Ohio History Journal

Lucy Webb Hayes and her Family by EMILY APT GEER

The public life of Rutherford Birchard Hayes has been studied by many historians but little has been written about the friendly, sparkling woman he married and their large and active family of eight children. Lucy Webb Hayes's concern for people helped her develop a lively interest in politics that served her equally well as the wife of a city solicitor in Cincinnati and as mistress of the White House while her husband was President. Their oldest son, Birchard Austin, became a prominent lawyer in Toledo; their second son, Webb Cook, after a career as a manufacturer and an army colonel, founded the Hayes State Memorial at Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio. Rutherford Platt and Scott Russell were in various business fields; and Fanny Hayes Smith, the only girl among the Hayes children, lived until 1950, still able to recall vividly the days of her childhood in Washington and Spiegel Grove. Two little boys born during the Civil War in addition to the last Hayes baby died during the second summer of their lives. NOTES ON PAGE 186

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34                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

This account of the Hayes family begins with the courtship of Lucy Ware

Webb by Rutherford B. Hayes; and continues on to describe their early

married life in Cincinnati, the difficult years of the Civil War, the period

of Hayes's political ascendancy, and finally their retirement to Spiegel

Grove. Throughout the narrative, Lucy Webb Hayes, as wife and mother,

is naturally the focal point about which the life of the family revolves.

Rutherford Birchard Hayes and Lucy Ware Webb were married on

December 30, 1852. The story of their romance, from the time they first

met in Delaware to the day of their marriage, was carefully chronicled by

Hayes in his Diary. By looking back through the pages, he found the first

mention of Lucy on July 8, 1847. In a letter written after their engagement,

he claimed that he had heard a great deal about her from his mother's

friends, but because Lucy was only sixteen, she impressed him as "a bright

sunny hearted little girl not quite old enough to fall in love with--so I

didn't."1

A few years earlier, Lucy's widowed mother, Maria Webb, had moved

from Chillicothe, where she had lived all her life, to Delaware so that her

two sons, James and Joseph, could attend the newly established college de-

partment of Ohio Wesleyan.² Lucy studied for a while in both the pre-

paratory and the college departments of the school, although female

students were not officially enrolled at that time in the college division. On

a term report that listed merit points for Lucy Webb in both departments,

her conduct was marked "unexceptionable" (beyond reproach).3

Sophia Hayes, Rutherford's mother, had met the Webb family while

visiting in Delaware and had decided that the "bright-eyed" Lucy, from a

good family and particularly beyond reproach in her religious convictions,

would make a suitable wife for her son. Mrs. Webb also encouraged the

friendship by taking Lucy with her when she visited Mrs. Hayes in Colum-

bus, where she lived with her daughter, Fanny Platt.⁴ Letters from Hayes

show that he was aware of the conspiracy. Shortly after meeting Lucy, he

commented to his sister, "Mother and Mrs. Lamb [a family friend] selected

a clever little schoolgirl named Webb for me at Delaware."⁵ And a few

months later, half-teasingly, he told his mother, "I wish I had a wife to

take care of my correspondence . . . I hope you and Mother Lamb will see

to it that Lucy Webb is properly instructed in this particular."6

In spite of the efforts of the matchmakers, Rutherford Hayes and Lucy

Webb saw no more of each other until after Christmas, 1849, when Hayes

moved to Cincinnati to establish a law practice. He had heard that Lucy

was attending the Wesleyan Female College in Cincinnati and had decided

that he wanted to see her again as soon as possible. Hayes did not find Lucy

in until a second visit to the college on January 5, 1850.7 After that the

young lawyer's frequent appearances at the college's Friday night receptions,

and comments in his Diary reveal his growing interest in the young girl.

Perhaps he saw her graduate from college in June, 1850, and heard her read

her commencement essay, "The Influence of Christianity on National Pros-

perity."⁸

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LUCY WEBB HAYES and Her Family                                  35

 

A year later, Hayes was writing in his Diary, "I guess I am a great deal

in love with-- [Lucy Webb] . . . Her low sweet voice . . . her soft rich eyes."

Bemused as he was, Rutherford Hayes was practical enough to look for

other reasons for his attachment. "Intellect, she has too," he added, "a quick

spritely one, rather than a reflective profound one. She sees at a glance what

others study upon, but will not, perhaps, study out what she is unable to

see at a flash. She is a genuine woman, right from instinct and impulse

rather than judgment and reflection.^"9

Lucy did not record her emotions, but her intuitiveness must have pre-

pared her for Hayes's proposal on June 13, 1851, a Friday night. A delight-

ful paragraph from his Diary describes the scene:

On a sudden the impulse seized me. . . I grasped her hand hastily

in my own and with a smile--but earnestly and in quick accents said--

"I love you." She did not comprehend it--really no sham. . . . I knew

it was as I wished, but I waited, perhaps repeated . . . until she said,

"I must confess I like you very well." A queer, soft, lovely tone, it stole

to the very heart, and, I, without loosing her hand took a seat by her

side and--and the faith was plighted for life! . . . She said, "I don't

know but I am dreaming. I thought I was too light and trifling for

you."10

Happy weeks followed until Lucy left for a visit to the country and

Hayes discovered, much to his concern and chagrin, that she very much

disliked letter writing.11 As sometimes happens with voluble people, Lucy

Webb found it difficult, as well as tedious, to record her thoughts on paper,

nevertheless her infrequent letters to Rutherford Hayes were engaging

accounts of her activities and her efforts to be elusive when questioned

about him. Lucy wrote that it was amusing to keep their friends guessing

but his "likeness" lay hidden "in a little corner of my formerly large heart,"

and she asked him to think kindly of her as David did of Dora (an allusion

to characters in David Copperfield).12

Neither Rutherford Hayes nor Lucy Webb seemed to be in any hurry

to set a date for their marriage. Doubtless Hayes wanted to be able to sup-

port a household with a minimum of assistance from his uncle and bene-

factor, Sardis Birchard, but not until the summer of 1852 did Lucy's let-

ters show either inclination or desire to set a wedding date. Perhaps Hayes's

infrequent letters from Columbus and Fremont, where he was spending

the summer, with their gay accounts of picnics and buggy rides, along with

the realization that she was approaching twenty-one (August 28, 1852),

provided the impetus toward matrimony that Lucy needed.¹³

Rutherford Hayes, who may have deliberately exaggerated his social

activities, was also thinking about matrimony, and for the first time men-

tioned living in Fremont. Uncle Sardis had told his nephew that he would

like to build him a "summer retreat" in a "pleasant grove," if he would

promise to spend part of the summer in Fremont. "How say you," he asked

in a letter to Lucy, "shall I promise? I feel like doing it."14

In August, Fanny Platt and her daughter, Laura, joined Hayes at the

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36                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

Valette farm near Fremont where Sardis Birchard was living. On the last

evening of their visit, Rutherford's marriage prospects were discussed, and

in answer to questions about Lucy, Fanny described her as "quite pretty . . .

a charming disposition, is merry as a cricket and if she were here tonight

her laugh would make Uncle ten years younger." At this point, Sardis

interrupted, "Well why doesn't the fool marry her? I don't believe she'll

have him."15

Soon after Hayes returned to Cincinnati in September, he was able to

assure his uncle that Lucy and he planned to be married as soon as her

brother Jim's health improved.¹⁶ He hoped that they would not need finan-

cial assistance but would call upon Birchard if necessary. By December

third, with his law practice measurably increased and James Webb feeling

better, Hayes could tell his uncle that they had agreed "as to the marrying

[date]."¹⁷

On December 30, 1852, the wedding took place in the Webb home at

141 Sixth Street, Cincinnati. The two o'clock ceremony was performed by

their friend, Professor L. D. McCabe of Ohio Wesleyan University, before

a company of about forty relatives and friends. Rutherford's niece, Laura

Platt, held Lucy's hand during the ceremony.18 According to an account

by Lucy's friend, Eliza Davis, the "radiant" bride looked lovely in her

figured satin dress, simply tailored with a full skirt pleated to a fitted bodice,

and floor length veil fastened with orange blossoms. The groom, Mrs. Davis

jokingly commented, was an honest looking man who "might turn out

better than I expected."19 That evening Lucy and Rutherford Hayes

boarded the five o'clock train for Columbus where he hoped to combine

appearances before the Ohio Supreme Court with a pleasant honeymoon.²⁰

The years from 1853 to the beginning of the Civil War were happy ones

for the growing Hayes family. The first three of their children were born

during this period: Birchard Austin on November 4, 1853; Webb Cook,

March 20, 1856; and Rutherford Platt, June 24, 1858. For Rutherford

Hayes, who was elected to his first political office in 1859, it was a time of

professional achievement as well as marital bliss. His happiness and pride

in his loving wife and bouncing sons were tempered only by the death in

1856 of his adored sister, Fanny H. Platt.

