George W. Hayes (North Carolina)

[2] He spent much of his childhood among Cherokee Native American people in Haywood County and the Oconaluftee River valley where he learned their language at an early age.

[4] While campaigning in 1840, Hayes met Elizabeth Hamilton Stewart in Valleytown, North Carolina, and they were married at Fort Defiance in Caldwell County on February 6, 1842.

While in office he sponsored a bill to award citizenship and 337 acres in present-day Graham County to Cherokee leader Junaluska.

[3] Hayes also introduced the bill that brought the first public highways into western North Carolina.

Hayes promised to introduce legislation to form a new county and won a seat in the North Carolina General Assembly of 1860–1861.

[6] In 1886, two years after her husband's death, Elizabeth donated the land on which Tomotla United Methodist Church was later built.