The commissioners of the Society for propagating the gospel appointed him pastor of the Indian tribes at Mashpee, Massachusetts, where he was installed in April 1758 and remained as a missionary until his death in 1807. Reverend Timothy Dwight IV Timothy Dwight IV in his Travels in New England and New York, writes about his visit with Hawley on October 2, 1800 and his correspondence with him afterward. Dwight wrote that after dinner he went to Hawley's house to visit and had an interview, "more interesting than words can describe" with Hawley. Dwight had not seen Hawley since he was a young man of eighteen. Dwight writes; "this gentleman was a most intimate friend of my parents. From his youth he had sustained as amiable and unexceptionable a character as can perhaps be found among uninspired men". During this visit in 1800, Gideon's son James was on his death bed. Hawley wrote to Dwight on April 29, 1801 to tell him of the death of his son James, eight days after his visit. He wrote to Dwight again on September 21, 1802 and both letters are published in Dwight's work, published posthumously in London in 1823. His gravestone reads: Gideon Hawley 1807 In memory of Rev Gideon Hawley who was born at Stratford, Connecticut, Nov 5 O S 1727 graduated at Yale College 1749 ordained in Boston July 31, 1754 a missionary to the Indians at Onohaguage or the Six Nations installed at Mashpee April 10, 1758 died Oct'r 3 1807 AEt 80 There the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest See also Gideon Hawley House References Congregational Library: Gideon Hawley (1727 - 1807) Halsey, The Old New York Frontier, Pt. 2, Ch. 3, Gideon Hawley's Coming Reverend Samuel Orcutt, History of the Old Town of Stratford, Connecticut, Fairfield Historical Society, 1886 Elias Sill Hawley, The Hawley Record, Press of E. H. Hutchinson & Co., Buffalo, NY, 1890 Franklin Bowditch Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1896 Timothy Dwight, Travels in New England and New York, William Baynes and Son, London, 1823 William Richard Cutter, New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial, Lewis Historical Publishing, NY, 1914 External links The Society of the Hawley Family, Inc. official website 1727 births 1807 deaths People from Stockbridge, Massachusetts American Protestant missionaries Protestant missionaries in the United States American Christian clergy