John Hay

Pike County Ballads and Other Poems (Dodo Press) John Hay

A collection of ballads and poems by John Milton Hay, which represents in the best manner, the spirit of a strong and independent sister-land across the Atlantic. John Milton Hay (1838-1905) was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln. Hay was born in Salem, Indiana, of Scottish ancestry, raised in Warsaw, Illinois, and educated at Brown University (1858), where he joined Theta Delta Chi. In 1861 he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Illinois. He began his public career as a secretary to Abraham Lincoln at age 22, while technically a clerk in the Interior Department. Hay was present when President Lincoln died after being shot at Ford's Theatre. Hay and John G. Nicolay wrote a formal 10-volume biography of Lincoln and prepared an edition of his collected works. He was the author of Castilian Days (1871), Pike County Ballads and Other Poems (1871), The Bread-Winners (1884), Abraham Lincoln: A History (1890), and Poems (1897).