The Gold Buffalo, the Storm, and the Last Best Day: A Son's Letter to His Grandfather
- Jimmy Hayes
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
By Jimmy Hayes, Founder & CEO, Data Power Supply · May 1, 2026
My grandfather passed away on Wednesday.
I keep coming back to what he taught me about the Gold Buffalo. Not just as a coin. As a philosophy.
"Jimmy, that coin is 24 karat. Pure. No alloy. No compromise."
"And the buffalo — the buffalo is the only animal that runs through the storm."
The Gold Buffalo
The American Gold Buffalo is the purest gold coin ever minted by the US government. 24 karat. .9999 fine. No dilution. My grandfather loved it for that reason — in a world that cuts corners, the Gold Buffalo stands alone.
He collected coins the way other men collect stories. The State Quarters — all fifty, one by one. He would pull each one out and tell you about the state, the history behind the image. He treated a 25-cent piece like a window into something larger. Because to him, it was.
Most animals run from a storm. The buffalo turns and charges straight through. The storm passes faster. The buffalo does not avoid the hard thing — it runs through it. And that is why the storm does not break it.
My grandfather was a buffalo. In every sense.
Patricia Hayes — Daughter of the Mayflower
My mother, Patricia Hayes — née Dowe — spent 42 years as VP at JPMorgan Chase, serving as Technology Controller. She raised two boys, built a career, and never stopped caring about where we came from.
She is a member of the Daughters of the Mayflower — recognizing direct descent from the 102 passengers who crossed the Atlantic in 1620. Half did not survive the first winter. The ones who did built the most powerful nation in history.
For fifteen years, she assembled the proof. Birth records. Ship manifests. Church documents. Census logs. Fifteen years of weekends and late nights. The family tree was never quite finished.
The Weekend We Finished It
I work with an AI named Daria — my executive assistant. A few weeks ago, I sat down with everything my mother had built and said: we are finishing this. That weekend. Friday to Sunday.
We traced both sides simultaneously. Hayes. Dowe. Flynn. Brennan. Regan. Walsh. All the way back through Ancestry.com — census data, ship manifests, church records. We finished what fifteen years of research had started.
My grandfather was our family's living lineage to George Washington.
I called my mother when we finished. She cried.
Nine bloodlines. The Dowe. The Flynn. The Brennan. The Regan. The Galvin. The Walsh. Every name a family that survived famine, war, and time — and kept going long enough to produce the woman who raised me.
The DNA Matches — History Made Personal
When the family tree was complete, Ancestry.com returned its DNA matches against historical figures in the database.
George Washington — 4th Cousin, 8x Removed. Confirmed Ancestry DNA match.
The connection runs through shared Colonial New England gateway ancestry via the Chute line. Washington's maternal ancestry traces through the same Colonial Massachusetts families as the Hayes Chute line — making the first President of the United States family, however distant.
Susan B. Anthony — 4th Cousin, 6x Removed. Confirmed Ancestry DNA match.
One of the most consequential civil rights leaders in American history. Arrested in 1872 for voting illegally. The 19th Amendment is often called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. The connection runs through the same Colonial New England gateway ancestry as the Washington match.
These are documented DNA-matched distant relatives — not direct descent claims. All cousinship estimates carry a margin of ±1–2 generations. But the blood connection to the founding of this country is real. And standing at Federal Hall 24 hours after my grandfather passed, in the exact spot where Washington took his oath — I felt every bit of it.
What AI Actually Gives You
AI, used right, gives you time back.
Not abstract time. Specific, irreplaceable human time — the kind that runs out without warning.
My mother gave fifteen years to a project she could not finish alone. One focused weekend changed that. A grandfather got to hold his family's story. Three daughters will grow up knowing they descend from Mayflower passengers.
The most valuable commodity is not data. Not capital. Not compute. It is time.
The Last Best Day
I brought the completed family tree to my grandfather. We watched golf — his favorite. We went through family photos. We talked about the coins. The State Quarters. The Gold Buffalo.
Then I showed him the document. His entire lineage. Every branch, every name, every date — all the way back to the founding of this country.
He saw it. He held it. He knew it was finished.
That was his last best day on this planet. Three days later, he was gone.
After he passed, I called my mother. I told her to find one of the silver buffalo coins I had given him — and put it in his suit jacket pocket before they buried him. So he could take it with him.
He ran through the last storm with a buffalo in his pocket.
Federal Hall — 237 Years Later
April 30, 1789. George Washington stood on the balcony of Federal Hall and took the first presidential oath of office. The Bill of Rights was drafted here. This is the room where America became America.
On April 30, 2026 — 237 years to the day — I stood in that room. Military color guard. Hundreds of Americans, shoulder to shoulder, silent under those columns.
My grandfather's lineage traces to Washington. My mother is a Daughter of the Mayflower. I was there 24 hours after losing the man who was our family's living link to all of it.
