Rutherford B. Hayes

As a young man, President Rutherford Birchard Hayes was an agent of the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio as a means to assist fugitive slaves escaping slavery in the south. This cabinet card is from Baker's Art Gallery. The image was collected by Ohio State University professor Wilbur H. Siebert (1866-1961). Siebert began researching the Underground Railroad in the 1890sWilbur H. Siebert, an Ohio State University professor, collected this image of a cabinet card from Baker's Art Gallery. as a way to interest his students in history.

This letter from Rutherford B. Hayes states that as a young lawyer he defended fugitive slaves in Slave Cases resulting from the Fugitive Slave Act, lasting from 1850 until the Civil War (1861). As part of the Compromise of 1850, this law required authorities in free states to assist slave catchers in the capture of escaped slaves.

This portrait depicts the 19th President, Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes served during the Civil War in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry (O. V. I.) along with William McKinley, who became the 25th President. The 23rd O. V. I. became nicknamed the “Regiment of Two Presidents” claiming both Hayes and McKinley as its own.

The regimental flag of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry (O.V.I.), organized in June 1861 at Camp Chase in Columbus. The blue flag bears the arms of the United States, an eagle with a shield on its chest holding an olive branch, a bundle of arrows, a red scroll with the national motto "E Pluribus Unum", and names of battles in which the regiment participated, including Antietam.

This governor’s portrait of Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893) hangs in the Ohio Statehouse. Hayes served serve three, two-year terms as Governor of Ohio from 1868-1872 and 1875-1876. Hayes supported Ohio's ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, granting African-Americans the right to vote. He did not finish his third term because he was elected President in 1876.

Lithograph of Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893), Republican candidate for president in the 1876 election, who went on to defeat Democrat Samuel Tilden of New York. Despite losing the popular vote, Hayes won the Electoral College and was granted the presidency by the Congress after agreements to end Reconstruction in the South, a deal known as the Compromise of 1877.

This is the title page to a seven-page publication regarding the 'Presidential Conflict of 1876'. This conflict revolved around the counting of electoral votes and how much power Congress had over settling the dispute of who won the election of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden.

Governor Frank B. Willis, Mayor George Kinney, and United States Senator and later President Warren G. Harding presented the Hayes Memorial Library and Museum. The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center contains the residence of Rutherford B. Hayes, his tomb, as well as a library and museum housing personal papers and mementos of the Hayes family.

Lucy Webb Hayes, wife of United States President Rutherford B. Hayes, 1881. This original portrait was created by Daniel Huntington. Lucy Webb was born on August 28, 1831 in Chillicothe, Ohio. She married Rutherford B Hayes on December 30, 1832. They became the parents of eight children. She died in Fremont, Ohio on June 25, 1889.

President and Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes with a man identified as Mr. H. Smith and two dogs on the porch of their home, Spiegel Grove, ca. 1880-1889. President Hayes and Mrs. Hayes share a tomb encased in a monument of Vermont granite from his father's farm.

The 33-room mansion was built by Sardis Birchard, Hayes's uncle and guardian, between 1859 and 1865. Rutherford B. Hayes especially loved the veranda of the home. In an 1873 diary entry he wrote: "The best part of the present house is the veranda. But I would enlarge it. I want a veranda with a house attached!" Hayes is buried here at Spiegel Grove.

Sardis Birchard gave real estate and other property to establish a library in Fremont. Rutherford B. Hayes, nephew of Birchard, announced this gift. On June 3, 1874, Birchard Library opened containing 1683 books. President Hayes not only gave the money but also supervised the building of the library, serving as the President of the Board of Directors until his death.