Rutherford Hayes lived a full life. He attended Harvard Law School after becoming valedictorian of his class at Kenyon College. He practiced as an attorney, and defended runaway slaves from jilted plantation owners. He married a college-educated woman from Cincinnati, and had a family. He became a general in the Civil War after enlisting at age 40. He was wounded in battle five times. He served three terms as governor of Ohio. When he ran for president, Mark Twain campaigned on his behalf. As President, created the still-existing White House Easter Egg Roll. Paraguay named a province after him.
In his final years, he took walks with his wife, Lucy, on the wooded grounds behind a beautiful house in Fremont. His home still stands today, on a plot called Spiegel Grove, enclosed by the White House gates that protected him while in office. His papers stay there along with his books, in America’s first presidential library, built by his son, Webb, and the Ohio Historical Society in 1916.
Hayes’s grave also sits on Spiegel, right next to Lucy’s, enclosed by tall trees and squirrels that walk up to visitors and wait for crumbs. Year-round, you can tour Hayes’s house, see his grounds, and research his collection—maintained and restored to the vibrancy in which he lived.
The museum
The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center is a palatial limestone building that was built just a few dozen yards from the President’s house. Over 40,000 people visit each year, almost three times the population of Fremont. The Center has 21 full-time staff, and an additional 20 part-time workers and volunteers. It has the very carriage that carried the President to the White House, costumes his children wore to galas, and a full cache of weapons he handled as a general. “It’s a one-stop collection,” said Nancy Kleinhenz, the center's Communications Manager. “Everything’s here.”
The library
Above and behind the museum sits the Hayes library, which consists of 52,640 square feet of research and storage space. President Hayes was a book collector. “He loved to read,” said Becky Hill, the head librarian at the Hayes Center. The president had more than 10,000 books in his personal collection, and the library has expanded that to 100,000 books and more than one million manuscripts that fill four floors of research stacks.
The library carries information about the president, and also has non-digitized documentation of pioneer America, family genealogy, and the Civil War that can be found nowhere else. As I walked through the stacks, I saw a set of 14 books from the mid-19th century titled The History of Milwaukee. Below that was an 1858 directory of Toledo the size of a small journal. Hill assured me that her staff are happy to help anyone to help them research whatever they’re looking for.
The house
The Victorian-style house, completed in 1863, was fully restored in 2012 to reflect how Hayes lived during the Gilded Age. The porch encircled the entire house when it was originally built. As many as five different wallpapers cover each room with original floral and star designs. The doors have Asian-inspired brass hardware. A portrait of George Washington hangs in the foyer, and a portrait of Lincoln sits on the bedroom nightstand. Hayes’ official White House china shows fish being speared and frontier animals in action. It is at once worldly and boldly American.
“Where else do you find a spot like this?” said Joan Eckerman, who organizes special events for the Center. Next year will be the Center’s centennial anniversary, and Eckerman is excited about the planning. President Hayes loved having visitors to Spiegel Grove, and the visitors have kept coming to learn about his life and to see the place he ultimately called home. “One of our presidents lived right here!” said Eckerman. And at no point during a visit to Spiegel Grove will you lose sight of that.
The Center will host two fundraising events in May, to be held at the Catawba Island Club in Port Clinton. Call Development Director Kathy Boukissen,
419-332-2081, ext. 226.
Got a comment? Tweet us @TCPaper
Tweet Dorian @DorianMarley
Dorian Slaybod is an attorney happily living in Toledo.
.gif)
