Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Raise the Rutherford!

The Seven Days of Hayes
December 24 – December 30

A week-long celebration commemorating Rutherford B. Hayes’s arrival in Cincinnati on December 24, 1849 and ending with his wedding to Lucy Webb on December 30, 1852.

On the Seventh Day of Hayes . . .
The Wedding

Rutherford Birchard Hayes and Lucy Ware Webb were married on December 30, 1852. Below was part of a clipping posted in Hayes’s diary at the Hayes Presidential Center:

December 30, 1852.-
"December 30th, by Prof. L. D. McCabe, of the Ohio W. [Wesleyan] University, R. B. Hayes, Esq., to Miss Lucy W. Webb, all of this city."
Thursday afternoon, about 2 o'clock, at the residence of Lucy's mother on the south side of Sixth street, between Race and Elm (No. 141) Cincinnati, Ohio. Present, sister Fanny and her daughter Laura, Uncle Birchard, Rogers and Anderson (Phi Zetas), Lucy's mother [and] two brothers, Uncle Isaac Cook, Aunt Lucy, and Will Scott, together with about thirty friends. Took the cars same evening to Columbus; remained there in brother Platt's family four weeks. A delightful honeymoon.

It is noted in the Eslie Asbury, M. D. article "Rutherford B. Hayes and the Literary Club" that of those 30 friends, most of the men in attendance were all Literary Club members. (That same article however has the wrong year of the wedding!)

Hayes notes the anniversary of his wedding many times in his diary. For the 25th Anniversary, he was President and they celebrated with a party in the White House. Friends from Ohio visited, including the Reverend McCabe who officiated at their wedding. The festivities also included the baptism of Lucy Herron and others. Later in life, Hayes notes the anniversary in his diary with thoughts of family and friends who attended the wedding that were deceased.
Image is the Rutherford B. and Lucy Webb Hayes Wedding Daguerreotype from the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center.

"Raise the Rutherford!" is a continuing, slightly humorous series to raise awareness of Rutherford B. Hayes and erect a statue of him in Cincinnati.

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