Hayes, Samuel (1908)

HAYES, THOMAS

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 3/30/2012 at 09:54:21

The Grinnell (IA) Herald; May 12, 1908

SAMUEL HAYES AND HIS PIONEER COMMITTEE
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Death at Boulder, Colorado, Removes One of the Early Pioneers of this Locality

The death of Samuel Hayes at Boulder, Colorado, on March 17th, last, is of interest to us in Grinnell a thousand miles away. Four months after our townsite was selected he, John F. Hayes and Darius Thomas were here in search of a home for seventeen persons of the Hayes kindred. They were natives of Maryland and obliged to employ slave labor by owning the slaves, but disliked the system as Washington did. They had turned their faces and their footsteps to the free northwest in 1854, and had halted in Illinois. They sought something still better. Their committee came to Iowa City. They heard of a Yankee settlement in Poweshiek county. They came here and found a few live men, a "Long Home," and a flag floating from as tall a pole as the region afforded, but little else originated by man. The liked the men. They wanted to see more of the land. Henry Lawrence said to them: "If you are seeking land for speculation, I can do nothing for you."

"We want to build homes," they replied.

"Come on then," said Lawrence.

He showed them what we now call Chester. "That's good enough for us," they concluded. There the Hayes kindred evenually developed royal farms and became citizens better even than their lands. John F. Hayes was buried in Chester several years ago, Darius Thomas passed on to Newton to give that town one of the best private schools in the state, while Samuel Hayes, in the early '60's accompanied the relatives of his wife (a sister of George Chambers) to Boulder, Colorado.

It is enough to say of his character as a man and citizen that he was a Hayes, and did not dishonor the name. Those who knew them can never forget such pioneers. It was the unrivaled good fortune of Chester to have two such large families as the Hayes and the Shermans among their first and permanent settlers.