who was john hay?
John Hay: American Diplomat John Milton Hay was born in Salem, Indiana, the son of a physician who schooled him Greek and Latin. Hay spent most of his youth in Warsaw, Illinois, attended Illinois State University (later Concordia College) and received a master's degree from Brown University, in 1858. John Hay began the practice of law with an uncle in Springfield, Illinois, where he became acquainted with Abraham Lincoln. In 1861, he was appointed a private secretary of Lincoln, along with John Nicolay; both assiduously collected items of historical merit that would later serve as the basis of a biography of the president.