KENNETH E. DAVISON
Travels of President
Rutherford B. Hayes
In a predominantly newspaper age, long
before the advent of radio and television,
Ohio's President Rutherford B. Hayes
spent much of his four-year term traveling
throughout the United States. Beset by
critics in both the political arena and the
press, he strove to put his cause and
himself directly before the American people.
While many of his trips were avowedly
nonpolitical, they definitely helped to pro-
ject a favorable image of the Chief
Executive, his family, and his advisers. More-
over, the President's many travels
strengthened the power and reach of the
presidential office and proved to be one
of his more effective political maneuvers.
In addition to extended official tours
into New England, the South, and the West,
Hayes made many shorter trips to attend
state and county fairs, dedications, his-
torical anniversaries, and commencement
ceremonies. Harvard, Yale, and Johns
Hopkins all conferred honorary
doctorates on the visiting Chief Executive.1 In
New York City Hayes participated in the
dedication of new buildings for the Mus-
eum of Natural History and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, two major land-
marks in the nation's cultural progress.2
Other junkets took him to Mount Vernon
and James Madison's estate in Virginia.
In the summer of 1879, accompanied by
four cabinet officers, he explored the
ruins of Westmoreland (Washington's birth-
place). After dropping anchor in the
Potomac River, he was carried ashore by
sailors, and then hiked a mile over
marshy ground.3 What Hayes enjoyed most,
however, were soldiers' reunions.
On another trip to see the famous North
Dakota wheat fields just before harvest
time, he also attended the opening of the
Minnesota state fair. An episode typical of
the ineptitude of special committees
occurred here. Ex-Governor Alexander Ramsey
and his wife, friends of the Hayes,
wished to open their new home for a general recep-
tion, but the local committee declined
their offer in favor of a hotel banquet and
reception, adding the suggestion that
instead the Ramseys might entertain the
President and his party for breakfast.
So a club breakfast featuring filets mignon
and prairie chicken was prepared and
served by Mrs. Ramsey and her servants.
1. Hayes received a LL.D. at Harvard,
June 27, 1877; a LL.D. at Yale, July 1, 1880; a LL.D. at
Johns Hopkins, February 12, 1881.
2. Hayes Diary, December 26, 1877, and
April 1, 1880, Hayes Papers, Rutherford B. Hayes Library,
Fremont, Ohio.
3. Ibid., July 7, 1879.
Mr. Davison is chairman American Studies
department, Heidelberg College.
At five o'clock that afternoon when the official party returned from the fair, Mrs. Ramsey casually inquired of her husband when the committee would arrive to escort President and Mrs. Hayes to the hotel banquet. She was stunned to be told the committee could not manage a banquet for such a large crowd and that only a reception would be held. That meant she would be responsible for serving the dinner! With nothing prepared to eat in the house, her servants still at the fair, and no caterer nearby, Mrs. Ramsey frantically searched her wooden icebox and found what remained of the morning meal. Dinner was prepared using the sirloins (from which the filets had been removed) and the legs of the prairie chickens which she good-naturedly told the President were considered the most delicate part of the bird. In her gracious manner Mrs. Hayes assured her hostess she enjoyed the meal far more than if the official banquet had been held. This was no doubt true. |
62
OHIO HISTORY
But for Mrs. Ramsey it was not the
dinner she would have wished to set before the
President and First Lady of the land!4
The President's great concern for
education prompted a number of other trips
and important speeches. On these
occasions he was usually accompanied by Mrs.
Hayes. Early in his term they took an
interest in Virginia's Hampton Institute, a
co-educational teacher training and
agricultural school for black Americans, located
on the shore of the bay into which the
first American slave ship had sailed in
1619.5 In 1878 and again in 1880 Hayes came to anniversary
ceremonies at Hampton,
counseling the students "to work--to
earn--to save. . . . If you earn
$10--save a
little of it. If you earn $100, save
more. The difference between spending all and
saving something is the difference
between misery and happiness."6 He recognized
that peaceful resolution of the problems
of a multi-racial society was the most pres-
sing challenge still confronting the
nation: "How to deal with these various classes,
these different populations which make
up American society. . . . The main ques-
tion is how to fuse them into one great,
harmonious whole. That question Hampton
Institute is solving. It is by dealing
with all as children of our great Father. . .
