Individual Details

1860 Census. Johnson Co AR, Hh 341.
Delitha Hays age 58, b. NC. Margaret Hays age 28, b. TN. Parthena, age 20, b. MS
Ardenia age 9 and Arkansas age 7, both born in AR. [I believe this is probably Martin's widow living with this mother - the two young girls would be hers] However, descendants of Ardena have the family story that their parents were both killed in a tornado and they do not have names for those parents. Possibly old Arkansas newspapers would have an article about a killer tornado sometime in the late 1850's, but I have not yet found that. That would also raise the question of who Margaret Hays in this census was, if she was not the mother of the two little girls. However the tornado may have occurred some later.

I did find in Goodspeed that on 12 Apr 1858, a tornado totally destroyed the courthouse, and half the town, in Springfield, county seat of Conway County, AR. The new courthouse was burned during the Civil War but many of the record books saved by Clerk, Joshua Moses.

In the Arkansas Marriages 1837-1957 on FamilySearch. Margarett Hays married Smith Brown on 26 Jun 1862, Johnson Co, AR. Both of lawful age. V. Wallace, Elder of ME Church, S. Filed 7 Jun 1862.
A family tree on Ancestry states that Margaret died near Fort Smith, along with her infant child, during a tornado in 1863. I have been unable to find anything regarding such an event near this time except for an excerpt on GeneagyBank.org:
Weekly Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock AR, Sat. 29 Jul 1865. Partial description of a late tornado that took the water out of a pond, removed a man's boots, an old lady that was tossed on to a telegraph wire and had to be rescued by a grandson - however, the location is not stated, nor any deaths mentioned. There had been a tornado on 29 June of 1865 in Viroqua, Wisconsin which killed 17, several others dying later from injuries.

Birth	1829	Tennessee
Marriage	Abt 1850	Martin HAYS

Spouse	Martin HAYS (1828 - 1860)
Child	Ardena Frances HAYS (1851 - 1927)
Child	Elizabeth Arenas Arkansas HAYS (1853 - )