Читать книгу History of Bridgeport and Vicinity, Volume 2: Biographical - George Curtis Waldo jr. - Страница 26

Prominent among the representatives of banking and industrial interests in Bridgeport is F. B. Hawley, the president of the Spring Perch Company and president of the Bridgeport Savings Bank. What he has accomplished represents the fit utilization of his innate powers and talents. A native son of Bridgeport, Mr. Hawley was born in 1838, a son of Captain Bronson Hawley, who was born in Bridgeport in 1800 and was a son of Wilson Hawley, a descendant of Joseph Hawley, who settled in Stratford, Connecticut, in the early part of the seventeenth century. The father of F. B. Hawley was a sea captain.

Reared in his native city, F. B. Hawley has always been identified with its business interests and since the early '60s has been connected with the Spring Perch Company, which was organized in 1847 and incorporated in 1854 by Edward Sterling, J. C. Lewis, Eli Gilbert and Wheeler Beers. The business has been continuously located on John street, although the first location was on the south side of the street. The present plant was begun in the '70s and the building, which is in part three and in part four stories in height, is one hundred and eighty by three hundred feet. The upper floor is occupied by the Trade School. During the early '60s Mr. Hawley purchased an interest in the business and for many years served as its treasurer, but upon the death of Edward Sterling in 1909 he was elected to the presidency and at that time was succeeded in the treasurership by his son, F. S. Hawley, while John C. Hawley became the secretary. The company manufactures leaf springs for automobiles and carriages. These are sold direct to manufacturers all over New England and the middle west. They employ about two hundred people, of whom sixty per cent are skilled workmen. This is one of the carefully systematized and well managed business enterprises of Bridgeport which contribute to the general activity and prosperity of the city. In addition Mr. Hawley has other important business interests. He figures prominently in financial circles, having for several years been president of the Bridgeport Savings Bank. He is the oldest trustee of that institution in point of service as previous to becoming president he had served as vice president. At all times he is recognized as a man of keen sagacity as well as of unfaltering enterprise and energy.

Mr. Hawley was married to Miss Jennie Curtis, a native of Bridgeport and a daughter of John and Susan Curtis, who came to this city at an early day. They became the parents of eight children. The eldest son, Frederick S., born in Bridgeport in 1860, was educated in the public and high schools and afterward spent ten years in Minneapolis in the banking business. Subsequently he returned to Bridgeport and since 1892 has been with the Spring Perch Company, becoming treasurer when his father was chosen president of the company. In 1887 he married Margaret Chalmers, of Minneapolis, and they have three sons : Frederick Bronson, who was graduated from Yale with the class of 1911 and is now a professor in the University School; Edgar M., who is a graduate of the Bridgeport high school and is now with the Bullard Machine Tool Company; and Thomas C, who completed a course in Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, New York, and is now in the engineering department of the Remington Arms Company. Frederick S. Hawley is a well-known and popular member of the Seaside Club. The second of the family, Mrs. Susan (Hawley) Davis, residing on Golden Hill street in Bridgeport, has two children, a son and a daughter. Helen became the wife of Victor S. Curtis, of New Haven, Connecticut, and they have one daughter, who is now attending Vassar College. Frank C, residing in Watertown, South Dakota, is married and has three children. William C, of Bridgeport, conducting business as a member of the firm of Davis & Hawley, is married and has two children. Harriet is the wife of Arthur C. Duncan, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and they have four children. Jennie is the wife of Robert Wheeler, of Bridgeport, and they have two children. John C. is married but has no family. He is secretary of the Spring Perch Company.

The life history of F. B. Hawley contains an interesting military chapter inasmuch as he is a veteran of the Civil war, having served with the Fourteenth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. He participated in many of the hotly contested engagements of that sanguinary struggle and was wounded at Fredericksburg, Virginia. While he joined the army as a private, he became a lieutenant and ever proved a faithful, loyal soldier. In days of peace he has displayed equal allegiance to his country and has stood for those interests and projects which work for American development and higher standards of citizenship. Joining the Masonic fraternity, he has attained the Knight Templar degree in Hamilton Commandery and he has also figured in the social circles of the city as a member of the Seaside Club, the Brooklawn Club and the Country Club. A lifelong resident of Bridgeport, his record is as an open book which all may read, and it is such a record as should stimulate the young who are prompted by laudable ambition and who have regard for those qualities which make for upright character.