Sectionalism and race prejudice . . .
are the only two enemies America has any
cause to fear."7
A return to Gambier, Ohio, was always a
favorite pilgrimage of the President.
At the June 1880 commencement exercises
he noted, with pardonable pride, the
progress of his Alma Mater: "Kenyon
College plainly now stands on a solid
foundation. Situated as it is near the
center of the Central State of the Union--
easily reached from all parts of the
Country--with a site of unsurpassed beauty--
perfectly healthy and comfortable for
labor and study at all seasons--removed
completely from every influence
unfriendly to virtue and to scholarly pursuits--
with ample grounds and buildings, and
out of debt." Drawing upon his own ex-
perience, the President continued in his
praise of the virtues of similar institutions:
The student of the small college who has
diligently and thoroughly mastered the studies
of his courses will surely find that he
is at no disadvantage as compared with the greatest
of what are known as the great-Colleges
in the training, elementary knowledge, and habits
of thought and study which are requisite
for success in the professions or in any field of
learning or science which he may choose
to enter. There are compensations in the little
colleges for the well known advantages
of the larger institutions. I do not disparage the
great colleges. I know by comparison of
results. I merely say to you as students of one of
the smaller colleges you need not dread
more than others the competitions by which in
practical life merit is discovered and
determined.8
Many unusual episodes occurred in the
course of Hayes' travels. On a trip to
Philadelphia to spend the 1879
Thanksgiving holiday with the family of Methodist
Bishop Matthew Simpson, the President
departed from the standard official policy
4. Fargo Republican, September
11, 1878, newspaper clipping in Hayes Scrapbook, Vol. 112, pp.
139-140, Hayes Papers; Marion Ramsey
Furness, "Childhood Recollections of Old St. Paul," Minnesota
History, XXIX (June 1948), 128-129.
5. "Mrs. Hayes wants to have an
interest in your Excellent Institution by contributing enough to
support at least one pupil at the
Institution. If you will let me know the amount required and when
it should be sent &c &c I will
remit." Hayes to Gen. Armstrong, August 27, 1877, photostat in Hayes
Papers from original letter in the
Massachusetts Historical Society.
6. Cited in Southern Workman, VII
(June 1878), 46.
7. Southern Workman, IX (June 1880), 68.
8. Original manuscript, pages 51-52,
Edward C. Benson Scrapbook, Kenyon College Library,
Gambier, Ohio.
Travels of R. B. Hayes 63
of traveling by special railway car.
Instead, accompanied by his valet, Isaiah Lan-
caster, he purchased two coach tickets
for the 5:30 P.M. Baltimore and Potomac
train. The action was typical, for
throughout his public career, Hayes took pleasure
in appearing incognito. He liked to know
what people were thinking without in-
hibiting their conversation by his high
office. Somewhat to his chagrin he dis-
covered the technique did not work so
well now that he was President of the
United States. An excerpt from Hayes'
diary reveals his difficulties:
I preferred to go without fuss. I had a
ticket to Baltimore. But paid forty cents--apparently
for Isaiah, but I didn't understand it.
A family ticket which I had, included I suppose ser-
vants. I was as polite as the conductor,
and made no remark. Fare was paid from Baltimore
to Phila. for both of us--I think 3:00 [sic]
each. On my return I paid $15.00 for fare on
B. & O. and for sleeping berths--two
sections, leaving Phila. at 11:30 p.m. Soon after
lying down the Conductor told me he had
orders to return my fare. I took it without count-
ing. This morning at 7 a.m. before
leaving the car the conductor told me he had orders
to return me the fare paid on the 26th
and gave me 3:00 [sic]. This was for fare I suppose
leaving me to pay for my own
sleeping berth. All of this pleasantly done, but I suspect I
make less trouble if I ask for a special
car.
