Home > Carnegie Center > Arizona Women's Hall of Fame > Inductees > Hayden, Sallie Davis
Sallie Davis Hayden
1842 – 1907
Inducted in 1984
"Mr. Hayden, though extravagant in large business matters, was
thrifty in small New England ways. On a day of strenuous house cleaning,
she (Mrs. Hayden) had accumulated a pile of household rubbish. Mr. Hayden
came in and saw some moth eaten yarn on top. He said to her. 'This ought
not to be thrown away'. 'Where shall I put it?' She replied with asperity:
'Eat it!' The Judge went away with the yarn in his hand and shortly returned,
offering it to her and saying mildly. 'Won't you take the first bite?'” --
From son Carl Hayden's reminiscences in Sallie Davis Hayden, Thoroughbred
Pioneer.
From the state's earliest days, the Hayden name has been associated with
progress. Charles Trumbull Hayden established the Hayden mill and ferry
along the banks of the Salt River in Tempe. Carl Trumbull Hayden served
Arizona for 56 years in Congress. Less well known, but equally as important,
was Sallie Hayden, wife of Charles and mother of Carl (and three other
children). She played an important role in Arizona's development and is
remembered as a woman of enormous vitality, intelligence and wit. She created
a home where education and religious tolerance were taught. She took an
active interest in national as well as local politics, an interest that
was passed along to her son.
According to an account of her early life written by her son, Sallie
Calvert Davis was born July 12, 1842, near Forrest City, Arkansas. Her
father, Cornelius Davis, did not believe in formal education and certainly
not for his four daughters. When Sallie was 12 years old, she ran away
from home because her father, a strict disciplinarian, threatened to whip
her with his bridle reins. She took refuge at an aunt's home, where she
presumably found more freedom to pursue her interest in books and an education.
During the Civil War, the Davis family found its finances strained, and
it became necessary for all of them to go to work. Sally obtained a position
as a teacher in an Illinois elementary school. "Although she had
received such limited and episodic schooling, she educated herself by reading
serious books, a habit that she continued in later years whenever books
were to be had," her son wrote. Several years later, an uncle
in California wrote to tell her that schoolteachers in that state were
well paid. He advised her to move west.
She taught briefly in Nevada City, then moved on to Visalia, a little
town in central California. There, she met the Alford family. "Dr.
Alford and his wife were people of breeding and education who realized
that the young Southern teacher should not live in her uncle's rude cabin
on the sheep ranch," son Carl wrote. They found her a teaching
job and with their love and guidance, she "rapidly matured into
an attractive woman." It was at the Alfords' home that she met
Mr. Hayden, who was visiting the doctor while on a trip to San Francisco.
"It took him two years to persuade Miss Davis to marry
him," according to their son's account. "She was not
then passionately in love with Mr. Hayden, but she had a profound admiration
for his gentle dignity and his scholarly temperament and was interested
in his dream of building up a civilized community in southern Arizona,"
Mr. Hayden, who was 17 years her senior, provided the intellectual companionship
and the challenge she desired. The couple soon settled at the Hayden residence
in Tempe. Mrs. Hayden was embarking on a new life, and from her son's account
we know she was "terribly depressed" by what she found in Tempe.
She hated the hot weather. Her new home had a dirt floor and was cheaply
furnished. There were few companions for conversation, and Mr. Hayden was
often occupied with his business, neglecting his new wife. The desert seemed
desolate to her, so she sent away for Bermuda grass seeds; the grass quickly
spread and became a pest in the garden. She imported a cow to provide milk.
In short, she set about making this new place a home. Gradually, she came
to share her husband's dream of building a community along the Salt River
and making it a place where she could raise her children.
She served as postmistress of Hayden's Ferry (later renamed Tempe) from
December of 1876 to July of 1878. She became a member of the local school
board and worked to bring better teachers to the region; she campaigned
to see that the "right" politicians won; she established a library
in her home which included many of the English and American classics, books
not easily to be found in the Southwest; and she entertained suffrage speakers
whenever they came to Tempe.
While her children were young, she moved the family to a new home two
miles outside of town. The home would become known as the "Hayden
Guest Ranch" because it served as a hostelry for teachers, writers,
lecturers and many other distinguished Tempe visitors. It was also a place
where persons with tuberculosis could convalesce.
"There was scarcely ever a time when some such unhappy
person was not being entertained at the Ranch House throughout the winters,
and often without charge," her son wrote. "Delicate
teachers, poor college professors, any educated person with limited means,
and lame ducks of every sort, appealed to her sympathetic, generous heart."
It was Mrs. Hayden's sound management that kept the ranch going. She made
it profitable by bringing in cattle, and she defended her water rights when
they were challenged. When Carl was old enough for college, she insisted
on borrowing the money to send him to Stanford. Even after the death of her
husband in 1900, and despite the severe financial problems that he left behind,
she managed to find the money to provide for her daughters' education.
Mrs. Hayden died September 15, 1907, in Tempe. Her three children remained
the visible testimony to her life. Her son Carl inherited her political
acumen while her daughters carried on her service in the fields of education
and social welfare.
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