Samuel was the oldest son of Joseph Hayes and his wife Sarah, apparently named after Joseph’s uncle Samuel. Oddly, he is included in only a handful of family trees at Ancestry.com — all of which are horribly inaccurate.
There were two men named Samuel Hayes in Granville County, both about the same age, but it is reasonably clear which records apply to which man as they lived a few miles apart. The other Samuel Hayes was a slave owner and owned good deal more land, and in one 1808 record was called a cousin to a child of Solomon Hayes of Northampton County.
We know that Samuel Hayes was born in 1768 thanks to two affidavits in Revolutionary pension files. In December 1844 he gave his age as 76 when he testified in support of the widow of his (presumed) uncle Henry Hayes and in November 1854 he gave his age as 86 when he testified for a soldier named James Weathers.1 The 1850 census of Granville County reported his age as 82. He was probably born late in the year, as he was not taxed in 1789 but was in 1790 and thereafter. That makes him the eldest child of Joseph Hayes, only a few years younger than some of his aunts and uncles.
Marries Lucy Parham in 1791
He married Lucy Parham by bond dated 28 December 1791. She may have been the daughter of Avery Parham.2 Lucy was evidently the mother of his children. She died sometime before 1837 when Samuel Hayes married a widow name Elizabeth Parham.
His father’s will, for which he and Avery Parham were executors, gave him 120 acres of land on Fishing Creek near Tabb’s Creek. While he bought and sold acreage in the area, he appears to have lived his entire life in the same neighborhood.
Marries Elizabeth (Tally) Parham in 1837
He married Elizabeth Parham, widow of Samuel Parham, by bond dated 8 November 1837. On the same date they executed a prenuptial agreement in which Elizabeth Parham and Samuel Hayes agreed to keep their respective property separate for the benefit of their individual heirs.3
Elizabeth was the widow of Samuel R. Parham, who died intestate shortly before 1 May 1835 when his brother and administrator Lewis Parham recorded an inventory of the estate.4 as Elizabeth Tally she had married Samuel Parham in 1810. They produced three children named Mary, wife of Joseph Howard, Lewis R. Parham, and Robert E. Parham, the latter two of whom were under 21 at their father’s death. Among the papers in Samuel R. Parham’s estate file is a February 1838 petition for settlement of his estate by his three children and Elizabeth “his widow & relict who has since intermarried with your petitioner Samuel Hayes”. 5 Apart from a 225-acre tract laid out as her dower land, the estate was modest. When it was settled in November 1838 the three children and widow each received $48.47 in cash. The widow’s share was listed as paid “to Samuel Hayes & wife Elizabeth late Elizabeth Parham”. The prenuptial agreement indicated that Elizabeth entered her marriage to Samuel Hayes as the owner of four slaves, livestock, and household furniture which she placed in trust with Donalson P. Paschall.
Elizabeth was in her forties, considerably younger than her second husband. The 1850 census recorded his age as 82 and hers as 56. She died in 1863, as Lewis R. Parham was appointed administrator of her estate on 4 August 1863.6
The affidavits mentioned above are worth mentioning again because they differentiate this Samuel Hayes from the other man of the same name. On December 14, 1844 in Granville County Samuel Hays “aged seventy six years, a man of high respectability”, testified that he was well acquainted with Henry Hayes who lived and died in Granville County; “affiant was 12 or 13 years old at the close of the Revolutionary war and always understood that Henry Hayes has served as a soldier during a large portion of the revolutionary war and has no doubt that was true; that affiant knew Henry Hayes both before and after his marriage which took place after the close of the revolution; that the name of Henry Hayes’ wife was Mary or Polly Payton; they always lived together as man and wife and their marriage was never doubted.”7
On 8 November 1854 Samuel Hayes appeared before a judge in Granville county and “maketh oath in due form of law that he is aged eighty-six years and that he recollects to have heard his uncle John Hayes who served in the war of the revolution under Colonel John Henderson who commanded a company of horse men in the Western part of North Carolina against the Tories, relate the circumstance of James Weathers being with and in said company…”8 We know separately from his own pension application that the John Hayes who served under Henderson was the son of Joshua Hayes.
Dies Intestate in 1857
On 2 November 1857 Samuel L. Hayes executed a bond to administer the estate of Samuel Hayes.9 Among the estate records is a brief record of a dispute with the widow Elizabeth Hayes over her rights in the estate. A marriage contract dated 8 November 1838, the same day as their marriage bond, evidently limited her inheritance to specific items of personalty. The inventory and estate sale, dated 25 November 1857, reflected a modest estate that included several “doubtful” notes due from relatives and neighbors.
