Q. What do these years have in common?
- 1894, 1904, 1911, 1917, 1938, 1939, 1950, 1951 1975, 1976, 1984, 1994, 1999 and 2005
A. Each represents the year a member of the Hayman family graduated from UMES.
Hayman – one of Somerset County, Md.’s oldest African-American family names – is indelibly etched in the annals of the university. From the class of 1894 to the class of 2005, five generations of Haymans have called this school “alma mater.”
William Noah Hill, the family patriarch, was born a slave in Somerset County in 1826. After Hill gained his freedom, he married a freeborn native of Somerset County, Charlotte Allen, and changed his name to William Hill Hayman. Together, the couple had ten children, including Joseph Hayman, William Hill Hayman, Jr. and Matthias Hayman.
When the elder Hayman died in 1908, he bequeathed to each of his children a house and 10 acres of land, upon which he hoped they might build a life for themselves and their families. Beyond bricks and soil, Hayman also left something more valuable – a thirst for knowledge. He had no formal training, but Hayman had been educated by the kindly Quakers, who gave him his freedom. He, in turn, insisted his children be educated.
Today, more than 100 years following William Hill Hayman’s death, his descendants not only have graduated from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, but they have kept that quest for education alive.
Joseph Hayman was among the first students, along with 11 others, to graduate in 1894 from Delaware Conference Academy, as the university was known at the time of its founding.
His brother, William Hill Hayman, Jr., a teacher and minister, was one of the trustees of the old John Wesley church who backed the purchase of property in the town of Princess Anne that some say was used as an auction block for slaves. It eventually became the location of the Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church. Pastor Hayman also was involved in the negotiations that convinced the church conference to open the Academy, according to oral histories handed down through the years.
Three of William Hill Hayman Jr.’s sons were Academy graduates who became educators: William H. Hayman, III, a member of its first four-year high school class (1904); Joseph Walter Hayman, (1911); and Bercher Hayman, (1917).
Jerome Wilson Hayman, son of Matthias Hayman, graduated from the institution in 1938 during its transition to a four-year college.
Carlyn Juanita Hayman, Joseph Walter Hayman’s daughter, was a member of one of the first four-year classes to graduate from Princess Anne College in 1939.
During the Maryland State College era (1947-1970), Hayman family members continued to matriculate to the institution. Francis E. Hayman, a World War II veteran attended the college between 1947 and 1950, while cousins Malcolm Davis, Gertrude Maddox (Capers) and her brother, Edward Maddox, were graduates in 1950, 1951 and 1957 respectively.
While the school’s name changed in 1970, the Hayman legacy continued as another generation earned degrees from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore: Joseph O. Hayman, and his future wife, Deborah Powell, graduated in 1975 and 1976 respectively. Their daughter, Imani Hayman, graduated in 1999 – a remarkable 105 years after the first Hayman, Joseph, received an Academy diploma.
Bereatha Gould (1984), Kevin Hayman (1994) and Shannon Thomas (2005) also kept the family tradition alive over the past three decades.
UMES proudly shares the story of an extraordinary journey over its first 125 years with the equally extraordinary Hayman family, which has stood by the institution from the outset.
The university cannot know what the future holds, but this much we can surmise – a descendant of William (Noah) Hill Hayman will probably be there.
As told by Joseph O. Hayman (1975) and Eldon Hayman.
*{Caption} – Front (left-to-right): Frank L. Cornish Jr., Jerome Cornish, Hazel Joynes, Baine Maddox, (Sam S. Trott), Carlyn Juanita Hayman, acting dean of administration Robert A. Grigsby, (Barbara Ware – economics instructor), Sylvia Hughes, Laura Powell, Elwood Carrol. Back row: Harvey W. Ballard, George Lane, Roma A. Jones, (Ed Townsend), William C. Rice, (Turkey Hall), James Banks, Jessie Hughes. (Research provided by Frederick Douglass Library)