During the month-long honeymoon with Fanny Platt's family in Colum-

bus, Lucy's happy disposition and enjoyment of the children won her the

affection of the household. Hayes presented his arguments before the

Supreme Court the first week, and while waiting for the decision "proudly"

escorted his wife to the social events of the season. Fanny, describing their

activities wrote, "So to dinner parties, tea drinking and evening fandangoes

they went with unremitted zeal."21 In February, the young couple returned

to Mrs. Webb's home in Cincinnati where they remained for over a year.

At the end of the second month of wedded life, Rutherford Hayes wrote

in his Diary, "A better wife I never hoped to have. . . This is indeed life. . .

Blessings on his head who first invented marriage."²² Lucy's letters echo

the same sentiment although she missed her husband when he attended

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LUCY WEBB HAYES and Her Family                                  37

 

club meetings and political gatherings. "Well have patience a little longer,"

she entered in his diary. "Woman is the only enemy that has ever overcome

the Club."²³

Much of Lucy and Rutherford Hayes's first summer together was spent

visiting his sister's family in Columbus, Sardis Birchard in Fremont, and

Lucy's relatives in Chillicothe. Lucy's grandfather, Isaac Cook, had been

a pioneer settler in Chillicothe recognized for his qualities of leadership by

appointment as an associate justice of the common pleas court and by elec-

tion to the state legislature.²⁴ One of his sons, Matthew Scott Cook, a fa-

vorite of the Webb children, married Ellen Tiffin, daughter of Ohio's first

governor, and settled on a farm near Chillicothe called Buena Vista. Fol-

lowing the death of Maria Webb's husband, Dr. James Webb, from cholera

when Lucy was two years old, Scott Cook had become his sister's chief

financial adviser.²⁵ Lucy also enjoyed visiting her aunts, Phebe Cook Mc-

Kell in Chillicothe, Margaret Cook Boggs and Lucy Cook at Elmwood,

near Kingston, and other relatives in the area. The highlight of their vaca-

tion though was a three-day trip in August to Niagara Falls. The honey-

moon of their dreams, a trip up the St. Lawrence had to be deferred (until

1860) , partly because of Lucy's pregnancy.²⁶

Their first child, a son, was born at his grandmother's house on Sixth

Street on November 4, 1853. For a while the baby's only name seemed to

be "Puds," until Fanny Platt's and Sophia Hayes's protests caused Ruther-

ford and Lucy to name the baby Sardis Birchard [later changed to Birchard

Austin].²⁷ Perhaps it was fortunate for the relatives' sense of propriety that

they did not realize that Lucy and Rutherford's parenthood would be char-

acterized by a tendency to wait for the name to take possession of the child.

With space in Maria Webb's house no longer adequate for the growing

family, Hayes proposed to buy his own home.²⁸ In April, when Mrs. Webb

began to close her house, Lucy and "Birchie" left for extended visits with

the Platts in Columbus, and relatives in Chillicothe. Business affairs, the

search for a house, and then supervision of its renovation kept Hayes in

Cincinnati most of the summer. Finally the repairs were completed and

on September 4, 1854, the Hayes family began to move into their own home

at 383 Sixth Street, Cincinnati. Hayes wrote in his Diary that there was a

great deal of laughing over the assorted loads of furniture, "a good deal of

Lucy's mother's when she went to housekeeping."²⁹

With the Hayes family settled in their own home, visits from his mother

and sister were more frequent and extensive. During one of her visits, the

mother-in-law noted in a letter to her brother that Rutherford seemed too

busy to provide "anything but money for his family."³⁰ Fanny Platt's im-

pression of her brother's home was somewhat different. She wrote that Lucy

made easy work of housekeeping, and "Ruddy" romped with his boy and

turned the "whole of life into a joke."³¹

The winter of 1855-56 was the coldest on record for Cincinnati. Accord-

ing to Hayes's Diary, the Ohio River was frozen solidly enough through the

month of January for "cattle, teams, and runaway slaves" to cross on the

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38                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

ice.32 On March 20, 1856, the second Hayes son, James Webb (later changed

to Webb Cook), was born. While Lucy's brother, Dr. Joseph Webb, as-

sisted with the delivery, Rutherford, who was probably thinking about his

political future as a member of the new party being formed from the dissi-

dent groups of the time, read Jefferson's letters to Madison, particularly

noting the one in which Jefferson spoke of his resolution to remain in pri-

vate life the rest of his days. "A resolution," Hayes wrote, "about as well

kept as such resolutions usually are by public men."³³

Sophia Hayes came to visit her newest grandchild, and stayed until solici-

tude over Fanny's approaching confinement, her seventh, caused her to

hurry back to Columbus.³⁴ In June, Mrs. Platt gave birth to twin daugh-

ters, both of whom died almost immediately. Fanny, who barely survived,

lingered in a critical condition for a month before she too died on the

sixteenth of July.35

The Platt household in Columbus was desolate, and Rutherford Hayes

poured out his grief in letters to friends and relatives, and wrote in his

Diary: "The dearest friend of childhood--the affectionate adviser, the con-

fidante of all my life--the one I loved best is gone."36

Intense as was Hayes's grief, the loss of Fanny was a greater one for Lucy.

Fanny's unusual intellectual ability and range of interests had left an in-

delible impression upon her brother; but Lucy, who was just twenty-five,

needed the stimulation of prolonged association with an intelligent and

loving sister, such as Fanny Platt.

Fortunately, Lucy and Rutherford Hayes could turn from their sorrow

to the absorbing political drama of 1856. The new Republican party, bol-

stered by success in Ohio the previous year, entered the national arena

with the famous explorer, John C. Fremont, as its candidate for President.

Lucy Hayes's latent interest in politics was aroused by the antislavery senti-

ments of some of the members of the new party, and by the picture of the

glamorous Fremont and his romantic wife, Jessie Benton, as the ideal

couple to grace the White House. After early election returns indicated

that Fremont would lose to James Buchanan, Hayes wrote to his uncle,

"Lucy takes it to heart a good deal that Jessie is not to be mistress of the

White House after all."³⁷

Encouraged by Lucy's continued interest in politics and his own inclina-

tions, Rutherford Hayes began to allow his name to be mentioned for pub-

lic office. His reputation for professional competency and his acceptability

to divergent political groups caused the City Council to appoint him to

complete a term as City Solicitor for Cincinnati in December 1858; at the

election a few months later he won the office for two years.38

By this time a third son had been born, June 23, 1858. This boy was

eventually named Rutherford Platt. Two weeks later, Lucy came down

with a severe case of rheumatism, an attack similar to one she had suffered

in 1851.39 The periodic recurrences of this rheumatic condition plus the

severe headaches that she suffered throughout the year belied the impres-

sion of nineteenth century writers that Mrs. Hayes possessed robust health.⁴⁰

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LUCY WEBB HAYES and Her Family                                  39

 

Christmas in 1858 was a particularly happy day for the Hayes family.

