Joel Bryan Mayes was the son of Samuel and Nancy (Adair) Mayes. He was born on October 2, 1833 in the old Cherokee Nation near what is now Cartersville, Ga. His father was a white man and his mother a Cherokee who was the daughter of Walter Adair and the grand-daughter of John Adair. Young Joel went to that part of Indian Territory which is now Oklahoma with his family in 1838, when the Cherokee were driven westward from Georgia.
Mayes attended the Cherokee public schools and in 1851 entered the seminary near Tahlequah, where he graduated in 1855.
From 1855 to 1857 Mayes taught school and then left the school room to engage in live-stock raising until the outbreak of the Civil War. Enlisting as a private in the 16t Confederate Indian Brigade, he was soon promoted to the office of paymaster and later to that of quartermaster, which he retained until the close of the war. He returned to his home in 1865 and resumed the business of farming and stock raising. He was appointed clerk of the district court and was elected judge of the northwestern circuit of the Cherokee Nation. During the next four years he was successively clerk of the commissioners court, clerk of the national council, associate justice, and chief justice of the Cherokee supreme court. In 1887 he was elected principal chief to succeed Dennis Wolf Bushyhead and was reelected in 1891, but soon afterward he was stricken with influenza and died. For nearly forty years he worked hard for the educational and material advancement of the Cherokee people and few men have contributed more to their welfare.
Mayes was a Methodist, a Royal Arch Mason, and a man of highest character.
Mayes was married in 1857 to Martha J. Candy. Upon her death a few years later he married Martha M. McNair. She also died after some years, and he married Mary Vann.
May 1802 - December 1858
7 October 1808 - 18 May 1876
1826 - 1863
24 July 1842 - 24 March 1918
1833 - 1863
1848 - 1930
11 May 1845 - 12 December 1927
5 November 1824 - 28 October 1894
1836 - 1857
