Hayes Cemetery
Midway, Madison County, Texas
Marker Inscription
HAYES CEMETERY IRISH NATIVE PATRICK HAYES ARRIVED IN TEXAS CA. 1836 BY WAY OF NEW YORK AND MARYLAND. SHORTLY AFTER HIS ARRIVAL HE ENLISTED IN THE TEXAS ARMY AND FOUGHT IN THE WAR FOR TEXAS INDEPENDENCE. AFTER BEING HONORABLY DISCHARGED FOR HIS SERVICE, HE MOVED TO THIS AREA. IN THE FOLLOWING YEARS HAYES AMASSED LARGE TRACTS OF LAND THAT HE USED FOR COTTON FARMING AND HORSE BREEDING. HE ESTABLISHED THREE PLANTATIONS—SEVEN OAKS, CAIRO AND BOGGY CREEK—ALONG THE TRINITY RIVER. HAYES WAS KNOWN AS “DR. HAYES” AND PRACTICED HERBAL MEDICINE AS A RESPECTED RURAL DOCTOR. THE CEMETERY AT THIS SITE BEGAN IN 1857 AS A PRIVATE FAMILY BURIAL GROUND ON THE SEVEN OAKS PLANTATION. THE FIRST BURIAL OCCURRED CA. 1857, WHEN HAYES’ SON, JAMES FRANK, DIED. APPROXIMATELY TWO YEARS LATER, PATRICK HAYES’ WIFE, AMANDA MELISSA JOHNSTON, DIED AT OLD WAVERLY. HAYES LATER REQUESTED IN HIS WILL THAT SHE BE REINTERED AT THIS SITE; HE DIED IN 1863 AND IS ALSO BELIEVED TO BE BURIED HERE. THE CEMETERY’S ONLY MARKED GRAVE IS THAT OF PATRICK AND AMANDA’S DAUGHTER, MELISSA ELIZABETH HAYES GOREE, AND HER INFANT CHILD, WHO DIED DURING CHILDBIRTH IN 1865 AT THE GOREE FAMILY PLANTATION, RAVEN HILL, AND WERE LATER REINTERRED HERE. IT IS ALSO BELIEVED THAT HAYES FAMILY SLAVES AND SERVANTS WERE BURIED AT THE SITE, ALTHOUGH WRITTEN DOCUMENTATION HAS NOT BEEN FOUND. PATRICK HAYES’ REMAINING CHILDREN AND LATER DESCENDANTS CHOSE TO BE BURIED IN THE NEARBY MIDWAY CEMETERY, AND THE HAYES CEMETERY BECAME INACTIVE, BUT REMAINS TODAY AS A SYMBOL OF AN EARLY PIONEERING TEXAS FAMILY. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY – 2005
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Patrick Hayes was an Irish immigrant who reached Texas around 1836 and promptly took up arms in the war that won Texas its independence. Rewarded and restless, he built a sprawling world of cotton plantations along the Trinity River, practiced herbal medicine as the locally beloved "Dr. Hayes," and in 1857 opened this family burial ground on his Seven Oaks plantation. Beneath its soil lie Hayes kin, and by long belief the enslaved people and servants whose graves went unrecorded, making the quiet cemetery a witness to a pioneering family's rise and the human cost woven into it.
Why it matters
The site captures the immigrant, frontier, and plantation strands of early Anglo Texas in a single burial ground, including the often-unmarked graves of the enslaved.
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Related people
- · Patrick Hayes
- · Amanda Melissa Johnston
- · Melissa Elizabeth Hayes Goree
Themes & tags
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