Rutherford B. Hayes, the president who came home to Fremont
The 19th president spent his last years at Spiegel Grove, 20 minutes from Bellevue. His library there was the first presidential library in the country.
Bellevue’s nearest connection to the White House sits about 15 miles northwest, in Fremont. Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president, lived at Spiegel Grove before and after his single term and is buried on the grounds with his wife, Lucy.
From Delaware, Ohio, to the White House
Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, in 1822 and moved to Lower Sandusky, as Fremont was then called, as a young lawyer, where his uncle Sardis Birchard had built a business. Birchard began building the house at Spiegel Grove in 1859 and left it to his nephew.
Hayes was wounded several times as a Union officer in the Civil War and rose to brevet major general. He served in Congress and three terms as governor of Ohio before winning the disputed 1876 presidential election, settled by an electoral commission and the Compromise of 1877, which ended Reconstruction in the South. He kept his promise to serve only one term.
The first presidential library
The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums opened at Spiegel Grove in 1916 and is regarded as the first presidential library in the United States. It holds Hayes family papers, a large collection on local history and genealogy, and the restored home, which visitors can tour.
The library’s local history collections are a resource for families in Sandusky, Huron and Seneca counties researching ancestors, old businesses and the railroads that built towns like Bellevue. Our Community section often draws on that kind of local history.
A president’s later years
After leaving office in 1881, Hayes devoted himself to causes including prison reform and education for Black Southerners through the Slater Fund. He was active in veterans’ groups and in Fremont civic life until his death at Spiegel Grove in January 1893.
Lucy Webb Hayes, the first presidential spouse to hold a college degree, was known for banning alcohol from White House functions and for starting the Easter egg roll on the White House lawn. Victorian decorating traditions associated with her era are still recreated each December at historic houses in the area, including the Wright Mansion at Historic Lyme Village, which we wrote about in our look at the mansion’s Victorian Christmas.
Spiegel Grove is open to visitors year-round; hours and admission are posted on the library’s website.