The origins of our line of Hawleys were a mystery that frustrated three generations of researchers. Family lore, based on a letter written in 1938 by James M. Chafee of Harvard, New York, held that a Harvey Hawley from Long Island had settled on a farm near Harvard, New York, in about 1783; that he married a widow named Sprague whose husband had been killed by Indians; and that they had a son named Harvey born April 18, 1785. Subsequent research validated the marriage to Mercy (Sprague) Harvey whose husband had in fact been killed by Indians in 1781; but suggested that the first Hawley to settle in Delaware County was named Joseph vice Harvey, that he went by Holloway rather than Hawley, that he came from Pawling in Dutchess County rather than Long Island, and that he arrived in the 1790s rather than in 1783.
The emergence of DNA testing as a tool in genealogical research was the key to solving our family riddle, and making the link to Joseph Holley and Rose Allen. My DNA closely matched that of three other people; David Holley, Richardson Allen and Terry Allen. To my surprise, it was the Allen matches that proved decisive. Richardson Allen reported his earliest known ancestor to be George Allen, who emigrated from England in about 1635 and died in Sandwich, MA, in 1648. I soon discovered that his daughter, Rose Allen, married Joseph Holley. From that modest start, a well documented trail led to Joseph Holway IV and his wife, Hannah Soule, who moved from Dartmouth, MA, to Dutchess County, New York, in about 1740. Although the evidence remains circumstantial, their son, Joseph Holloway, is almost certainly the man who went to Delaware County in the 1790s, and was until recently my earliest known ancestor.
We now have an unbroken family tree that extends back to those early immigrants, Joseph Holley and Rose Allen, as well as to the Mayflower Pilgrim, George Soule. This connection has not yet been recognized by the Society of Mayflower Descendants, but we have sent them our research findings along with proposed revisions to their record on the Soule family; along with our proposed revisions to Frank Doherty's sketch on our family in 'Settlers of the Beekman Patent'. That input is now available here for those interested in a documented version of our family history.