GIDEON HAWLEY, carriage manufacturer and grain dealer, Platteville; is one of the earliest settlers in Southwest Wisconsin, his father, Aaron Hawley, was a native of Vermont; he went to Illinois at an early day and from there to Wisconsin in 1827, and settled in what is now Grotiot, La Fayette Co., his family joining him in 1828; he was killed in the Black Hawk war in 1832, and his family returned to Sangamon Co., Ill., near Springfield, where they remained till 1836, and then came back to La Fayette Co., Wis. Gideon Hawley was born in 1822, in Sangamon Co., Ill.; learned the carriage maker's trade in La Fayette Co., Wis., commencing at the age of 18; came to Platteville in the spring of 1846, and has been engaged in carriage making there ever since, except a year on a farm near Platteville, in 1868, he added grain dealing to his other business and still continues it - or rather that part of the business is carried on by his sons under the firm name of T. C. Hawley & Co. Mr. Hawley was married in 1843, in Dubuque, Iowa, to Miss Sarah Y. Clark, of that place, and has had nine children, four of whome are still living - Frank A., Albert C., Theophilus C. and Harry G. Lost five - Newton and Perry (twins), Jessie B. and two died in infancy.

This biography generously submitted by Roxanne Munns.