My Genealogy Hound

William N. Hayes, farmer, El Dorado, Ark. Mr. Hayes owes his nativity to Georgia, where his birth occurred in 1835, and is now following a calling that has for ages received the best efforts of many worthy men, and one that always furnishes sustenance to the ready worker. The parents of Mr. Hayes, Charles L. and Mary (Keating) Hayes, were natives, respectively, of Georgia and South Carolina. Charles L. Hayes was reared by a widowed mother and his father, who was an Englishman, died when Charles was but a child. The latter was one of five children, and during his younger years worked on a farm. About 1836 he began preaching the doctrines of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was an elder and became very popular. He was a self-made man. His death occurred in Alabama, in 1871, and the mother died in 1889. William N. Hayes passed his boyhood in cultivating the soil, and received a very limited education in the common schools. However, he applied himself closely to his books, and by self-study received a fair education. At the age of twenty years he began farming for himself in Alabama, and seven years later came to Arkansas, settling in Union County. In 1863 he enlisted in Company A, Second Arkansas Cavalry, and was in the service two years and a half. He was captured, retained a prisoner for eleven months at Little Rock and Johnson Island, Ohio. Returning to Arkansas after the war he engaged in farming and in 1886 bought his present line farm of 220 acres, seventy acres under cultivation, and situated eight miles north of El Dorado. He does general farming but is principally engaged in raising cotton; has a good orchard, and he pronounces Arkansas a good fruit country. Mr. Hayes was married in 1859 to Miss Francina Sewell, a native of Alabama, and the daughter of George W. Sewell, a well known mechanic. To Mr. and Mrs. Hayes were born seven children, all of whom are living: Olan C. (resides in this county), George L. (married and resides at Camden, is a mechanic), Mary W. wife of G. T. Murphy), John H., Samuel S., Charlie Lava and Marvin. Mr. Hayes has always been of a mechanical turn, and has been engaged in the erection of gin houses and cotton presses, probably erecting more than any other man in the county. He pronounces Union County the best farming country he has ever seen, and the success that has followed his labors, is a speaking illustration of its truth. He has been an earnest advocate of public schools, is a liberal contributor to all worthy enterprises, and is an honest, upright citizen. The family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.