Still he had some measure of success:
"On the way up a Mr. Sutton of the Eastern
Shore--clerk in the great wholesale
store of Jacob__& Co., Phila., took a seat by
my side. I got much interesting
information about his business and the trade gener-
ally."9
Of all the Hayes' tours, the most
dramatic and extended was a western trip to
the Pacific Coast and return in the fall
of 1880.10 This marked the first time any
President had crossed the continent
while in office, although Grant had visited as
far as Utah in 1875. The trip,
personally nonpolitical in nature with few prepared
speeches, allowed Hayes to do something
important during his final months in
office, and left Garfield's men
unhampered in their management of the 1880 Re-
publican presidential campaign.
Originally planned for the spring of 1879, the
Great Western Tour had to be postponed
for more than a year because an extra
session of Congress required the
President's presence in Washington.11 Hayes, how-
ever, kept in mind the idea of a grand
tour as a good way of unifying the nation
and promoting pride in America's
material progress and future potential. On June
18, 1880, he publicly announced his
intention to make a Pacific trip. General William
T. Sherman, an old friend, familiar with
the terrain to be traversed, laid out the
route and methods of travel, an
assignment he dutifully performed knowing full
well he would have to defer to the
President's whims instead of his own prefer-
ences on some details.12 Sherman
received help from various army posts and com-
manders scattered throughout the West.
Colonel John Jameson of the Railway
Mail Service supervised the day-to-day
travel accommodations and kept the ac-
counts.13 Generally speaking,
various railroads provided a director's car for the
9. Hayes Diary, November 28, 1879, Hayes
Papers.
10. See James J. Garvey,
"Rutherford B. Hayes: The Great Western Tour of 1880," (Loyola Uni-
versity, Chicago, Illinois, January 1966); and Gary
Joseph Gonya, "Hayes and Unity (with a Trave-
logue of the Presidential Tour of 1880)," (St.
Meinrad Seminary, May 1965), both unpublished man-
uscripts in Hayes Papers.
11. Hayes to W. D. Bickham, August 19,
1880, Hayes Papers.
12. W. T. Sherman to Marion De L. Adams,
August 15, 1880, Sherman Papers, Rutherford B.
Hayes Library.
13. "His Excellency R. B. Hayes in
Account with John Jameson, August 27 to November 6, 1880";
Hayes to F. J. Potter, August 21, 1880,
both in Hayes Papers.
64 OHIO
HISTORY
President's comfort; the travelers
stopped at military posts en route and used hotels
sparingly, receiving their overnight
accommodations and hospitality as a courtesy
of army generals or well-known
businessmen and public officials like Irvin McDowell
and Leland Stanford.
The size of the official party
fluctuated throughout the journey but usually aver-
aged about nineteen. A limiting factor,
especially restricting the number of women
in the party, was the necessity of using
army field ambulances to cover some five
to six hundred miles of rough roads and
desert country between railheads.14 As
finally constituted the official party
consisted of President Hayes, Army Chief-of-
Staff William Tecumseh Sherman, and
Secretary of War Alexander Ramsey,
together with members of their immediate
families, personal friends, and staff
assistants. Hayes took his wife Lucy,
two sons, Birchard and Rutherford, a favorite
niece, Laura (Mrs. John G. Mitchell),
and two dear friends from Cincinnati, Mr.
and Mrs. John W. Herron. Isaiah
Lancaster attended to the President's personal
needs, while Mrs. S. O. Hunt, a young
matron of Oakland, California, who had
been staying in Washington, came along
as a traveling guest of Mrs. Hayes.15
General Sherman brought his daughter
Rachel, Mrs. Joseph Crain Audenried,
the recently widowed wife of his
longtime military aide, and General Alexander
McDowell McCook, another of his aides.
