And 2005 Labor Day Parade Marshal—

Mary Hawley: Benevolent Woman Of Mystery

By Nancy K. Crevier

When the Labor Day Parade rolls down the streets of Newtown this year, the Grand Marshal will be none other than our town’s famous benefactress, Mary Elizabeth Hawley. Portrayed by Beth Cluff in period costume and riding in a carriage, she will put a face on Newtown’s Tercentennial Celebration.

Mary Hawley spent the latter part of her life endowing Newtown with the financial means to beautify and enhance the town. But who was Mary Elizabeth Hawley, and why did she choose to bestow so many gifts upon our town?

Only her birth date, August 22, 1857, and the date of her death, May 11, 1930, can be certain. Her life in between is a hodge-podge of fact and fiction, spiced by a Victorian marriage mystery.

Mary Hawley, the eldest and only surviving child of hardware mogul Marcus C. Hawley and Sarah Booth, spent her early years in Bridgeport before moving with the family to the Booth homestead, now known as The Inn at Newtown, in 1872.

The Hawley family could trace their roots back to the early settlers of the mid-1600s, descending from Joseph Hawley who sailed from England to the new world and settled in Stratford. Her grandfather, Thomas Hawley, was a very successful hardware store entrepreneur, who passed on his knack for meeting needs and seeking opportunities to his son Marcus, Mary Hawley’s father. As a young man, Marcus Hawley was given charge of his father’s San Francisco store, selling equipment and nails to the thousands of miners who traveled to that city seeking their fortunes in gold. Later, the Hawley family opened store branches throughout the nation, and after the death of Thomas Hawley, Marcus invested in railroads, adding even more to his already large fortune.

Sarah Edmond Booth was of the prominent Newtown Booth family, including Cyrenius H. Booth, for whom Newtown’s library is named. Her marriage to Marcus Hawley gave the family a prestigious place in the town.

An Ill-Fated Romance

Being the daughter of such a prominent family, it would seem that Mary Hawley would have been aswirl in social activities. But she was a quiet young lady, somewhat stout and heavy-featured like her father, who had little to do with the social circles of young people in Newtown. She did attend Trinity Episcopal Church regularly with her mother and taught Sunday school there, and it was at Trinity Church that she met the man who would add an ill-fated romantic adventure to her personal life, which was carefully veiled from public view.

The Rev John Adam Crockett was the enthusiastic, popular young interim minister at Trinity Episcopal Church in 1884. He seemed an unlikely match for the shy, not-too-pretty Mary Hawley, yet in the spring of 1885, Rev Crockett, Mary Hawley, and her parents traveled to New York City where the two young people were joined in marriage. The couple left for an extended honeymoon in Europe, and it is here that tales diverge.

That Rev Crockett and Mary Hawley Crockett returned from the voyage separately is not disputed. His version, given years later to a Bridgeport newspaper, states that it was the vituperative nature of his mother-in-law, who had joined them in Italy (some say at Mary’s request), along with Mary’s father, that drove the couple apart. Unable to stand the ill-will generated by Mrs Hawley, the Rev Crockett chose to depart from his ill wife, on what he deemed agreeable and affectionate terms.

Mary Hawley remained in Europe with her parents for several more weeks before returning to the states. She did not file for divorce at the time, but saw her husband only on a couple of occasions, speaking with him only one time that is known.

The Rev Crockett, in some accounts, never held a church position again, and turned to teaching in New Milford and New York, a sad and upset man. In other histories, the minister served as rector for various parishes before being deposed, upon his own request, by the Episcopal Church in 1910. He never had contact with Mary Hawley again, and died in a hospital for the insane in 1911.

Upon her return to Newtown, Mary Hawley stayed mostly out of the public eye and remained silent on the curious, short-lived marriage and breakup. It being the Victorian era, there was some amount of gossip and scandal surrounding her abrupt return.

Her solitary life became even more grim upon the death of her father in 1899, according to historians. Her mother, always known to be thrifty, tightened the purse strings on the several million dollars that she and her daughter now possessed. In Newtown Remembered: an oral history of the 20th century edited by Andrea Zimmermann and Dan Cruson with Mary Maki, Eleanor Mayer recalls Sarah Booth as “tight as bark on a tree.”

The two women lived a frugal life, patching clothes they could easily have replaced, shunning modern home improvements and continuing to travel by horse and buggy. What may have been a mother’s desire to protect her child from rumors was viewed by most as a domineering attitude that kept Mary Hawley a prisoner in her own home.

It was at the time of her father’s death that Mary Hawley finally filed for divorce from Rev John Crockett. Why she waited nearly 15 years to do so is unclear. Her divorce deposition, as uncovered by Dan Cruson, author of Mary Elizabeth Hawley, declared a much different tale of her short marriage than that divulged by her absent husband.

She stated that on the honeymoon her new husband’s attitude quickly turned to one of indifference and cruelty. When she fell ill in Italy, her husband failed to care for her, and in desperation, she wrote her parents, begging them to come to her side. When they arrived, they encountered a husband who was uncooperative with the doctors and who showed no apparent concern for his wife’s health. When doctors suggested that Mary might recover more quickly in the northern part of Italy, her husband refused to accompany them, and told her that if she went, he would have no part of her again. It was hardly the amiable parting Rev Crockett had told the newspaper.

For her health, Mary Hawley decided to go with her parents, ultimately returning to the states and Newtown without her husband.

The court granted her request for divorce based on cruelty and desertion.

A Turn To Philanthropy

By now, she was reaching middle age. She remained an enigma to most in the town. When did her benevolence to Newtown begin?

In 1920, her mother died, and a new era began for the wealthy spinster. At the urging of her friend Arthur Nettleton, a banker, she began to manage her money in the manner that would make her legendary in Newtown.

Modern clothes, a telephone, and an automobile brought her up to fashion, and at Mr Nettleton’s suggestion, she began to look into ways in which her money could enhance her hometown. Her first gift was to the building of a new school to replace the one that had burned down, and which is now known as Hawley School. That school consolidated all of the neighborhood schools in the same building as the high school. Her generous gift was actually turned down initially, as taxpayers were afraid that the cost of coal to heat the building would be unaffordable. She offered to pay for the heating coal, and the building went up.

From there, other philanthropic acts followed, one upon the other. Her funds paid for the renewal and upkeep of the Village Cemetery, ornate gates to the cemetery were installed and an ornate Hawley family monument was built near the entrance.

The Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Main Street exists due to her gift of money, as does the Memorial Bridge near Hawley Pond (which was created through excavation paid for by Mary Hawley), Edmond Town Hall (named after her maternal great-grandfather) and the C.H. Booth Library. Until her death on May 11, 1930, Mary Hawley worked quietly and steadily to leave her family’s mark upon the town.

Her will, published in the May 30, 1930, issue of The Bee, lists many family members, house servants, acquaintances, and organizations that benefited from her endowments. Ranging from $1,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars, each and every one expresses her concern for the others who touched her life, and her wish for their continued success long past her days.

The legacies she left behind are as large as the heart she was finally able to show the community in so many ways, and serve to dispel the curiosity of her early life.