[3] Hayden's father died when he was six, leaving himself and his sister Anna to help his mother run the family farm.

[4] From Connecticut, Hayden went to New York City, where he studied law, before beginning a series of teaching jobs in Kentucky, Indiana, and Missouri.

While in Kentucky, Hayden was influenced by Henry Clay's vision of opening the West to settlement by the development of roads and canals.

[6] Local legend claims that while he was on a business trip from Tucson to Prescott, flood waters on the Salt River delayed him near the present location of Tempe, Arizona, for several days.

[4] In December 1870, Hayden published a notice claiming two sections along the south side of the Salt River "for milling, farming, and other purposes".

[8] On October 4, 1876, at the age of 51, Hayden married Arkansas-born schoolteacher Sallie Calvert Davis in Nevada City, California.