Lucy and Rutherford watched over their children as they played beneath

the Christmas tree, which their German "girls" had spirited into the base-

ment and trimmed to the surprise and delight of the family. Five year old

Birtie was looking at his gift books, Jack the Giant Killer, Hop o' My

Thumb, and Aladdin's Lamp, while little Webb, persevering and deter-

mined even at two-and-a-half, entertained the bright-eyed baby Ruddy.41

Through these years, the boys suffered from the usual diseases of child-

hood. At the end of one long siege of illness, Lucy lamented, "Sick chil-

dren -- then cross children -- poor house girl -- and all the usual house-

hold troubles.^"42 Showing that he too was aware of family cares, Ruther-

ford jested in a letter to his niece:

I am in the boy business chiefly these days. Playing with the boys,

scolding . . . Lucy is in a different line of the boy business--washing

the hands of boys . . . making boys pants, jackets, and shirts . . . Mother

Webb too has her branch of boy enterprise . . . nursing . . . imparting

religious instruction . . . Uncle Joe is overwhelmed by the boys, They

own him, jump on him . . .43

In August 1860, while the boys stayed with their Grandma Webb, Lucy

and Rutherford took the long deferred trip up the St. Lawrence River to

Montreal and Quebec, thence by rail to visit Hayes's relatives in Vermont,

and finally back to New York and Philadelphia. Hayes noted in his Diary

that Lucy loved sitting in the bow of the boat as it plowed through the

rapids of the St. Lawrence, and "like a child wished for more." According

to his carefully kept accounts, the month-long trip cost $310.77.⁴⁴

On their return to Ohio, they stopped in Fremont to see how Sardis

Birchard was progressing with the house he had started to build in Spiegel

Grove. Because he had assumed from the beginning that Rutherford and

Lucy would live there some day, Sardis had consulted his nephew about

every phase of the building.45 Hayes had told his mother that the house

was "large and very handsome.^"46 Conservative, but at the same time sensi-

tive to the needs of humanity, Sophia Hayes had suggested that the house

be finished "in a plain manner." She did not think that a careful man like

her brother, Sardis Birchard, "should encourage extravagance in Ohio

when there is so much need of money for Preachers and Teachers to in-

struct the ignorant . . . The character of our inhabitants is much more

important than their stile [sic] of living."⁴⁷

Apparently a long visit by Sophia Hayes to her son's home during the

winter of 1860-61 created tensions because Lucy managed to extend a trip

to a wedding in Chillicothe through the Christmas holidays. The year

ended with a slight note of discord, one of the few that appears in the

manuscripts of the Hayes family. On Christmas Eve, 1860, Rutherford

wrote in his Diary, "Lucy gone to Chillicothe. All ought to be at home to

make home happy on these festal days." But he added a cheerful note:

"Eleven years ago tonight I came to Cincinnati. A prosperous happy term

of life I have had. I cannot anticipate a happier in the years to come. Only

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40                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

one sad spot in all the time--the death of my dear, dear sister. Mother is

with us.^"48

When the Hayes family discussed the Civil War years, their most pleas-

ant memories were of the months they had spent together in army camps

along the Kanawha River in western Virginia. There were other periods

and events that recalled less happy memories: the first months of separa-

tion, fear of Confederate raids into southern Ohio, the Battle of South

Mountain where Hayes suffered his most painful wound of the war, and

the campaign of 1864 in the Shenandoah Valley.

When the news of the firing on Fort Sumter by Confederate batteries

reached Cincinnati, Lucy Hayes, unassailed by the doubts and questions

that worried more reflective minds, was all for war. She even felt that if

she had been at Fort Sumter with a garrison of women there might have

been no surrender.⁴⁹ As she reported in a letter, Sumter caused Cincinnati

to rally to the Union cause. "The Northern heart," she wrote, "is truly

fired--the enthusiasm that prevails in our city is perfectly irresistable. Those

who favor secession or even sympathy with the South find it prudent to be

quiet."50

Rutherford Hayes might have left the fighting to younger men without

family responsibilities, but Lucy's enthusiasm for the cause and his own

inclination caused him to decide, with his friend, Judge Stanley Matthews,

"to go into the service for the war."⁵¹ After several weeks of communica-

tions, Matthews and Hayes were accepted as lieutenant-colonel and major

respectively of the newly formed Twenty-Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

It was the first Ohio regiment enlisted for three years or the war. The vol-

unteer companies, mostly from the northeastern part of the state, were

mustered into the regiment on June 10, 11, and 12 at Camp Jackson (later

named Camp Chase), four miles west of Columbus on the national road.⁵²

With her husband in camp and her initial burst of enthusiasm fading,

Lucy Hayes began to think about the loneliness of her situation. In her

first letter to her husband, she said that she hoped to follow him wherever

he might be stationed, and assured him that he would find that his "foolish

little trial of a wife was fit to be a soldier's wife."⁵³ Hayes tried to dispel

her anxieties with frequent letters, assurances of his affection, and the news

that her brother, Dr. Joseph Webb had been assigned to the same regi-

ment.5⁴

As soon as possible, arrangements were made for Lucy, her mother, and

the children to visit in Columbus while the regiment trained at Camp

Chase. On July 25, 1861, less than a month after her arrival, Lucy and her

mother watched the Twenty-Third O.V.I. march up High Street to the

depot and entrain for Clarksburg, Virginia.⁵⁵

Lucy tried to be a good soldier's wife, but, as her husband knew, it

would be contrary to her nature to have hidden her worries completely.

News that her hero, General Fremont, was being removed from command

of the Western Department, questions about the federal policy in regard

to slavery, and discomfort because of her pregnancy caused Lucy to be

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LUCY WEBB HAYES and Her Family                                 41

 

worried and depressed at times. The predominant tone, however, of her

letters was optimistic, and doubtless she was correct in the observation that

she passed for one of the "most cheerful, happy women."56  Items about

the children in her letters mentioned that Birchard was doing very well in

school; Webb, who was being taught at home, provoked even as he amused

them by his efforts to avoid study; and little Ruddy was both "the light

and torment of the house."57

Plans were made for Dr. Joseph Webb to return to Cincinnati early in

December to assist with the birth of the expected baby. In a letter to Hayes,

he commented that Cincinnati presented none of the appearances of war

"save the number of Military coats one meets with; business appears quite

brisk."⁵⁸ A few weeks later, December 21, 1861, Dr. Webb attended his

sister when she gave birth to her fourth son, whom the older boys named

"little Joseph." When the news reached Hayes, he admitted how worried

he had been. "I love you so much," he wrote to Lucy, "and I have felt so

anxious about you . . . It is best it was not a daughter. These are no times

for women."50

After Dr. Webb returned to the regiment's winter quarters, it was Lieu-

tenant Colonel (promoted in October 1861) Rutherford Hayes's turn to

be away from camp. He arrived in Cincinnati on February 4, 1862, for a

three week furlough. On a visit to his mother, who was spending the winter

in Delaware, Hayes recalled the joys of his childhood there and the mem-

ories of his beloved sister, Fanny Platt, dead since 1856. Until his marriage,

Fanny had been the most important person in his life; his confidante, his

favorite correspondent, and the spur to his ambitions.⁶⁰ Now Lucy served

these needs, as he tried to explain in a letter to her. "Old Delaware is gone

. . .Old times come up to me--Sister Fanny and I trudging down to the

tanyard with our little basket after kindling--all strange--You are Sister

Fanny to me now, Dearest!"61

There were times during the spring of 1862 when Lucy felt she could

not endure the separation any longer. "And yet with all my hearts longing,"

she wrote, "I would not call you home . . ." She wondered if Rutherford

tired of her rambling letters for "writing is not my forte but loving is . . ."

