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THE BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA AND PORTRAIT GALLERY OF DISTINGUISHED MEN:
WITH AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE STATE OF OHIO
CINCINNATI: JOHN C. YORSTON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 1880
VOLUME 1 PAGE 288
HAYS, MICHAEL W., physician and soldier, Troy, Ohio, was born in Brown County, Ohio, February 28th, 1840. His grandfather, Benjamin Hays, was a pioneer from what is now West Virginia, to Brown county, Ohio, about the beginning of the present century. His father, Gabriel Hays, was born in Virginia in 1805, and was brought with the family to Ohio, and has since been a resident of Brown county. He has been a life-long member of the Methodist church, and is greatly respected throughout the county for his valuable gifts and virtues. His wife was Elizabeth Hanna, who died in August, 1876, aged sixty-five. She was one of the Noblest and best women, and was in the highest sense of the term, a wife and mother. She had eleven children, of whom our subject is the fifth son. Young Hays passed nineteen years of his minority at farm labor with only the meagre facilities of the early-day common school. He then entered upon the study medicine, under his brother, James Hays, an eclectic physician of Dayton, which was interrupted by the breaking out of the late war, when he entered the service in July 1861, in Captain John S. Foster's independent cavalry company. In November, 1861, he was captured, with ten others, by the rebel bushwackers under Captain Walker, of General Poindexter's command, was robbed of everything except the clothes on his person, and turned out at two o'clock in the morning to find his way back to camp as best he could. In June 1862, he was discharged on account of disability. Returning home he resumed the study of medicine, attended lectures at the Eclectic Institute and Ohio Medical College, Cincinnati, and again in July, 1864, entered the service of the United States navy, on board the receiving ship Grampus, at Cincinnati, where he was retained as assistant by the surgeon-in-chief, Dr. J. J. McIlhenny (now of Dayton). In July, 1865, he returned from the service, and in the following fall began the practice of his profession in Bentonville, Adams county, Ohio, in partnership with Dr. John Gaskins. In 1866 he removed to Casstown, Miami county, Ohio, and became associated with his brother, Dr. James Hays. On February 14th, 1869, he married Sarah, daughter of Joseph H. Stafford of Miami county. The issue of the union is two children. In 1869, he located in Troy, where he pursued his profession until August, 1875, when he suspended practice to take charge of the farm of his father-in-law, whose health had failed. Since then he has chiefly engaged in superintending his agricultural interest. In January, 1878, he was elected president of the Miami County Agriculture Society and has since held the position. In April of the same year he was elected mayor of Troy, without opposition, on the republican ticket. He is a Knight Templar in the Masonic fraternity, and an officer of Coleman Commandery of Troy. He is a gentleman of pleasing address, genial manners, and sterling integrity.
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1840 - 1912 (72 years)
