Bonus - Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center
A now seven-part, slightly humorous series to erect a statue of Rutherford B. Hayes in Cincinnati.
So I recently went to the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center at Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio. The grounds contain the family home and burial grounds as well as the Presidential Library & Museum which was actually the first Presidential Library. My time in the museum was limited but the one hour tour of the home was actually fairly interesting. Descendents of the President have lived at Spiegel Grove until the mid 1960’s and they have a wonderful collection of family artifacts that spill over to the Museum. For instance they have President Hayes’s carriage, last used in the 1890’s! However, I was mostly curious about artifacts related to the Hayes’ time in Cincinnati. There were a few items I found of note.
President Hayes kept a diary from the age of twelve to the time of his death in 1893, when he was seventy years old. An edited portion of that diary is online and searchable. You can bet I am going to search those Cincinnati years . . . (It is sad, I know.)
There is no photography allowed in the house but here are a few of the grounds.
A now seven-part, slightly humorous series to erect a statue of Rutherford B. Hayes in Cincinnati.
So I recently went to the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center at Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio. The grounds contain the family home and burial grounds as well as the Presidential Library & Museum which was actually the first Presidential Library. My time in the museum was limited but the one hour tour of the home was actually fairly interesting. Descendents of the President have lived at Spiegel Grove until the mid 1960’s and they have a wonderful collection of family artifacts that spill over to the Museum. For instance they have President Hayes’s carriage, last used in the 1890’s! However, I was mostly curious about artifacts related to the Hayes’ time in Cincinnati. There were a few items I found of note.
The home the family lived in before moving to Walnut Hills was at 621 West 6th Street. They had a picture of it and it was a typical Italianate rowhouse between Smith & Mound Streets. The address would place it currently about where Route 50 splits to 5th & 6th Streets near and over I-75. I could not find the address of the home in Walnut Hills.
Two Hayes children born in Cincinnati, Joseph and George, died in infancy and are buried in Spring Grove. Both were under the age of two when they died and both are buried next to each other in Section 29, Lot 40, Space 1 and 2. (Joseph Thompson Hayes died on June 24, 1863. His body was moved however next to his brother George Crook Hayes after his death on May 24, 1866.) There is this strange painting of the children in the master bedroom that was commissioned by Lucy Webb Hayes. The tour guide said it was commissioned since they did not have any photos of the children before they died. (There are fantastic paintings and photographs of family members all over the house including a life-size painting of Rutherford B Hayes which was quite impressive.)President Hayes kept a diary from the age of twelve to the time of his death in 1893, when he was seventy years old. An edited portion of that diary is online and searchable. You can bet I am going to search those Cincinnati years . . . (It is sad, I know.)There is no photography allowed in the house but here are a few of the grounds.
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4 comments:
I'm taking this all seriously. I'll continue to pitch it to the Literary Club where RBH was a member. No kidding.
radarman - I have seen a few mentions in RBH's diary (so far) of the Literary Club. You can type in "Literary Club" as keywords and related passages come up. This includes for instance when he talks about attending a meeting, when a friend from the Literary Club passed away, or meeting members of the Cincinnati Literary Club while in Washington, DC.
I know that you prefaced these posts with the disclaimer "A six-part, slightly humorous series to erect a statue of Rutherford B. Hayes in Cincinnati", but I really feel that this is an idea worth pursuing. I've lived here most of my life, but there's still a lot I don't know about Cincy. So I had just assumed that there was a Hayes statue somewhere and I was simply unaware of it. I think this is the kind of thing that could actually get funded, because it's kind of odd that we have a major connection with a president and don't have a statue somewhere. Also, it would be a good, cheap, and simple opportunity for Cincinnati to raise awareness of its historical significance while at the same time adding character to a new park and announcing to the rest of the Cincy area that downtown has turned a corner and is THE place to be now and in the near future. In short, I love this idea, and I hope that you take it even further. Oh, and I prefer the Plum Street Park location, though the others wouldn't be bad choices either.
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