News of the children occupied much space; Webb was growing more mis-

chievous every day, Ruddy was a smart little one, Birch was "doing finely"

in school, "but little Joe--the dearest liveliest brightest little five months

old chap"⁶² was evidently her favorite. She had described him earlier as a

"miniature likeness of Lt. Col. R.B.H."⁶3

In the middle of August 1862, the Twenty-Third Regiment was ordered

east to reinforce the Union army near Washington. The troops in western

Virginia traveled by steamer down the Kanawha to the Ohio River, then

up to Parkersburg where they changed to the railroad for the balance of

the journey. The troops enjoyed the cheers of the civilian population and

the profusion of food offered them as they disembarked in Meigs County

to march around the shoals of the Ohio River.⁶⁴ When Lucy heard how

near her husband had been to Chillicothe, where she and the children were

visiting, she was bitterly disappointed not to have seen him.65

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42                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

Soon after their arrival in Washington, the Twenty-Third along with a

number of Ohio regiments marched with General McClellan's army in

pursuit of Confederate forces that were menacing Baltimore and Washing-

ton. At the Battle of South Mountain on September 14, 1862, part of the

Antietam campaign, Hayes was painfully wounded in the left arm. As soon

as conditions permitted, he was taken to the residence of a Captain Rudy

in Middletown, Maryland, where he was cared for by Dr. Joseph Webb.⁶⁶

Tile morning after the battle, Hayes dictated dispatches concerning his

injury to his wife; his brother-in-law, William Platt; and his friend John

Herron in Cincinnati. Herron and Platt received their telegrams but Lucy

Hayes did not. Later it was learned that the orderly only had enough money

for two messages, and for some reason the telegrapher selected the ones

addressed to Herron and Platt for transmission.67

Lucy Hayes's animated account of the incident of the missing telegram

plus that of a second and misleading message, and the story of her long and

frustrating search for her wounded husband became such a favorite with

the family that she was persuaded to dictate it to a White House sten-

ographer. The original draft, typed about 1880 in capital characters on

one of the early typewriters, is preserved among the Hayes papers.⁶8

Believing that his wife knew about his wound, Hayes sent her a second

telegram, marked Washington, that read, "I am here, come to me. I shall

not lose my arm." Leaving the three older boys and the baby, who would

need a wet nurse, with relatives, Lucy hurriedly took the stage to Colum-

bus where William Platt insisted upon accompanying her to Washington.

Because of delays, it was a week after Hayes had been wounded before they

reached the capital.

They were unable to find him at any of the places in Washington where

he had said he might be, nor could they secure any information from the

Surgeon General's office. Platt finally located the original draft of one of

the telegrams on which the word Middletown had been erased and Wash-

ington substituted. So as soon as possible, Lucy and her brother-in-law

boarded the cars for Frederick, Maryland--as far as the train could go.

Lucy remembered that she stood during most of the hot and dusty three-

hour trip, and that the road-bed was very rough--"we pitched and tossed

around very much." Dr. Joe Webb, who had been meeting the train every

evening, was waiting for them at Frederick, and drove them in the buggy

to Middletown where Hayes greeted Lucy with the jest, "Well, you thought

you would visit Washington and Baltimore."

Lucy spent her time looking after her husband and visiting wounded

soldiers in the local homes and make-shift hospitals. Two weeks later, her

husband and six or seven wounded men from the Twenty-Third were

ready to begin the tiresome journey back to Ohio. On one occasion, when

they had to change trains, Lucy Hayes finding no seats in the coaches led

the way into the Pullman car where the fashionable crowd returning from

Saratoga were making themselves comfortable. Oblivious to the resentful

glances, she helped her "boys" into the empty seats. When a telegraph

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LUCY WEBB HAYES and Her Family                                 43

 

messenger came through paging Colonel Hayes, the "society folk" became

interested in the group and offered them grapes and other delicacies. Lucy

disdainfully declined them. As her cousin remembered, "Even reminiscent-

ly, years afterward, as she told the story, she declined them."⁶⁹

By the end of November 1862, Colonel Hayes was able to rejoin his

regiment then camped in western Virginia. The Twenty-Third built a log-

cabin village at Camp Reynolds, on the Kanawha near Gauley Bridge, and

Hayes's headquarters, a two-room cabin, was comfortable enough for Lucy

and the older boys to join him.⁷⁰ The last of January, Lucy, Webb, and

Birch, arrived at Camp Reynolds after a somewhat uneventful trip, except

for the ride of the last twenty-eight miles in an ambulance that Lucy said

was "as muddy and rough as heart could wish."⁷¹ Hayes recorded in his

Diary that mother and sons "rowed skiffs, fished, built dams, sailed little

ships, played cards and enjoyed camp life generally."⁷² Sometimes he wor-

ried because Lucy and her brother, Dr. Joe, rode farther out from camp

than Hayes considered safe.⁷3 In March, when the regiment was ordered

to Camp White, opposite Charleston, Lucy and the boys returned to Cin-

cinnati.

A little later Lucy wrote that she was so relieved to hear that Jenkins'

raiders, who had temporarily occupied the lower Kanawha area, had been

forced to withdraw that she wanted to begin her letter to Hayes with the

chorus of "John Brown's Body" ("Glory, glory hallelujah. . . His soul is

marching on") but her husband might think her "daft." Another cause

for her rejoicing was the victory of the Union ticket in the recent city

elections in Cincinnati. Referring to the election of a former army officer,

Lucy said that she did not believe a soldier should leave his post for office;

thus expressing a sentiment that Hayes was to make famous later when he

refused to leave the army to canvass for a seat in Congress.⁷⁴

In June 1863, Lucy, her four sons, and her mother journeyed to Camp

White. There were a few happy days together for the Hayes family before

little Joseph became ill and died on the twenty-fourth of June. The father

felt that he had known so little of the baby that he did not "realize a loss;

but his mother and still more his grandmother, lose their dear companion,

and are very much afflicted."⁷⁵ In later years, Lucy said that the bitterest

hour of her life was when she stood by the door of the cottage at Camp

White and watched the steamer with the "lonely little body" depart for

Cincinnati.76 Her brother, Dr. James Webb, assisted by friends, buried

the little boy in Spring Grove Cemetery.

Soon after the death of little Joe, Lucy and the children left for Chilli-

cothe, arriving in time to share the excitement and apprehension caused

by General John Morgan's raid into Ohio. She described the panic in

Chillicothe that resulted in the burning of the Paint Creek bridge when a

false rumor spread that Morgan's men were approaching the town. Leaving

the condition of the city to her husband's imagination, she guessed that

since at least 6000 men had rushed to Chillicothe's defense "a goodly num-

ber of horses" were kept within the town limits.⁷⁷

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44                                                OHIO HISTORY

During the winter of 1863-64, Lucy and Rutherford rented their home

in Cincinnati and settled in a pretty old house at Camp White. Lucy had

her sewing machine forwarded from Cincinnati and along with sewing

and mending for the regiment made blue soldier suits for the boys.78 Mrs.

Hayes was popular with the soldiers, not only because she sewed for them,

but because she cared for them when they were ill, mothered them, and

listened to their grievances. The wife of a surgeon remembered that the

young lieutenant, William McKinley, later President of the United States,

spent so much time tending the camp fire that burned brightly before

headquarters every clear evening that Mrs. Hayes nicknamed him Casa-

bianca (son of a French naval hero at the battle of the Nile.) 79

Late in April 1864, the Twenty-Third broke camp for what would be-

come the final campaign of the war. As the troops marched along the Kana-

wha, Lucy and several of the wives chartered a small boat on which they

steamed slowly up the river, until the head of navigation was reached, cheer-

ing and waving to the troops as long as they could keep pace with them.⁸⁰

After leaving West Virginia, Lucy and her family rented rooms in Chilli-

cothe in a "nice" boarding house with a large play yard and space for a

garden.⁸¹ Hayes tried to keep his wife informed concerning his safety by

telegraphing her after each engagement. Following such a message, after

a foray into Virginia to destroy tracks and stations of the East Tennessee

and Virginia Railroad, Lucy wrote that they were very relieved to hear

from him; Webb talked only of the "glory of victory" but Birch thought

more of the "desolate homes and hearts."82

While the regiment was resting between raids into the Shenandoah Val-

ley, Hayes wrote that the new flag Lucy had sent was flying before head-

quarters. Somewhat chagrined, she answered that the flag was not intended

for the officers but was meant to remind the common soldiers that she was

thinking of them. "I want our soldiers to know," she said, "that I sent it

to them . . . to let them know how near they are to me . . ."⁸³ Anxious as

usual to please his wife, Colonel Hayes arranged to have the flag presented

to the regiment at dress parade.⁸⁴

In August 1864, Hayes was nominated by his friends in Cincinnati for

Congress from the second district. Appreciative of the compliments and

congratulations, Lucy Hayes told Sardis Birchard, "Of course dear Uncle

it is very gratifying to know how he [Rutherford] stands with our citizens

and friends--I wonder if all women or wives have such an unbounded

admiration for their better half."⁸⁵ Doubtless Hayes measured up to the

expectations of his wife in the following answer to a plea that he take time

off from fighting to canvass: "An officer fit for duty who at this crisis would

abandon his post to electioneer for a seat in Congress ought to be scalped."86

The voters were sufficiently impressed by Hayes's integrity of purpose and

war record to elect him to Congress in October 1864.

