Edward Graham Haywood, Jr was born in Raleigh (Wake County), North Carolina, in 1854. In his youth, his baptism was recorded by his mother's cousin and close friend Margaret Eliza Cotten. In adulthood, Haywood was an attorney who served as chief of the judiciary division of the U. S. Department of the Treasury. He died in Washington, D.C., on May 28, 1891.