The probate file contains no mention at all of any children or grandchildren, and the file includes no record of a settlement with the heirs.
The 1800 census shows Samuel Hayes heading a household of three male and one female children. His 1810 census household added one male and one female. By 1820 all but two children had left the household.
- Solomon Hayes (4 September 1792 – 26 October 1859) There is no direct evidence that the elder son was Solomon Hayes. However, the 1800 and 1810 censuses for Granville County have a limited number of males of the right age, and we can eliminate all the other heads of household as possible fathers for Solomon. (See this detailed explanation.) In addition, Solomon Hayes’ own 1820 census household appears to include his mother and a younger brother and sister who match the earlier household of John Hayes.
- Joel Hayes (c1794 – 1825) He married Rebecca Crutcher by bond dated 15 October 1815, by which time he must have been of age. The couple was probably the younger man and woman in the 1820 census household of Samuel Hayes, as he was not separately listed. He and his wife were both dead five years later. On 10 December 1825 the Granville court reported that “Samuel Hayes father of Joel Hayes dec’d relinquished his right of administration to Howell L. Ridley” and Ridley executed a bond the same day. 10 John G. Crutcher succeeded him as administrator de bonis non on 5 February 1828. An inventory and sale dated 20 December 1825 showed a modest estate with buyers including John, Thomas, and Nathaniel Crutcher and Samuel, Polly, Alfred, James, and Simeon Hayes. James Crutcher filed an accounting on 7 August 1828 that included small notes on Polly & James Hayes, James & Samuel Hayes, Simeon & James Hays, and James Hayes & Stephen Morris, among others. There is nothing in the file to indicated that Joel Hayes had children.
- Mary Hayes (c1807 – ?) Tradition among the Titus County, Texas families in the 1950s was that Mary Price, wife of John W. Price, was the younger sister of Solomon Hayes. Whether she was a sister or not, her maiden name was reported as Hays in the death certificate of one of her children, Solomon Hayes Price (1839-1921), which lists his parents as John Wesley Price and (no first name) Hays. John W. Price is in the 1850 census of Titus County near Solomon Hayes, age 43, with a wife Mary, age 42 (born in NC), with nine children, one of them “Hayes” Price, age 10, who was Solomon Hayes Price. All the children were born in Tennessee except the last two, ages 3 and 1. According to a biography of Solomon Hayes Price, he was born in Bradley County, Tennessee.11 One of the latter children was Charles, age 3. In 1880 the household of Charles Price includes Breck Witt, identified as a “cousin”, who was a child of Solomon Hayes’ daughter Elizabeth. (Note, though, that he would have been a cousin whether Mary Hayes was Solomon’s sister or daughter.) John W. Price had in the 1836 tax list of McMinn County, Tennessee in the same district as Solomon Hayes, probably having married Mary after 1830.
- Samuel L. Hayes (c1820-1865) He was evidently the male aged 5-10 in Samuel Hayes’ 1830 census household, as his age was recorded as 30 and 39 in the 1850 and 1860 censuses. He married Elizabeth Dickerson by bond dated 28 February 1839 and in 1850 had several daughters in his household. His occupation was listed as “wagonmaker” in 1850 and “farmer” in 1860. He died intestate and Augustine Landis was appointed his administrator on 8 August 1865. The 1850 and 1860 censuses listed six children named Susanna, Lucy A., Cynthia, Elizabeth, Romulus, and Sally.
- Pension files W14 and R11232, respectively. [↩]
- Avery Parham was a close neighber, one of many Parhams in the vicinity. He died in 1807 leaving a will naming five sons. Although census records suggest that he had at least four daughters only one was mentioned in his estate records; Samuel Peace, who married Charity Parham, was called a brother-in-law of one of Avery Parham’s sons. [↩]
- Granville County Deed Book 8, page 164. [↩]
- Loose Estate Records of Granville County, file labelled “Parham, Samuel R. 1835” [↩]
- Loose Estate Records of Granville County, file labelled “Parham, Samuel R. 1835” [↩]
- Loose Estate Records of Granville County, file labelled “Hayes, Elizabeth 1863” [↩]
- Pension file #W14. [↩]
- Pension File # R11232. [↩]
- Loose Estate Records of Granville County, file labelled “Hays, Samuel 1857” [↩]
- Granville County Loose Estate Records, File Labelled “Hayes, Joel 1825”. [↩]
- “Solomon Hayes Price – An Extraordinary Man”, History of Titus County, Texas, Vol. I, Traylor Russell (1965), p46-49. [↩]