With Hayes exposed to constant danger in the fierce fighting in the

Shenandoah Valley and uncomfortable because of her impending confine-

ment, the last days of August were a nightmarish period for Lucy Hayes.

• 12
 

LUCY WEBB HAYES and Her Family                                 45

"I hope it is true," she wrote "'the darkest hour is just before the day,' may

it be so--all is dark and gloomy."^{87 But} by the next month Lucy was writ-

ing that she felt better. Birch and even Webb were enjoying school, but

little Rud, visiting with the aunts at Elmwood, was "positive" that he was

too young to go to school every day. Recently, Rud had expressed the wish

that his "papa would get a little wounded--then he would come home

again--and we would keep im."88

In one of his letters that discussed the coming election, Hayes told Lucy

that although he preferred to see Lincoln reelected he felt no apprehension

that a victory by George McClellan would cause the war to be abandoned.

Evidently Lucy had mentioned that Webb was shouting the same invec-

tives against McClellan as he had against Vallandigham the previous year--

"Hurrah for Vallandigham . . . and a rope to hang him"--because Hayes

asked Lucy to teach his boys to think and talk well of General McClellan.⁸⁹

While Rutherford Hayes was camped near Harrisonburg, Virginia, a

fifth son, George Crook, was born to Lucy, September 29, 1864. When she

was able to write, Lucy described the baby as a "fine large child . . . We

have given Uncle Scott [Cook] the title of Grandfather."⁹⁰ About the same

time that this letter was posted, Cincinnati papers carried the news that

Rutherford Hayes had been killed in the battle of Cedar Creek, an en-

gagement immortalized by the poet's description of Sheridan's ride. Soon

after the delivery of the paper, which Uncle Scott purposely put aside, a

telegraph boy arrived with this message for Lucy: "The report that your

husband was killed this morning is untrue."91

Following the battle of Cedar Creek, which ended the main campaign

in the Valley, General Sheridan approved a recommendation that Hayes

be promoted to Brigadier-General.⁹² General Crook, Hayes's commander,

was so pleased that he presented him with a pair of his shoulder straps;

the stars as Hayes described them were "somewhat dimmed with hard

service.^"93 Lucy answered that she would be glad to see him "with the old

star on your shoulder even though it is dimmed."⁹⁴

In common with much of the nation, Lucy Hayes's joy in the fall of Rich-

mond and the surrender of Lee's army at Appomattox Court House quickly

turned to sorrow with the assassination of President Lincoln on April 14.

She began her letter, "From such great joy how soon we were filled with

sorrow and grief past utterance." Then continuing in her own words, she

declared, "I am sick of this endless talk of Forgiveness . . . Justice and

Mercy should go together--Now don't say to me Ruddy that I ought not

to write so."⁹⁵

In May 1865, Hayes sent in his resignation from the army and with Lucy

journeyed to Washington to see the Grand Review of the Army. On May

23 and 24 they watched from the congressional stand as the Union legions

marched in review along Pennsylvania Avenue.

Directly opposite was the reviewing stand with President Johnson, mem-

bers of the cabinet, and General Grant. Lucy wrote in a letter to her mother

that she borrowed Hayes's field glasses to watch the President, "earnestly

and often," and that she could not help but feel confidence in such a "fine

• 13
 

46                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

noble looking man who impresses you with the feeling of honesty and sin-

cerity." She observed that General Grant appeared "noble" and "unas-

suming" and that his two little boys were leaning on him with "all fond-

ness and love." She was thrilled as she watched the cavalry that had fought

"so splendidly" in the Valley and around Richmond but sorry that their

brave leader, General Sheridan, was not with them. She hoped that foreign

ministers watching the parade would be impressed by the power and

might of the United States.⁹⁶ These lines concluding her description of

the Grand Review briefly and eloquently expressed her appraisal of the

victory:

While my heart was filled with joy at the thought of our mighty

country--its victorious noble army--the sad thought of thousands who

would never gladden home with their presence made the joyful scene

mingled with so much sadness that I could not shake it off.⁹⁷

From a vantage point similar to the congressional stand in Washington,

Lucy Hayes had viewed the vast panorama of the Civil War for four long

years. When not living in army camps in West Virginia, she had followed

the movements of the troops through accounts in the newspapers and an

exchange of letters with her husband, brothers, and cousins. While her

husband had carried out his role as a soldier with efficiency and bravery,

Lucy and her family had faced the problems of civilian life with courage

and ingenuity.

Following the difficult years of the Civil War, the Hayes family might

have moved into a comfortable home in Cincinnati or Fremont and settled

down to a well regulated and satisfying existence. Instead, for the next

sixteen years, beginning with his unexpired congressional term, the politi-

cal offices Hayes held would determine whether the Hayes caravan would

establish headquarters in Cincinnati, Columbus, Fremont, or Washington.

In January, Hayes persuaded Lucy to leave the children with her mother

in Cincinnati and visit him in the capital. Lucy wrote from Washington

that she was having a delightful time, "in a quiet way." Her greatest pleas-

ures were connected with "the Capitol, the Library and Garden." On one

occasion the Superintendent of the Gardens had sent her a beautiful basket

of japonicas in appreciation of her interest. Every afternoon that Congress

was in session she listened from the gallery to the discussions of the prob-

lems of the day, and occasionally in the evening they attended social func-

tions.98 At General Grant's reception they purposely had been the first to

go through the receiving line so that they could watch the arrival of the

other guests.99

On her return to Cincinnati, Lucy wrote her husband that he could

not imagine how lonely she was without him, and how much she missed

being able to talk politics with him. It seemed to her that if "A[ndrew]

J[ohnson]" had the nerve to veto another congressional act, it would "pitch

him clear from the Bosom of his family [Republican party]."¹⁰⁰ Other items

in her letters concerned the children: Birch and Webb's efforts to learn

German, Rud's feeling at being left out of the close comradeship between

the two older boys, and her love for little George.101

• 14
 

LUCY WEBB HAYES and Her Family                                  47

 

The year following the Civil War was a sad one for the Hayes family.

In the spring of 1866, scarlet fever spread through the family with George

the most seriously affected. Maria Webb and Lucy nursed him tenderly,

but after several brief rallies he died on May 24, at the age of twenty

months.102 The excessive heat of the summer, added to Maria Webb's grief

at the loss of her little favorite, was more than her asthmatic heart could

stand. While staying with her sister at Elmwood, she became seriously ill.

