Benjamin Ignatius Hayes
Benjamin Ignatius Hayes (1815–1877), lawyer, first Judge of the Southern District of California from 1852-1864. Writer and collector of historical information about early California.
East Coast
Benjamin Hayes was born February 14, 1815 in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from St. Mary's College in Baltimore and was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1839. He went to practice law in Liberty, Missouri in the early 1840s. While there he attempted to start a temperance journal in Saint Louis with two other men. He was married in November 1848 to Emily Martha Chauncey, and they had two children, a son John Chauncey Hayes born April 27, 1853, and a daughter that died in infancy in 1855. Emily an invalid for many years died September 12, 1857.
California
Benjamin Hayes came overland via the Santa Fe Trail and Southern Emigrant Trail to Los Angeles in February, 1850.
- Attorney
He helped translate into Spanish the statutes of the first U.S. California legislature. This and his ability to read and write Spanish, brought him favor in the eyes of the Californios who needed legal services to secure the title to their ranchos due to the new California land laws. As a result he was elected as County Attorney in August 1851. A month after his election he formed a law partnership with Johnathan R. Scott and resigned his office in September 1851.
- Judge
In 1852 he was elected as the first Judge of the Southern District of California, an office he held until January 1, 1864. This District included Los Angeles County, San Diego County, and soon after San Bernardino County. Judge Hayes rode a horse or carriage or took a coastal steamship on a circuit between the county seats holding court in Los Angeles on the third Monday of March, July and November; in San Diego in April, August and December; and in San Bernardino in February, May and October. He presided over the transition period where the legal system of Mexican California was replaced by that of U.S. California.
Personal life
After leaving office January 1, 1864 he remained active as a respected jurist and a state assemblyman, from 1867 to 1868. In 1866 he married Adaleida Serrano, the daughter of José Antonio Serrano, grantee of Rancho Pauma. The couple had a daughter Mary Adaleida Hayes.
Over the years Hayes had accumulated a series of scrapbooks of clippings and wrote notes on events in Southern California for his first wife to read and later for his son. The books were later collected by Hubert Howe Bancroft, and the notes were formed into the book, Pioneer Notes From the Diaries of Judge Benjamin Hayes, 1849-1875.
After spending many years in San Diego he returned to live in the Hotel Lafayette in Los Angeles and died there on August 4, 1877.[1]
See also
- John Strother Griffin (1816–1898), noted physician and Hayes' brother-in-law
References
External links
- Photo of Judge Benjamin Hayes near the end of his life.
- 'Pioneer notes from the diaries of Judge Benjamin Hayes, 1849-1875;' Ed: Hubert Howe Bancroft; Priv. print.; Los Angeles, 1929.
- Benjamin Ignatius Hayes at Find a Grave
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