Robert Hay was born in County Derry, Ireland, in February, 1801.  He came to America in 1817, and was employed in stores in Pittsburg for two years, and then came to Coshocton in the employ of James Renfrew.  After a clerkship of a few years, he became a partner with Mr. Renfrew, and subsequently with William Renfrew.  For fifty years he was in business.  He was in his store when taken with his last illness.  No man ever stood higher in the community for truthfulness, honesty, promptitude, and careful application to business.  Trained in the old school of merchants, he was a strict disciplinarian, and despised all trifling and trickery.  He always was himself to be found at his business in business hours, and expected a conscientious devotion to his interest on the part of his employees, whom he always regarded with kindly interest.  For the worthy poor he had always much sympathy, and was especially ready to help them to help themselves.  He served the county for several years as county treasurer, but was never inclined to public station.  In the regular prosecution of his business as a merchant and distiller, he steadily increased his worldly estate, and by the vast accretions in connection with the excise tax in the earlier part of the war, left at his death the largest estate ever administered upon in Coshocton county.

Source:  Historical Collections of Coshocton County Ohio 1764-1876
Author: William E Hunt, pub. 1876