Desk of Major Joseph Hawley

Joseph Hawley (1723-1788) was the third generation of the Hawley family to reside in Northampton, the son of the second Joseph Hawley and the maternal grandson of Rev. Solomon Stoddard. He was also the first cousin of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, with whom he strongly disagreed. Later, he would spend the rest of his life apologizing to Edwards.

Hawley studied at Yale and at Harvard, becoming both a preacher and a lawyer - though he "never would take a fee...from a widow or orphan." He is best remembered for his work in the Massachusetts General Court in the 1760's and 1770's, where he and Samuel Adams led the fight against the Stamp Act. Encouraging John Adams to carry on the Revolutionary cause, he wrote: "Fight we must finally, unless Britain retreats." When Adams showed theses words to Patrick Henry, the Virginian exclaimed: "By God, I am of that man's mind!"

Hawley and his wife had no children. He left a thousand acres of land (including his own family homestead on Hawley Street) to the town of Northampton, with the income derived to be used forever to support its schools. His desk went to his adopted son, Joseph Clarke, who passed it on to his granddaughters, Misses Annie B. and Julia C. Clarke. They, in turn, allowed Miss Mary K. Brewster to have lifetime use of it. At the time of her death in 1958, the desk came to its final resting place at the Forbes.