Page:Men of Mark in America vol 1.djvu/52

 AY, JOHN, author, soldier, diplomat, statesman, was born October 8, 1838, at Salem, Indiana. His parents were Dr. Charles and Helen (Leonard) Hay. They were plain, substantial American people, who took a leading place in the community where they lived. Helen Hay was a daughter of the Reverend David A. Leonard, of Rhode Island. She was a woman of refinement and education, gentle but firm in disposition, and a fit companion for her worthy husband.

The ancestry of the family is traced back to John Hay, who came from Germany in 1750 and settled in Virginia. His ancestors had gone from Scotland to Germany several generations before. Adam, son of the Virginia John, was a soldier of the Revolution, an officer in the Continental army, and a friend of Washington. When independence was achieved, he joined the tide which has flowed steadily westward, and emigrating beyond the Alleghanies, settled in the "blue grass region." When it became evident that Kentucky was to be a slave state, John, a son of the Revolutionary Adam, entertaining principles that were irreconcilable with "the peculiar institution," removed to Illinois, a territory largely settled by pioneers of faith similar to his own.

On his mother's side John Hay's American ancestry is traced from Thomas Rogers, who came over in the Mayflower in 1620. It will be seen, therefore, that in this stock blend two strong strains: Scotch, and Puritan English.

The present John Hay, third of that name in America, was a hardy and adventurous youth, who grew up with a fondness for "reading and play." His early life was passed in a village on the upper Mississippi (Warsaw, Illinois), where he attended the public schools the greater part of the year and occupied the remainder of his time with such amusements and tasks as fall to the lot of the average village youth.

He studied at Brown university, Providence, Rhode Island, from which institution he was graduated with high honors in 1858.