Lucy was able to go to her mother and to sing "by the hour" the hymns

that seemed to comfort her. At length on September 14, 1866, following a

request to have Lucy sing, "Rock of Ages," Maria Webb was dead.103 A

few weeks after Hayes's reelection to Congress and while he was on an ex-

cursion to the West, Sophia Hayes also became ill and died on October 30,

1866.104

Thus passed from the scene two remarkable pioneer women. Maria Webb

in her gentle, cheerful way had achieved her goals: education, position,

and happiness for her children. Sophia Hayes, a sturdy, self-sufficient, and

practical woman, but with the same goals, could be proud of her son, satis-

fied with her daughter-in-law, and hopeful for her grandchildren. Lucy

Hayes was so overcome with grief that it was weeks before she could even

write to Birch and Webb visiting Uncle Sardis in Fremont. She hinted

that Uncle Joseph Webb, who had returned from medical study in Europe

shortly after his mother's death, had a secret for them.105 When Birch

learned that his adored uncle was about to marry Annie Matthews of Cin-

cinnati, a sister of Judge Stanley Matthews, he wrote to him, "As to Mat-

rimony I do not know what to say but Webb is quite jealous."¹⁰⁶

In 1867, the Union Republican party nominated Rutherford B. Hayes

for governor. Soon after the nomination, Hayes decided that it would be

educational for Birch and Webb to accompany him to Washington for

what might be his last appearance in national halls.107 He told Lucy that

the boys made friends easily on the train and in the House crowded close

to hear Thaddeus Stevens whenever he rose to orate.108

While Hayes campaigned for the governorship, Lucy waited for the birth

of their sixth baby; on September 2, 1867, the longed for baby girl was

born. This time there was none of the hesitation that had characterized

the naming of the boys for almost immediately the baby was christened

Fanny after Rutherford's sister. Hayes's schedule of campaign speeches

barely permitted him to be with his wife when the baby arrived, but for-

tunately Dr. Joseph Webb had returned from his honeymoon in Europe

in time to assist with the delivery.¹⁰⁹

Hayes won the election by a small majority, and as soon as possible the

family moved into a rented house at 51 East State Street, Columbus.110

Lucy found happiness and satisfaction in her role as governor's wife, par-

ticularly in efforts to establish a soldiers' orphans' home. The Grand Army

of the Republic, having failed to get the Ohio legislature to support their

plan, decided to start a home by voluntary contributions in the hope that

the state would take it over. With the help of Lucy Hayes and others,

money was raised to buy a tract of land near Xenia.111 Lucy felt it neces-

• 15
 

48                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

sary, however, to refuse when one of the principal promoters asked her to

be a member of the board because, as she expressed it, "Just now on the

eve of a bitter contest [election of 1869] my name being mentioned might

occasion some remarks from the enemies of the movement."¹¹²

Following Hayes's reelection in 1869, the family moved from the East

State Street house to the nearby residence of Judge Noah Swayne on Sev-

enth Street. Hayes described it as a fine, large house with ample grounds

that rented for the modest sum of $800.00 a year.113 An example of the

hospitality of the Hayes family is an invitation to a Fremont friend to

visit them. Since the Reverend Mr. Bushnell would be arriving after the

household had retired, Hayes told him to look for the key under the mat,

and instructed him where to find his room.114 Although it was the custom

to leave the house key under the mat, their chickens were not safe from

marauders. Lucy wrote that after nine of their nice chickens were carried

off, she had "the Carriage house transformed into a big Coop and a good

lock."115

Little Fanny was the "darling" of the family, particularly of her father.

It pleased him to see her watching from the window as he walked across

the street to the State House. "Fanny has a strong clear voice," he wrote,

"I can hear her call to me 'by-by' from the parlor window as I enter the

door of the State House."¹¹⁶ In February 1871, Fanny was happy when a

"little boy sister" was added to the household. Scott Russell, named after

two branches of the family, was a healthy good-natured baby.117

In bestowing attention on their "second family" Rutherford and Lucy

Hayes did not neglect the three older boys. On one occasion, Hayes wrote

that Rud "learns well, is forward, and fond of wit and company."¹¹⁸ Dur-

ing the winter, Webb and Birchard Hayes remained in Fremont where

they attended school, but they spent the summers and vacation periods

with their parents in Columbus or relatives in the Chillicothe area. Webb

particularly liked the farm homes of his uncles and aunts. Hayes described

him in his Diary as a "handsome, cheery, bright boy." At the same time,

he commented that Birch was a "fine looking boy of noble character. A

deafness, slight, but noticeable is the greatest drawback which I can see

for his future career."119

To alleviate the deafness, Birch had a "polypus" removed from his ear

during the summer of 1869 in Cincinnati. While in the city for post-opera-

tive treatments, he had an opportunity to watch his favorite sport, a base-

ball game between the Eckfords (Greenpoint, New York) and the Cincin-

nati Red Stockings.120 Later, as Birch was nearing graduation from college,

he wrote, "I am inclined to think that one reason for my dread of life after

leaving College is because I will be unable to play ball."¹²¹

Rutherford Hayes often expressed his happiness and content with Lucy.

As he approached his forty-eighth birthday in 1870, he wrote, "My life

with you has been so happy--so successful, so beyond reasonable anticipa-

tion that I think of you with a loving gratitude that I do not know how

to express."1²²

• 16
 

LUCY WEBB HAYES and Her Family                                 49

 

Hayes did not run for a third term as governor in 1871. The family lived

in rented rooms in Cincinnati until the spring of 1873, when they moved

to Fremont and the house in Spiegel Grove which Sardis Birchard had

built with them in mind. There on August 1, 1873, the eighth and last of

the Hayes children, another boy, was born.¹²³ The parents were soon de-

scribing the baby, who had been named Manning Force after his father's

friend, General Force, as the "sweetest" and "brightest" baby ever.¹²⁴ Like

his two brothers of the war years, little Manning did not survive his second

summer and before he was thirteen months old died from what his father

described as "summer complaint."¹²⁵

Six months later the death of Sardis Birchard further saddened the Hayes

family, as well as placing heavy responsibilities on Hayes as executor of

the estate. In spite of financial problems, Rutherford and Lucy Hayes were

soon absorbed in improving the house and grounds in Spiegel Grove. Lucy

in a letter to her sons, Birch and Webb, who were attending Cornell Uni-

versity, expressed her pleasure in the thought of a permanent home. "You

do not know and indeed cannot imagine," she wrote, "what comfort and

happiness is found in Spiegel Grove and the great pleasure in helping to

prepare our home."¹²⁶

Although pleased with their life in Fremont, Hayes succumbed to the

pleas of Ohio Republican leaders to run for an unprecedented third term

as governor in 1875. His decision may have been influenced again by Lucy's

interest in politics and the pride she had always felt in his political achieve-

ments. Lucy had explained this interest earlier in a letter to Birchard,

"Your ignorance of politics is not a grave offense--you could not expect

to know and enjoy politics as she does [I do]."¹²⁷

Rutherford Hayes's victory on election day almost automatically meant

that he would be considered for the presidency in 1876. Rather fallaciously

Lucy Hayes assured her husband that she had not been bitten by the

"Mania" [move to nominate Hayes for the presidency], but she was "so

happy so proud to be your wife."¹²⁸ Their cook, Winnie Monroe, did not

try to conceal her hope that her employer would become President. In

describing their Thanksgiving dinner in 1875, Lucy wrote, "Winnie as

you know would be in her element--and as she is looking to the Top of

the Ladder--a little extra effort is the consequence."1²⁹

Two months after his inauguration as governor, the Hayes family again

moved to Columbus; this time they rented a house at 60 East Broad Street.

Lucy wrote that the house was not large enough to entertain "Legislative

bodies"; there was no yard for the children but the grounds of the State

House, directly opposite, provided some play space, and anyway, Scott's

chief sport was riding his velocipede on the pavement. Fanny recited her

lessons with her cousins, and enjoyed attending dancing school. Webb

Hayes was looking after the affairs in Fremont, and young Rud was en-

rolled in the agricultural college at Lansing, Michigan.¹³⁰

Rutherford Hayes was nominated for President by the Republican con-

vention that met in Cincinnati in June 1876. The campaign was very dif-

ferent from the others in which Hayes had participated because custom

• 17
 

50                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

decreed that the presidential nominee should allow others to do the talk-

ing for him. Also for the first time since Hayes had entered politics, Lucy

became a prime subject for newspaper stories. The Columbus correspon-

dent for the New York Herald wrote, "Mrs. Hayes is a most attractive and

lovable woman . . . For the mother of so many children she is singularly

youthful in appearance."¹³¹

The presidential election of 1876 was not a clear-cut victory for either

Rutherford B. Hayes or Samuel J. Tilden and had to be decided by a

special electoral commission authorized by Congress. This was a difficult

period for the Hayes family and Lucy's friends wondered how she could

endure "sitting on the ragged edge."¹³² Lucy's sense of humor did not

desert her as shown by this excerpt from a letter to Birchard:

Your father and I are becoming more and more attached to each

other--as time passes and the great Lawsuit is in progress "I will never

desert Mr. Micawber"--and I will remain loyal to my principles and

the "Republican Party"--so dear boy you should be satisfied with re-

gard to your Mother's declaration of principles.¹³³

On March 1, 1877, before the last electoral votes had been counted, the

Hayes caravan that included Mr. and Mrs. Hayes; their children, Webb,

Scott, and Fanny; his niece, Laura Mitchell; and a group of friends and

political associates left for Washington. About dawn the next day, the

party was awakened near Harrisburg to receive the news that Congress had

declared Hayes duly elected President of the United States. Rutherford B.

