William Hays was born on August 8, 1830, in New York City, the only son of Aaron Burr Hays and the grandson of Jacob Hays, who for nearly half a century was high constable of New York and a noted terror to criminals. His mother was Sarah Pool Forman.
William studied drawing under John Rubens Smith, but in the subsequent development of his work as a painter he relied upon his own efforts and attained a notable degree of success in his specialty.
In 1850 William Hays exhibited his first picture, “Dogs in a Field, ” at the National Academy of Design, and in 1852 he sent to the same institution his "Head of a Bull-dog, ” which was highly commended for its accuracy and spirit. He was made an associate of the Academy in 1852 but resigned five years later. In 1860, when Colorado, Wyoming, and the Rocky Mountains were but little known and offered an inviting new field for the painter, Hays visited that region and made a studious survey of its fauna and landscape. The results of the journey were not only interesting as delineations of novel subjects but presented a record of historic value. Though Hays owed his reputation chiefly to these western scenes, he painted a great number of pictures of dogs, deer, squirrels, partridges, quail, and other game birds, and fish, fruit, and flower pieces.
In search of his subjects Hays traveled to Nova Scotia, the Adirondacks, and other northern regions. His paintings of flowers were especially popular. In the later years of his life he did not send his works to the exhibitions, and for this reason his name was not well known to the public. Nevertheless, when he died in New York in 1875, after a long and painful illness, the eight pall-bearers at his funeral were the leading painters in New York.
William Hays's fame rests on his sketches and oil paintings of animals and prairie views made on a 5-month trip up the upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, and across the Great Plains into the Dakotas and Montana. His best known pictures include “The Wounded Buffalo, ” “The Stampede” and “The Herd on the Move. ”
In 1865 Hays was married to Helen Dummer.
