BIO:  Morris M. Hays, York County, PA

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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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Part II, Biographical Sketches, Newberry Township, Pg 154

MORRIS M. HAYS is a lineal descendant in the fourth generation of Jesse Hays, who 
in 1770 immigrated to York County from Chester County, Penn., and purchased land 
one mile north of the village of Yocumtown.  Jesse Hays was of Welsh descent.  
His ancestors were among the first immigrants to America from Wales, who located 
in the northern and western parts of Chester, and most of whom became prosperous 
citizens in the country.  Being a member of the Society of Friends, who, in 
principle, were non-resistants, when Jesse Hays was drafted during the 
Revolutionary war, his land was sold to furnish a substitute in the army.  His 
occupation was that of a tailor.  In 1780 he married Margery, daughter of James 
Mills, who built the historic stone house, one-half mile east of Yocumtown, known 
later as the “Brubaker property.”  Their children were Susan, Hannah and Mills, 
who in 1851 was elected associate judge of York County.  A sketch of him will be 
found in the chapter on the Bench and the Bar, in this work.  Mills Hays was 
married to Eve Crull.  They had children as follows:  John; Sidney married to 
William Eppley; Mary, married to George W. Hall; Jesse, born July 24, 1818, and 
now living in Mechanicsburg, married to Mary Miller; and Jane, married to Samuel 
P. Herman.  John Hays, the eldest son of Judge Mills Hays, was born October 11, 
1810, in Newberry Township, where he spent his entire life, a highly respected 
citizen.  He served for many years as a director in the Dover Fire Insurance 
Company, and filled many local positions of trust and responsibility.  He was 
married to Jane Morris, daughter of Charles Morris, of Warrington Township, of 
Scotch-Irish descent.  In 1814 he marched with a company of soldiers to the 
defense of Baltimore.  John (Glass) Morris, his mother, died in Warrington at the 
age of ninety-six years.  The children of John Hays are Sidney, married to David 
Ort; Adacinda, married to A. B. Kurtz; Morris Mills; Granville, married to Kate 
Reiff; Crull, a soldier of the One Hundred and Sixty-sixth Regiment, Pennsylvania 
Volunteers during the Civil war, and Ninth Pennsylvania Cavalry; Ellen; Lucetta; 
Servatus, married to Kate Feiser, and now a merchant in Newberrytown, and John 
Pierce, a graduate of Shippensburg State Normal School, married to Maggie Flora 
of Franklin County.  Morris M. Hays, the eldest son and third child, was born 
September 13, 1841.  He spent his early days on the farm and attending the public 
schools; afterward was a student in the Normal and Classical School, at York, and 
in the Millersville State Normal School.  He taught school three successive 
terms.  In 1867 he was married to Emma Fisher who died August 23, 1872.  On the 
20th of February, 1876, he was married to Sara M. Krone.  They have three 
children:  Ira, Kent and Boyd.  In November, 1882, Mr. Hays was elected a member 
of the legislature of Pennsylvania, and while a representative in that body, 
served with great acceptance on the committees on labor and industry, insurance, 
military and geological survey.  He now owns a farm on which he resides, located 
one mile east of Newberrytown, and is engaged in cultivating it.  He is a 
practical surveyor, and has served in various township offices.  Mr. Hays, in the 
midst of his farm and professional labors, finds time for reading and general 
literary culture, and has accumulated a library of well selected books.