Hayes as President-elect and Lucy Hayes, soon to become First Lady of

the land, smiled happily as they listened to the cheers of the crowd that

had gathered to welcome them.¹³⁴

Long years as a public official's wife, well educated for her time -- the

first wife of a President to have earned a college degree -- and a sincere

interest in the welfare of people helped to prepare Lucy Hayes for her

position as First Lady. In addition to her duties as mistress of the White

House, she supervised the education of her two young children, was the

adviser and confidante of her three older boys, and, as she had been for

twenty-five years, the loved and respected wife of Rutherford B. Hayes.

Lucy accepted her role as hostess of the White House from the begin-

ning -- surprisingly, of the eighteen Presidents who had preceded Hayes,

only eight had wives who were able to assume for the full term the social

responsibilities of their position.¹³⁵ Lucy also went out of her way to be

cordial toward the "ladies of the press" as evidenced by their favorable

treatment of her. Mary Clemmer, in particular, a well known reporter and

author of "A Woman's Letter from Washington" that appeared periodical-

ly in The Independent, was pleased with Mrs. Hayes, although she occa-

sionally criticized the President's policies.

Observing Lucy during the inaugural ceremony, Mary Clemmer wrote:

Meanwhile, on this man of whom everyone in the nation is this mo-

ment thinking, a fair woman between two little children looks down.

She has a singularly gentle and winning face. It looks out from bands

• 18
 

LUCY WEBB HAYES and Her Family                                    51 of smooth dark hair with that tender light in the eyes which we have come to associate always with the Madonna. I have never seen such a face reign in the White House. I wonder what the world of Vanity Fair will do with it. Will it frizz that hair? powder that face? draw those sweet, fine lines awry with pride? bare those shoulders? . . . .136 Much to the relief of the White House staff, Lucy and Rutherford Hayes made few changes in personnel. The doorkeepers and ushers employed by Grant, most of whom were former soldiers, were retained. William T. Crump, who had been Hayes's orderly in the army, was installed as steward, and their family cook, Winnie Monroe, reached the "top of the ladder" when the White House kitchen became her domain. The correspondent for the Cleveland Plain Dealer noticed that the employees "are now all smiles and politeness whereas under the old regime they were rather surly and disobliging."137 In the spring of 1877, the President's family at the White House con- sisted of twenty-one year old Webb Hayes who served as an assistant-secre- tary to his father, six year old Scott, and Fanny who was nearly ten. Ruth- erford Platt Hayes, almost nineteen, was a student at Cornell, and Birchard, twenty-four, was attending Harvard Law School. Emily Platt, Rutherford's niece from Columbus, spent much of her time at the White House until her marriage in 1878. Since it was not the custom for a President's wife to have a staff of social assistants, Lucy Hayes made up for her lack of grown daughters by inviting nieces, cousins, and friends to visit the White House and to serve as hostesses and secretaries.138

• 19
 

52                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

Lucy seemed to manage her family and domestic cares smoothly but

with kindness and affection. It is doubtful if Lucy and Rutherford Hayes

set out, as Eckenrode suggested, to follow the example of Victoria and  Al-

bert in England to become "revered religious parents of the nation."¹³⁹

It was not in character for Lucy to plan such an austere, deliberate, and

extended course of action. As Hayes had noted in the days of their

courtship, "Intellect, she has too, a quick spritely one, rather than a re-

flective profound one . . . She is a genuine woman, right from instinct and

impulse rather than judgment and reflection."140

Life in the White House soon settled into a pleasant routine. After

breakfast at 8:30 and a walk through the conservatories, the family and

guests gathered in the library where a chapter from the Bible was read,

and then all repeated the Lord's Prayer. By this time, the flowers had been

brought in from the conservatories, and with the help and direction of

Mrs. Hayes they were arranged for the White House. Other bouquets were

sent to friends and the Washington hospitals, particularly to the children's

hospital. The rest of the morning Lucy Hayes was busy receiving calls and

taking visiting friends and relatives on tours of the city.141

The State Department and White House staff knowing that liquor had

not been served in the Hayes household in Ohio waited to see what the

policy would be in regard to formal entertaining.¹⁴² Doubtless Winnie

Monroe had told them that Sardis Birchard had been reputed to have had

a "fine cellar,"¹⁴³ and that Mrs. Hayes had helped her mother secure the

wine she had seemed to need for her health.¹⁴⁴ Politicians remembered that

Hayes sometimes had a "schoppen" of beer when he visited in Cincinnati,¹⁴⁵

and army friends could recall promotions celebrated with spirits.146

At the first official dinner, April 19, 1877, given in honor of the Russian

Grand Duke Alexis and his companion, Grand Duke Constantine, a "full

quota" of wine was served, but soon after this Hayes made it known that

no alcoholic beverages would be served at future affairs.¹⁴⁷ The decision

must have been a joint resolution on the part of Lucy and Rutherford

Hayes since that was the way they solved all such problems. Many factors

probably entered into the decision: a wish to set a good example, Lucy's

lifetime abstinence from liquor, a desire to keep the temperance advocates

in the Republican ranks rather than have them join the Prohibition Party,

and Hayes's firm conviction that government officials should conduct them-

selves at all times with dignity and propriety.148 Hayes recorded in his

Diary that at several embassy receptions "disgraceful things were done by

young men made reckless by too much wine."149

During the summer, the Hayes family sometimes left the heat and for-

mality of the White House for a cottage on the shaded, rolling grounds of

the National Soldiers' Home on the outskirts of the city.150 Also Hayes, ac-

companied by his wife and other members of the family, traveled about tile

country seeking support from the people for his policies.151

Every Thanksgiving Day, the White House secretaries and clerks along

with their families were invited to share the Hayes family dinner; and on

Christmas Day, the staff again gathered at the White House where Mrs.

• 20
 

Hayes had a present for every one, which if possible she had purchased herself. Colonel XV. H. Crook, an executive clerk, wrote that Fanny and Scott distributed the presents, and "it was a real Christmas that came to the White House in those days."152 The first year ended with festivities that marked a highlight in the life of Lucy and Rutherford Hayes. Friends and relatives, many of whom had attended their wedding in 1852, gathered at the White House on Decem- ber 30, 1877, for their silver wedding anniversary. Lucy, wearing her orig- inal bridal gown -- extended at the seams -- and attended again by Laura Platt Mitchell, renewed her vows with her husband before Dr. L. D. Mc- Cabe who had performed the original ceremony. A fitting climax was a grand public reception the next evening with the Marine Band filling the house with music, and the conservatory "ablaze" with gas jets. Friends believed that no other social event of their "official lives" was quite so satisfying to the First Family as the observance of their silver wedding anniversary.153 The public was also intrigued by the Sunday evening musical soirees that the Hayes family instituted at the White House. Vivid word pictures remain of Lucy sitting at a Chickering square piano while the guests sang hymns that began "A few more years shall roll" or "There is a land of pure delight/ Where saints immortal stand."154 Sometimes it was Carl Schurz, called an "infidel and atheist" by Grant, who played such favorites as "Jesus Lover of My Soul," and "Blest Be the Tie that Binds."155 Schurz, whose wife had died prior to his appointment as Secretary of the Interior, lunched so frequently at the White House that he wondered if people would think he boarded there.156 Mrs. Hayes's hospitality strained the capacity of the White House. The family apartment on the second floor consisted of six or seven bedrooms and one sitting room. The office of the President and the Cabinet Room were also on the second floor and used the same corridors as did the fam-

