Mr. Robert W. Mays
The subject of this sketch, Robert W. Mays, was born in Butts county Ga., and is a son of Henry S. and Matilda R. (Stroud) Mays, natives respectively of South Carolina and Georgia.
In 1862, R. W. Mays enlisted in the 30th Georgia Volunteers, and served as a private and took part in many battles and received a wound at the battle of Chickamauga which retired him from service; but he partially recovered and, with retired papers in his pocket, returned to the army, and was engaged in the last battle of the war - Bentonville. After the struggle had ended, he returned home to his widowed mother and two younger brothers (his father having killed during the war) and commenced life a poor man with a limited education. In 1870 he was elected tax receiver and re-elected in 1872. He used his salary, accruing from the office, in acquiring a medical education. He was quite successful in his practice. In 1880 he retired from practice, and was that year elected to the Legislature and did much good for the State and county.
He is brave, but tender, and is more than ordinarily loved by the poor. He is of a nervous temperament and is possessed of indomitable will and energy, as is proven by the fact that he has risen from a poor boy to a man of wealth and influence.
In 1880 he married Miss Laura J. Gray, daughter of Augustus Gray, and is now the father of three bright children - Robert Lee, Mary Augustus, "John Billie."
In politics he is an independent thinker, and is the champion of his country and not of any particular party. He is now devoting his time principally to agriculture, in which industry the greater part of his money is invested; though he has a large property in Jackson and still more in Tallapoosa, Ga., Dr. Mays is in the fairest sense of the word a self-made man.
Middle Ga. Argus - December 1894
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