Jerome Hawley’s personal seal on a document in the British National Archives dated 1636.
Jerome Hawley (1590-1638)
Jerome Hawley voyaged to Maryland aboard the Ark in 1633. He was a merchant from a wealthy English family. Some of his family had already settled in Virginia and other parts of the New World. Hawley’s older brother was the governor of the English colony on Barbados.
Like many of Maryland’s early investors, Hawley Jerome was a Roman Catholic, a faith shared with Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore. As one of the investors in the Maryland colony, Hawley contributed money to help fund the voyage of the Ark and the Dove. Hawley and his wife, Eleanor, hoped their religious beliefs would be tolerated in the new colony of Maryland.
In 1635, Hawley returned to England. There he and John Lewger published a booklet called A Relation of Maryland. They wrote this booklet to encourage other English families to come and settle in Maryland. The book describes how the colonists lived. It also tells about the friendship between the English and Native Americans in Maryland.
While Hawley was in England, he asked King Charles I for a position in Virginia’s colonial government. The king made him a councilor and treasurer of Virginia. Hawley also served in Queen Henrietta Maria's household. He died in 1638 with many debts from his investments in the English colonies.
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Sources:
Hawley, J., & Lewger, J. (1910). A relation of Maryland (1635). In C. C. Hall (Ed.), Narratives of early Maryland, 1633–1684 (pp. 63–112). Charles Scribner's Sons.