $10.00, and a barn at $130.00. David Hawley was the beneficiary of his father's estate. His descendants lived in his house for another century. In the 1920s, F. William Behrens, mayor of Bridgeport from 1923 to 1929, purchased the Thomas Hawley house as a summer home.
See also
*
*Ephraim Hawley House
The Ephraim Hawley House is a privately owned Colonial American wooden post-and-beam timber-frame saltbox house situated on the ''Farm Highway'', Route 108, on the south side of ''Mischa Hill'', in Nichols, a village located within Trumbull, C ...
References
External links
Hawley Society official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawley, Thomas, House
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut
Houses completed in 1755
Houses in Fairfield County, Connecticut
Monroe, Connecticut
National Register of Historic Places in Fairfield County, Connecticut
Buildings and structures in Monroe, Connecticut