Nevada Genealogy Trails White Pine County Hon. Thomas P. Hawley Biography

HON. THOMAS PORTER HAWLEY. United States district judge of the district of Nevada, and since 1895 designated by the circuit judges to attend the sessions of the circuit court of appeals at San Francisco, has been a resident of the state since 1868. He is a native of Ripley county, Indiana, having been born near Milan, on July 18, 1830. He comes of English ancestors who settled in Connecticut and Massachusetts at an early day. His father. Ebenezer Sanford Hawley, was born in Connecticut in 1803. He married Eliza Porter Stevenson, a native of Kentucky, and five children were born to them.

Judge Hawley, the second in order of birth in the family, was reared and educated in his native state. In 1852 he crossed the plains to California. He arrived in Upper Hangtown, now Placerville, and remained in Eldorado county until June 1, 1853. in which year he located in Nevada county. From 1852 to 1855 he engaged in mining. He lived in Nevada county from 1853 to 1868, and during 1855-56 he served as county clerk. He was admitted to the bar in Nevada county in January, 1857, and in 1859 was admitted to the bar of the supreme court. He was elected district attorney of Nevada county in 1863.

In 1868 he settled in White Pine county, Nevada, and practiced his profession until the fall of 1872, when he was elected justice of the supreme court of the state; was re-elected, and served three successive terms, eighteen years in all, lacking three months. In September, 1890. he was appointed by President Harrison to his present high judicial office. November 15, 1858, Judge Hawley was married to Miss Eudora Murrell, a native of Mississippi. Three children were born of this union, namely: Ernest, now residing in San Francisco; Lilian, the wife of Joseph L. Trainor, of Santa Barbara, California; and Jessie, who died at the age of twenty-two years. Mrs. Hawley died in 1891, aged fifty-one years. Her death was deeply felt not only by her own family, but by many friends, who loved her for the Christian, kindly virtues she always displayed.

Judge Hawley is one of the old Masons of the state, and the date of his entrance into the order was in July, 1851, at Milan, Indiana. In 1856 he received the Royal Arch degree, and became a Knight Templar in 1858. He was master of Nevada Lodge, in Nevada City, for three years, and was for three years high priest of Nevada Chapter, and for two years was high priest of the chapter at Hamilton, Nevada. For five years he was prelate of the Nevada Commandery. Nevada has no better representative of the highest elements of learning and ability on both the bench and the bar than in the person of Judge Hawley.

Source:
A History of the State of Nevada: Its Resources and People
By Thomas Wren, Lewis Publishing Company
Published by The Lewis publishing company, 1904