Josiah Johnson Hawes

Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901) was a photographer in Boston, Massachusetts. He and Albert Southworth established the photography studio of Southworth & Hawes, which produced numerous portraits of exceptional quality in the 1840s–1860s.

Biography

J.J. Hawes was born in Wayland, Massachusetts in 1808. He began his career as a portrait painter. He then studied photography in Boston with Francis Fauvel-Gouraud.

In 1843 Hawes and Southworth formed the partnership of Southworth & Hawes, with studios on Tremont Row, in Boston's Scollay Square. The studio produced daguerreotype portraits of many notables, including Lemuel Shaw, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Daniel Webster, and others. The studio rooms overlooked "a fine orchard, belonging to the Gardiner Greene estate. From these windows, facing Scollay Sq., we looked on the church and gardens of Brattle Street"

In 1849 Hawes married Nancy Niles Southworth (Albert’s sister). They had three children: Alice, Marion and Edward.

After the partnership with Southworth dissolved in 1863, Hawes continued as a photographer on Tremont Row for several decades, through the 1890s. In his later years he was known as the "oldest working photographer in this country."

Image gallery