19. HAYES

  1. NAME –  Rutherford Birchard HayesLibrary of Congress
  2. NICKNAME(S) –  His Fraudulency, President De Facto 
  3. BIRTH / DEATH –   Delaware, Ohio  /  Fremont, Ohio (heart attack)
  4. FATHER –   farmer
  5. MOTHER –  housewife
  6. COLLEGE –  Kenyon College (valedictorian)  /   Harvard Law School
  7. WIFE –  Lucy Webb
  8. KIDS –  8  (7 boys)
  9. PETS –  Siamese cat (Siam) – first Siamese cat in America;  Greyhound (Grim);  English Mastiff (Duke);  Newfoundland (Hector);  Terrier (Dot);  canaries     
  10. RELIGION –  Methodist
  11. ANCESTRY –  Scotch
  12. AGE – 54

FIRSTS:

–  first to visit the West coast (San Francisco)

–  first to graduate from law school

–  first to have a telephone in the White House

–  first Easter egg roll on the White House lawn

–  first to be wounded in the Civil War

–  first to win the Electoral Vote, but not the Popular Vote

MA AND PA:  His father moved the family to Ohio before he was born.  He had a successful farm and orchard and invested in a profitable distillery.  His sister died and his father of typhus fever a few weeks before he was born.  James was one of three Presidents born after their father passed away (Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton).  His father was only 35.  His mother lived another 44 years.  James was named after an earlier baby who died before birth.  He was called Rud by his mother.  An older brother died when he fell through ice and drowned.  He was a momma’s boy and she was very religious and moral.  He played with dolls instead of toy soldiers when young.  She was a hot air balloon parent who was very protective.  He could not play with other children until age 9 and was home-schooled until 14.    His mother wanted him to be a minister and definitely did not want him to be a politician.

BACKGROUND:

–  his father died a few months before his birth (typhus fever epidemic)

–  he was raised by his mother and uncle

–  he was a strong student

–  after college, he started a law practice in Cincinnati (he defended escaped slaves)

–  he enlisted at the start of the Civil War (promoted to Major General)

–  elected to the House of Representatives (he was a Radical Republican and worked to protect freed slaves’ rights)

–  elected Governor of Ohio

FIRST LADY:  Lucy was the first college graduate to be First Lady.  Lucy was religious and insisted on morning worship and Sunday evening hymn singing in the White House.  She once said woman is “not the slave of man, but his equal in all things, and his superior in some.”  She supported temperance and women’s suffrage, but did not join the movements;  she pushed for modesty in women’s fashions and was against bare arms and low-cut dresses  Sadler 186 /  Kelly 324

Library of Congress

TRIVIA:

–  he was the only one of our five Civil War veteran Presidents who was wounded

– he was wounded in the arm leading a charge in the Battle of Stone Mountain

–  William McKinley was a private in his regiment in the Civil War

–  he promised to serve only one term

–  when he was two, his brother drowned

–  his hobbies were literature and natural sciences

–  when he arrived in Washington after his election, there were death threats so his carriage was guarded by six Secret Service agents;  this was the first time the Secret Service guarded a President

–  he was more proud of his Civil War service than his Presidency

–  during the election controversy, a bullet was fired into his house while his family was eating dinner

–  when he ran for the House during the Civil War, he refused to campaign and refused to assume office until the war was over

ANECDOTES:

Richmond First –  In 1864, Ohio Republicans wanted the war hero general to run for Congress.  Hayes agreed, but refused to go home to campaign.  “Any man who would leave the Army at his time to electioneer for Congress ought to be scalped.”  His campaign slogan was:  “Hayes Loves His Country and Fights For It”.  When he was elected, he refused to take his seat until the war was over.  “I shall never come to Washington until I can come by way of Richmond.” –  Boller p. 166

Lemonade Lucy –  Hayes and his wife were ardently anti-alcohol so Lucy forbid any liquor in the White House.  This policy was unpopular with many dinner guests.  They joked that “the water flowed like wine.”  Some of the frequent guests got around this by bribing the White House servants to use rum-laced oranges in the punch.  They snickered behind Lucy’s back.  But Hayes in his diary noted that he was on to the scheme and had the punch-makers substitute a rum flavoring, so he had the last laugh.  Shenkman 146-7