Was Capt. Joseph Hayes the Father
of Zilpha Hayes?
Zilpha (Zilpah/Zilphah) (Hays/Hayes?) married Joseph Stubbs around 1783. Joseph Stubbs, born in North Carolina in 1763, was the son of Thomas Stubbs and Deborah Maddock who moved to Wrightsborough, Georgia before 1769. In spite of or perhaps because of the lack of documentary evidence on this family a number of researchers claim that Zilpha Hayes was the daughter of a storied Revolutionary War hero Captain Joseph Hayes who was one of the earliest pioneers along the Miami River in Ohio and later one of the first settlers in Indiana.
In 1776 Joseph Hayes mortgaged his two farms along the Brandywine River in Chester County, Pennsylvania to raise and equip a company of cavalry. He lost the farms in a sheriffs sale in 1785 and in 1791 Captain Hayes and his family immigrated first to Ohio stopping at Red Stone where a grandchild was born and then floating down the Monongahela and the Ohio to land at the mouth of the Great Miami. They built a cabin and lived near the Miami River for a few years before moving on to Indiana.
One would think that if Zilpha Hayes were one of the daughters of Captain Joseph Hayes we would have found some evidence that they lived in the same region of the country or a reference to her birth in Chester County or to her journey from Chester County to a region where she would meet Joseph Stubbs who she allegedly married.
Joseph Stubbs was born in North Carolina and moved with his parents before the age of ten to South Carolina and then to Georgia. The minutes of the Wrightsborough Monthly Meeting, in Georgia, indicate that Joseph Stubbs married contrary to the rules of meeting. On the 1st day 10th month 1785 “Joseph Stubbs appeared here and offered a paper of acknowledgment for his disorderly marriage and also for having carnal knowledge of her that is now his wife before marriage which is left under the consideration of the meeting.”
The name of his wife is not provided.
Minutes of Wrightsborough MM 1772-1793, p. 55.
The records of the Wrightsborough Monthly Meeting contain valuable information on the families within their meeting. The family register of "Joseph and Zilpah Stubbs" includes 13 children beginning with the eldest child Mary born 4 June 1784 to the youngest child, Rhoda born 5 Dec 1802. Another child, Joseph, was born in 1805 after the family moved to Ohio.
Source: The Records of Births and Burials of the Monthly Meeting of Wrightsborough in the Province of Georgia (1744-1803)., Page labeled P.
These Wrightsborough Monthly Meeting records are transcribed in
Hinshaw, William Wade, An Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Vol. 1 (Ann Arbor, Mi: Edwards bros., 1936-50), p. 1045.
Is Zilpha’s Surname Hays?
The records of Wrightsboro Monthly Meeting do not provide Zilpha’s surname – her surname prior to her marriage. We do not know her parent’s names.
Perhaps relevant here is that there was someone named Hays present in Georgia at the time. In 1802 Bailey Hays married Mary Stubbs – the eldest daughter of Joseph Stubbs and Zilpha (Hays/Hayes?).
When the family arrived at Concord Monthly Meeting in Jefferson County Ohio they are identified
as Joseph and Zilphah Stubbs.
Source: Hinshaw, EAQG IV, p. 160
.I have found no record contemporaneous with Zilpha (Hayes?) Stubbs that attributes the Hayes surname to her.
However, there is a tradition within the Patten family that Zilpha’s surname prior to marriage was Hays. Edward Chadwick in his Chadwicks’s History of Shelby County Indiana tells us that John Patten married Rebecca Stubbs, daughter of Joseph and Zilpha (Hays) Stubbs.
We should take this tradition seriously unless contradictory evidence shows this tradition is categorically false. I know of no contradictory evidence.
Daughter of Captain Joseph Hayes?
Some researchers, for example at familysearch.org, include Zilpha Hays/Hayes in the family of Captain Joseph Hayes and Joanna (Hannah?) Passmore.
A privately published genealogical study on the Hayes family titled: Captain Joseph Hayes and His Descendants by Miss Anne p. Burkham included in a volume titled Royal S. Hayes, The Hayes Family: Origin, History and Genealogy, p. 64 provides a list of the children of Capt. Joseph Hayes:
1, Solomon b. Chester Co., b. 1755 d 1816 in Dearborn Co., Indiana m Mary Craig 15 Aug 1776
2. Job married Beulah Tussig
3. Joseph
4. Priscilla married Thomas Miller
5. Joanna married James Benn
We should take this list and the exclusion of Zilpha from the list equally as seriously as the Patten tradition. There is no evidence contemporaneous to Zilpha Hayes that she is a member of this family.
Therefore, taking the Patten family tradition seriously, we should conclude that Joseph Stubbs married Zilpha Hays or Hayes but taking the Joseph Hayes family tradition seriously, we conclude that this Zilpha Hayes is not a member of the Capt. Joseph Hayes and Joanna (Hannah?)Passmore family.
Links
Royal S. Hayes: The Hayes Family: Origin, History and GenealogyCaptain Joseph Hayes Family Reunion and Archaeological Dig
Bush River Quakers Newberry County, South Carolina
I contacted Robert Stevens on the Facebook page of Captain Joseph Hayes Family Reunion Community and he provided me with a complete list of his children
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