Editing John Hay (section)

===Family and youth===
[[File:Hay-Morrison House from southwest.jpg|thumb|left|The [[John Hay Center|Hay-Morrison House]], birthplace of John Hay, Salem, Indiana]]

John Milton Hay was born in [[Salem, Indiana]], on October 8, 1838.{{sfn|Kushner & Sherrill|p=11}} He was the third son of Dr. Charles Hay and the former Helen Leonard. Charles Hay, born in [[Lexington, Kentucky]], hated slavery and moved to the North in the early 1830s. A doctor, he practiced in Salem. Helen's father, David Leonard, had moved his family west from [[Assonet, Massachusetts]], in 1818, but died en route to [[Vincennes, Indiana]], and Helen relocated to Salem in 1830 to teach school. They married there in 1831.{{sfn|Thayer I|pp=3–4}} Charles was not successful in Salem, and moved, with his wife and children, to [[Warsaw, Illinois]], in 1841.{{sfn|Kushner & Sherrill|pp=15–16}}

John attended the local schools, and in 1849 his uncle Milton Hay invited John to live at his home in [[Pittsfield, Illinois|Pittsfield]], Pike County<!-- DO NOT LINK, see [[MOS:GEOLINK]] for further guidance -->, and attend a well-regarded local school,{{sfn|Kushner & Sherrill|pp=16–18}} the John D. Thomson Academy.{{sfn|Stevenson & Stevenson|p=19}} Milton was a friend of [[Springfield, Illinois|Springfield]] attorney [[Abraham Lincoln]] and had read law in the firm Stuart and Lincoln.{{sfn|Stevenson & Stevenson|p=20}} In Pittsfield, John first met [[John Nicolay]], who was at the time a 20-year-old newspaperman.{{sfn|Taliaferro|pp=22–23}} Once John Hay completed his studies there, the 13-year-old was sent to live with his grandfather in Springfield and attend school there. His parents and uncle Milton (who financed the boy's education) sent him to [[Brown University]] in [[Providence, Rhode Island]], ''alma mater'' of his late maternal grandfather.{{sfn|Thayer I|pp=21–22}}