Secretary Ramsey's contingent included
his son-in-law, Charles E. Furness of
Philadelphia, and his private secretary and
personal adviser, Colonel Thomas F. Barr
of the War Department, who was ac-
companied by his wife Julia. Colonel
Jameson and Dr. David Lowe Huntington,
an army surgeon from the Soldier's Home
in Washington, completed the presi-
dential party.
Hayes attended his army reunion in
Canton, Ohio, on September 1, 1880, and
then left for Chicago and a rendezvous
with the rest of the official party, except
for Secretary Ramsey who joined them at
Omaha. For the next two months the
travelers enjoyed an extraordinary
journey of some ten thousand miles notable
for superb weather, grandiose scenery,
good health, and freedom from accidents.16
About eighty cities lay along their
route which they covered by train, stagecoach,
army ambulance, steamer, ferry boat,
tug, yacht, and ocean vessel. On the way
West stops were made at Cheyenne, Salt
Lake City, and Lake Tahoe, before the
party recuperated for twelve days in the
San Francisco Bay area. From here the
road lay northward to Oregon and the
Washington Territory, with exciting side
trips up the Columbia River to Walla
Walla and around Puget Sound. Then they
embarked at Astoria for the return to San
Francisco by ocean steamer. Time was
added for a side trip to Yosemite
National Park after which the President boarded
the Southern Pacific Railway via Los
Angeles and headed into the Southwest. Here
the Army prudently posted pickets and
stationed several fresh relays of horses
for the hazardous two-day journey by
field ambulances across the desert and hos-
tile Apache country. Arriving in Santa
Fe on October 28, the President hastened
back to Ohio (skipping a planned stop in
Denver), in order to reach Fremont just
in time to cast his vote for James A.
Garfield on November 2. Mrs. Hunt appar-
ently left the tour upon reaching her
home in California, and Birchard returned
14. Hayes to William Dean Howells,
August 4, 1880, Hayes Papers.
15. Hayes Scrapbook, Vol. 78, p. 44,
Hayes Papers. This volume of newspaper clippings and the
official Post Route Maps for the period,
also in the Hayes Library, make it possible to reconstruct the
progress of the tour.
16. Hayes Diary, November 7, 1880, Hayes
Papers.
home ahead of his parents. Colonel Jameson's account book shows total expendi- tures of only $575.40 for the nine members of the President's immediate entourage.17 A pattern emerged during the first few days of the tour. Local Republican poli- ticians would board the President's train to greet him personally and often to ride along to the next stop. Wherever the train paused briefly, Hayes appeared and spoke a few extempore words. Sherman and Ramsey usually followed with a few felicitous remarks of their own, and then Mrs. Hayes and the other ladies would be presented to the expectant crowd. After cannon, rifle, or whistle salutes, martial music, frequently a band playing "Hail to the Chief" or "Marching Through Georgia," completed the brief festivities. In his informal way, Hayes used these whistle stops to personal and political advantage, and he was actually better prepared than his casual manner suggested. A memo written to himself reveals his thoughts on his preparation for the trip: As I now see it congratulations on the condition and prospects of our Country will almost always be appropriate. In order to make them of some interest let me gather facts as to restored Union, sound financial condition, increase of exports of Agricultural & Manu- facturing products--balance of trade and the like. In order to make the talks practically useful, not merely vain boasting, let me trace the favorable conditions to the adoption of sound principles, and warn the people of some of the evils existing which threaten our future, such as clipped silver dollars--unredeemed government paper--a redundant currency, popular illiteracy, sectional and race prejudices &c.&c.18 If possible the President avoided speechmaking on Sunday. To pass idle time 17. "Hayes in Account with Jameson," Hayes Papers. 18. Hayes Diary, August 19, 1880, Hayes Papers. |
66 OHIO
HISTORY
on long stretches between stops, the
group played guessing games or sang patrio-
tic and popular songs by the hour.19
Lieutenant Charles Rutherford Noyes, son
of the President's cousin, Horatio
Noyes, stationed in 1880 near Cheyenne,
Wyoming, decided to join the official
greeting party as his kinsman passed
through the Territory. A diary kept by Noyes
is the only known account by a
participant who described the Great Western Tour
in detail. "There were five cars in
the train, one carrying the baggage, the second,
a C. B. & Q. dining car, the third,
a C. B. & Q. director's car occupied by Sec-
retary of War, General Sherman, and the
ladies of their party. The fourth, a Pull-
man sleeper occupied by General McCook
and other gentlemen of the party, also
by Colonel and Mrs. Barr and Birchard
and Rutherford Hayes. The fifth was the
Union Pacific Director's car occupied by
the President and his party excluding
the boys."20
Young Noyes accompanied the tour as far
as Salt Lake City. Shortly after the
train entered Utah, it stopped at the
Emory station, and upon invitation from Rud,
Noyes ran forward to join a party of
five on the locomotive's cowcatcher for an
exciting ride through Echo Canyon. At
the same time, the President, Mrs. Hayes,
Dr. Huntington, and Mrs. Herron moved up
to the engineer's cab. The following
description appears in the Noyes diary.
