Born in Mendon, Massachusetts, his father was Seth Hastings, also a U.S. Representative.
On his father's side of the family, he was a descendant of Thomas Hastings (colonist) who came from the East Anglia region of England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634.
The younger Hastings completed preparatory studies and graduated from Harvard University in 1817; he studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1820 and commenced practice in Mendon.
He was elected as a Whig to the Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth, and Twenty-seventh Congresses, serving from March 4, 1837, until his death in 1842.
This article about a member of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts is a stub.