"Portrait & Biographical Record of the Willamette Valley Oregon."  Chapman 
Publishing Company, 1903. p. 242.
 
HON. THOMAS J. HAYTER

     Prominent among the pioneers now living retired in Dallas is Hon. Thomas J.
Hayter, owner of a twenty-acre tract of land in the town, and of an eighty acre
farm three miles southwest. Mr. Hayter, who is an ex-member of the Oregon state
legislature, an intrepid Indian fighter, and a former extensive stock-raiser,
was born in Franklin county, Mo., February 8, 183o, and comes of English
forefathers long identified with the south. The establisher of the family in
America was his paternal great-grandfather, who came from England and settled
first in Maryland, removing in later life to Virginia, where his death occurred.
The paternal grandfather, Abraham, was born in Maryland, and became a planter in
Washington county, Va., whence he removed to his last home in Campbell county,
east Tennessee. James H. Hayter, the father of Thomas J., was born in Washington
county, Va., in 1793, and removed to,Franklin county, Mo., about 1816. Here he
started a saw and flour-mill in the wilderness, which was the pioneer industry
of its kind in that section, and at which he worked up to the time of his death
in 1856, from cholera, at the age of sixty-three years. Ten days after his
death, his faithful wife, who was formerly Sarah Fulkerson, of Lee county, Va.,
succumbed to the scourge. Of their ten children, seven grew to maturity, and two
are living. W. L. Hayter being now a resident of Coos county, Ore., an Oregon
pioneer of 1854, and Thomas J.
     The seventh child in his father's family, Thomas J. Hayter spent an
uneventful youth on the Missouri farm, the first interesting period in his life
being the preparation to cross the plains. About nineteen years old, he was just
the age to appreciate all the proposed change meant, and he entered with zest
into equipping for the departure, which took place April 15, 1849. Via the old
California trail, past Fort Hall, Humboldt, and Truckee the train made its way,
and upon arriving in Sacramento he found employment as a teamster until going to
the mines, August 28, 1849. He must scarcely have realized his mining
expectations, for in the fall of 1850 he came to Oregon on the schooner Creole,
twenty-three days being consumed on the trip between San Francisco and the mouth
of the Columbia. The Little Columbia, the first steamer on the river, brought
him to Portland, whence he came immediately to Polk county, and took up a claim.
This he disposed of in 1852, and the following year returned to Missouri, via
San Francisco, Panama, the steamer Philadelphia to New Orleans, thence up the
Mississippi and Missouri to his old home, having been on the route from San
Francisco twenty-two and a half days.
     In the spring of 1854 Mr. Hayter again crossed the plains with ox-teams,
taking the same route to Raft river, and from there branching off onto the old
Oregon trail. On this trip he took more time, in order to safely get through
with a large herd of cattle. He arrived at, the first house in Oregon September
4, 1854, and soon after was located on a claim three miles west of Dallas, where
he engaged in the stock business until 1856. In the fall of 1855 he volunteered
in Company G, First Oregon Regiment, and served in the Yakima Indian war until
an annoying bronchial trouble forced him to retire from the service. Having been
honorably discharged he returned to his  stock farm, and after selling it in
1856 located on a farm east of Dallas upon which he farmed until 1884. Since
then he has lived retired on his farm of twenty acres in the city, although he
still owns and derives a substantial income from a farm of eighty acres.
     In May, 1856, in Polk county, Ore., Mr. Hayter married Mary I. Embree, who
was born in Howard county, Mo., in February, 1838, and who is still living. Mrs.
Hayter is the mother of six children, four of whom are living: Eugene is deputy
sheriff of Polk county ; Mark is a dental surgeon of Dallas ; James Carey is
editor and proprietor of the Polk County Observer; and Oscar is an
attorney-at-law. Mr. Hayter has been a Democrat for many years, and served in
the state legislature of 1876. He is a member of the State Pioneer Association.

     
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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in August 2007 by Diana Smith. Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.