• 21
 

54                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

ily. During the Hayes administration the old copper tubs were eliminated

and bathrooms with running water were added.¹⁵⁷ Another improvement

was the installation of a crude wall telephone that was of little practical

use because of the few telephones in Washington.158 Rud Hayes said that

when he and Birch came home from college, they seldom had a bedroom

or even a bed to themselves. They might be assigned a cot in the hall, a

couch in a reception room, or even a bathtub as a "resting place."¹⁵⁹

In spite of cramped living quarters, Lucy was charmed with the White

House, not only because of the lovely reception rooms, but also because

of the Mansion's association with the history of the nation. It had been

customary when a new administration came into office to appropriate

money to repair and redecorate the White House. After eight years of the

Grant administration much renovating was necessary, but because of

strained relations between Hayes and Congress the appropriation was de-

layed.¹⁶⁰ Holes in the carpet and curtains were covered as much as possible

by reversing the ends of curtains and covering worn spots  with furni-

ture.161 The First Lady ransacked the cellar and attic to find furniture

that could be restored. Crook said, "Many really good things owed their

preservation to this energetic lady."162

When Congress finally appropriated money for repairs and remodeling,

Lucy preferred to enlarge the conservatories rather than to undertake ex-

tensive redecorating that might not please the next occupants. The billiard

room, which connected the house with the conservatories, was converted

into a greenhouse and the table was moved to the basement. Long closed

windows were opened so that the guests in the State Dining Room could

look into the plant room.163 Being very much interested in the movement

to complete the Washington Monument that particularly involved strength-

ening the foundation, Lucy had gas posts installed on the White House

grounds looking toward the monument.¹⁶⁴

Nearly every night was reception night for Lucy Hayes, and when her

husband was not too occupied with State business he came down to join the

group around his wife. One such occasion favorably impressed a young

graduate student, John F. Jameson, later to gain fame as a historian and

archivist. Jameson and a friend called on President Hayes with a letter of

introduction. After talking to the young men, Hayes introduced them to

Mrs. Hayes who was chatting with a friend in the Red Room. Describing

the evening to his mother, Jameson wrote, "I had the chair next to Mrs.

Hayes . . . I thought Mrs. Hayes very pleasant . . ." Later one of the Hayes

sons (probably Rud) took the students on a tour of the state rooms. "The

son seemed a pleasant, off-hand sort of fellow," Jameson continued, "and

the whole concern didn't sling nearly as much style as I expected . . . We

had a very pleasant time."¹⁶⁵

One of the infrequent weddings in the White House was held during the

Hayes administration. On June 19, 1878, Emily Platt, Hayes's niece and a

secretary and companion to Lucy, married General Russell Hastings, a close

friend of the family who had served on Hayes's staff during the Civil War.

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LUCY WEBB HAYES and Her Family                                   55 The press described the wedding in detail including a description of the wedding bell that was estimated to contain 15,000 roses.166 Many requests for assistance and positions were included in the multitude of letters that Lucy Hayes received.167 Occasionally she could not resist some of the more worthy applicants whose pleas had been sorted out by her volunteer secretaries.168 It also would have been contrary to her nature not to have tried to help the poor and needy of the District. The doorkeeper, Thomas Pendel, remembered being called upstairs often to be told by Mrs. Hayes to take money and a note to some destitute family.169 Lucy Hayes may have appreciated the desire of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union to have a portrait of her painted for the White House, but a nationwide request for contributions of ten cents or more to pay for the picture annoyed her as indicated by her note to Birchard that contained this phrase: "Only worth ten cents."170 Eventually a life-size portrait of Lucy Hayes was painted by Daniel Huntington, a noted artist of the time. Lucy wearing a lovely dark red dress with an ample train and lace ruching at the neck and sleeves was posed against a formal landscape. The presenta- tion to the White House was delayed until March 8, 1881, after the in- auguration of President Garfield.171 A composition more representative of Lucy's personality was a group photograph of Mrs. Hayes, Fanny, Scott, and a friend taken in the White House Conservatory. The appeal of her character is revealed in the midst of the flowers she loved and surrounded by the affection of the children.172

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56                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

An attractive addition to the White House china was an exquisite state

dinner service executed by Haviland & Company from designs by the Amer-

ican artist, Theodore Davis. Among the many interesting "flora and fauna"

patterns included in the set was one called "Floating for Deer." In the

summer when the deer sought relief from insects in shallow lake waters

hunters stalked them at night in small boats. A lighted candle placed in the

front attracted the animal while a birch bark reflector enabled the hunter

to remain invisible. This particular scene shows a deer hypnotized into im-

mobility by the approaching light.173

The nineteenth century remembered Lucy Hayes as a successful hostess.

Julia Bundy Foraker wrote, "Yet the Cave Dwellers, those old Washington-

Georgetown families whose verdicts . . . have fearful and lasting weight

. . . to this day [1932] say that we never had a First Lady like 'Lucy

Webb.'"174

Extravagance in dress and coiffures had reached a pinnacle of absurdity

when Lucy entered the White House. She dressed well but not extravagant-

ly with costs of her costumes ranging from $104.80 for a white silk dress

from Mme. A. Poix, N.Y., to $400.00 for an "Imperial Velvet Carre Re-

ception Dress" from Moschcowitz & Russell, New York.¹⁷⁵ Simple jewelry

and a white flower in her hair, in place of an elaborate coiffure, accented

her costumes. The world of "Vanity Fair" did not "frizz that hair" nor

"bare those shoulders."

Lucy Haves won the sincere praise of many of the leading statesmen of

the time. When Carl Schurz said goodbye to Hayes he "specifially men-

tioned his pleasure in having won the 'esteem and friendship' of Mrs.

Hayes." Schurz's tribute that Hayes had "infused a new spirit of purity and

conscience into our public life" also was applicable to Lucy's contribution

as First Lady.176

When Hayes had accepted the presidency, he had agreed to serve only

one term, and although Lucy enjoyed Washington she also was ready to

leave at the end of the four years. In 1880, she wrote to Rutherford that

she was looking forward to retirement. "We will grow old together," she

said, "and lead a happy life at Fremont."177

After leaving Washington, Hayes served as a trustee for various organiza-

tions and institutions, and gave freely of his time to the causes of general

education and manual training, prison reform, and veterans' pensions. Lucy

was active in the Woman's Relief Corps, served as national president of the

newly formed Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist

Church,¹⁷⁸ and was involved in a number of community projects. She en-

joyed the activities, and the visits from their friends to Spiegel Grove, but

her greatest happiness was in her home and family. She also found pleasure

in what Laura Mitchell described as her Noah's collection of animals.¹⁷⁹ A

long letter written to Fanny in November 1885, at Miss Porter's School in

Farmington, Connecticut, contained so much farm news that Hayes ap-

pended a teasing note: "Your Mother as usual recalls the brute creation,

but omits to give your father . . . even 'the cold respect of a passing glance.'

He nevertheless 'still lives' and loves his daughter."¹⁸⁰ Later on a cold win-

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LUCY WEBB HAYES and Her Family                                    57 ter day, Lucy wrote, "The furnaces have buckled on their armor and the grates unite so we defy it all."181 The colorful and spritely phrases in her letters substantiate her niece's comment that Mrs. Hayes told stories "always in snatches of sentences with touches of irresistable mimicry. Like her songs, we loved to hear her stories again and again."182 An important event that took place on Rutherford and Lucy Hayes's thirty-fourth wedding anniversary, December 30, 1886, was the marriage of their oldest son Birchard to Mary Sherman of Norwalk, Ohio. Their first grandchild, named after his grandfather, was born the next year. Early in June 1889, Mrs. Hayes apparently suffered a light stroke while attending church.183 A few weeks later, on a warm and pleasant afternoon, June 22, 1889, as she sat by the bay window in her bedroom sewing and watching Scott, Fanny, and their friends playing tennis on the south lawn of the house in Spiegel Grove, she suffered a severe apoplectic stroke. Early in the morning of June 25, 1889, with the family gathered around her bed- side, Lucy Hayes died in her sleep. She would have been fifty-eight on August 28, 1889.184 Rutherford Hayes was stricken with grief. Newspaper eulogies and let- ters of condolence came from all parts of the country. Perhaps the most poignant tribute of all was written by Webb Hayes: "My Mother was all that a Mother could be and in addition was a most joyous and lovable com- panion."185 Rutherford Hayes lived on for over three years, and the last of their chil- dren died in 1950; their descendants are still carrying on the family tradi- tion of service and leadership. THE AUTHOR: Emily Apt Geer is Professor of History at Findlay College.

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