Samuel M. Hay

Samuel McClellan Hay (August 7, 1825 – October 26, 1906) was an American businessman, banker, Republican politician, and Wisconsin pioneer, prominent in the establishment and development of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He was the fifth mayor of Oshkosh, and served one year each in the Wisconsin Senate and State Assembly (1858) representing Winnebago County. His name was often abbreviated as

Early life Samuel M. Hay was born in Fairview Township, Erie County, Pennsylvania, in August 1825. As a child, he worked on his father's farm in the summers and studied at the town schools in the winters. At age 15, his father paid for him to attend Allegheny College, but Hay declined and instead chose to pursue an apprenticeship in tin, copper, and iron working. After four years, he was a master tinsmith. and went on to serve in the 1858 legislative session. At the time, his district comprised all of the city of Oshkosh and a few surrounding towns in the central part of Winnebago County.

During his term in the Assembly, in April 1858, he was elected to his first term as mayor of Oshkosh. He was re-elected in 1859, serving through April 1860.

In the midst of the first year of the American Civil War, Winnebago County's incumbent state senator Horace O. Crane, resigned from office to become a surgeon in the Union Army. Samuel Hay was the Republican nominee for the special election to fill the remaining year of Crane's term. He defeated Democratic candidate Charles Morgan in the general election and served in the Senate for the 1862 session. He did not run for re-election in 1862.

In 1876, he was appointed to the board of regents of the State Normal Schools by Governor Harrison Ludington, serving until February 1879. In 1892, he was appointed by president Benjamin Harrison to a commission to inspect the U.S. mint in Philadelphia.

Hay largely retired from business in 1903. He enjoyed good health almost until the last year of his life. He suffered from a brief illness in May 1905, from which he never fully recovered. He developed symptoms of Pneumonia on October 23, 1906, slipped into unconsciousness on the morning of October 25, and expired at his home the morning of October 26, 1906.

He was survived by only two of his children, his eldest son, Samuel Thayer Hay died of disease eight months before his father. His only surviving son, his youngest, William J. Hay, had a long and prosperous business career in Oshkosh.

His only known daughter, Mary, married Frank Merrill Caldwell, a career U.S. Army officer who served as a brigadier general in . Through this marriage, Samuel Hay was a grandfather of the dancer and silent film actress Mary Hay.

Hay, his wife, and all of their children, as well as General Caldwell, are interred at the family's massive mausoleum in Oshkosh's historic Riverside Cemetery.

Hay's former home was designed by the prolific Wisconsin architect William Waters. It stood on Algoma Blvd near the intersection with Jackson Street. A record of the home exists in the Wisconsin Historical Society, but the house no longer stands.