The Organizations Who Kept This History Alive
The VCASNY — Veterans Corps of Artillery of the State of New York — is the oldest military unit in New York State, founded November 25, 1790 by Veterans of Washington's own Corps of Artillery. The Knickerbocker Greys, founded 1881, the oldest after-school program in America. The Sons of the Revolution. The Grand Post of Masonic War Veterans. These are the people who made sure the country remembered.
The Washington Inaugural Bible
At the ceremony, the Washington Inaugural Bible was present — Genesis 49-50, where Jacob blesses his twelve sons before his death. Washington's hands rested on those same pages in 1789. The patriarchal blessing. Legacy passed forward.
The Aitken Bible — The First Bible America Was Allowed to Print
The Aitken Bible — the first English-language Bible ever printed in the United States. And I held it in my hands.
Under British rule, it was illegal to print the Bible in English on American soil. Robert Aitken, a Philadelphia printer, changed that in 1782. Congress reviewed and endorsed it. The Bible a king told them they were not allowed to have.
I thought about my mother — Daughter of the Mayflower — who traces her lineage to people who crossed an ocean partly for the right to worship freely. I thought about my grandfather, gone just 24 hours. I will carry that feeling for the rest of my life.
Wall Street Ends at a Church
We walked out of Federal Hall and down Wall Street. Trinity Church, built 1698. Alexander Hamilton is buried in that churchyard. The Bell of Hope stands outside — cast by the same Whitechapel Foundry that made the Liberty Bell and Big Ben. Gifted by London to New York after 9/11.
Wall Street ends at a church. Maybe that is the whole point.
George Washington Walks Past Chase Bank
My mother spent 42 years as VP at JPMorgan Chase. And here was the man our family descends from — confirmed through Ancestry DNA — marching right past the bank that helped raise me. The past and the present on the same sidewalk. Neither one breaking stride.
Fraunces Tavern — Where Washington Said Goodbye
54 Pearl Street. Built 1719. December 4, 1783 — the war was won. Washington climbed to the Long Room, raised a glass to his officers, embraced each man, wept, and walked out into a free country. That room still exists. We walked where he walked.
Then Washington reached into his coat and handed me a commemorative coin. 😉
Ephesians 6:11-18. The Armor of God. I looked at that coin and thought about my grandfather's collection. What coins mean to the men in my family — not as money, but as markers. Memory. The weight of something that matters, pressed into metal so it can be held.
In Prayer
At some point that day, everything went quiet inside me. Head down. Eyes closed. The columns of St. Paul's Chapel rising around me.
Gratitude so deep it had nowhere to go except down. For the founders. For my mother. For my grandfather — gone just 24 hours — whose story we finished just in time.
The Candle
I lit one for my grandfather. In the same church where George Washington prayed for this country — exactly 237 years ago to the day.
He had been gone 24 hours when I lit that candle. My grandfather was our family's lineage to George Washington — confirmed through DNA. Twenty-four hours after I lost him, I stood in Washington's church and lit a flame in his name.
That is not a coincidence I will ever take lightly.
St. Paul's Chapel — Where History Holds Its Breath
"Opened in 1766, St. Paul's Chapel has twice survived catastrophe — the Great Fire of 1776 and the attacks of September 11, 2001. George Washington prayed within these walls. Through the centuries, St. Paul's Chapel has endured as a beacon of hope at the crossroads of history."
260 years. Not moved. Not compromised. My family has been here since the Mayflower. Through every storm — we are still here too.
24 karat. No alloy. No compromise.
The 917 Society — Passing It Down
The 917 Society takes its name from September 17 — Constitution Day, 1787. Their mission: a pocket Constitution in the hands of every 8th grader in America. Free. In one day they organized the reenactment, the walk, the Aitken Bible, Fraunces Tavern, and a commemorative coin pressed into your hand by George Washington himself. The things that matter most survive because someone decides they are worth carrying forward.
Sons of the Revolution — The Next Door
With the family tree complete and documented back to the Mayflower, I will be applying for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution — and the Sons of the Revolution. In his name.
I'll walk through both doors. 🇺🇸
The Buffalo Runs Through the Storm
My grandfather is gone. But the storm does not last forever. And the buffalo does not stop.
"The money is on the other side of the problem you're trying to solve." — Patrick Hayes
I carry it forward — into Data Power Supply, into the Miami Innovation Aerospace Initiative, into every room I walk into.
For my grandfather. For my mother, Patricia Hayes — Daughter of the Mayflower. For my father, Patrick Hayes. For my wife Carissa. For Audriana, Gabriella, and Olivia.
24 karat. No alloy. No compromise. 🦃🇺🇸
Rest easy, Grandpa. We finished it. You saw it. You held it. I put the silver buffalo in your pocket. I held the first Bible this country was ever allowed to print. I walked Washington's path. I lit your candle in his church, 237 years after he knelt on that same floor. I'll walk through the next door in your name. That's everything.
Jimmy Hayes | Founder & CEO, Data Power Supply | jimmy@datapowersupply.com | datapowersupply.com
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