The ride was down hill all the way and
for twenty or twenty five miles through a most
beautiful canyon with magnificent
mountain scenery on both sides. The railroad followed
a small stream for several miles which
finally flowed into the Weber River, and then the
Weber was followed down, At places the
valley was wide enough to allow of fine wheat
fields, and the houses were quite
numerous, probably all Mormon settlements as we were
by this time within the limits of Utah.
One crop which we noticed and which covered quite
large fields, we afterwards learned was
alfalfa or Lucerne. Its brilliant green color attracted
Mr. Herron's attention and no one knew
at first what it was. It is said to make excellent
fodder for animals and three or four
crops can be harvested in a year, giving as many as
nine tons to the acre. The wonderful
rock formations on both sides of the track and the
high cliffs attracted our attention. We
noted the Devil's slide, and the Devil's Gate, also
the one thousand mile tree, all of which
we passed during this ride. The track crossed the
stream whose course it followed many
times and twice plunged through short tunnels where
the very circuitous course of the stream
could not be followed. On several occasions, as
we sped along, it appeared as though we
were about to run full against a mountain side,
but just before reaching such places the
track by a sudden turn curved through some nar-
row defile, and thus we passed from open
glades to steep sided canyons, and back again
to open glades and thrifty farms. It was
a most delightful ride, and at the end of twenty
five miles we returned to the train much
pleased with our experience.21
At Salt Lake the Hayes brothers and
Noyes took a one-hour excursion to Black
Rock for a swim in the famous salt water
and then rejoined the main party for a
tour of Salt Lake City. On September 6,
after spending a pleasant weekend in the
city, the tourists resumed their journey
to California and Noyes returned to his
army post. Before parting, Noyes found
time to win a rubber of cribbage with Miss
Sherman and bid goodbye to each of the
passengers. He also wrote a vivid de-
scription of the President's
accommodations: "Upon arriving at Ogden [the junction
for the Far West] the party changed cars
to Central Pacific sleeping cars, and the
19. Gonya, "Hayes and Unity,"
42, 46; Garvey, "Great Western Tour," 40.
20. Extract from "Diary of Charles
R. Noyes," 2, typed copy in Rutherford B. Hayes Library.
21. Ibid., 10-11.
Travels of R. B. Hayes 67
director's car of the Central Pacific
was in readiness for the President. This was
the finest car which I think I ever saw,
its upholstery was of the richest, and all
its appointments complete."22
On September 8 the presidential party
crossed the Sierra Nevada Range at
beautiful Lake Tahoe and reached San
Francisco the following day. After many
receptions and some sight-seeing in the
Bay area, the Hayes caravan headed for
Oregon by way of Sacramento where the
President delivered one of the few pre-
pared and longer speeches of his tour,
one which sounded his basic theme of
nationalism and unity, the principal
purpose of his long journey. He observed:
We have learned something of California.
. . . You have a double advantage--the advan-
tage of a climate which gives you the
productions of fruit and flowers of semi-tropical
regions, and at the same time it seems
that you have a clear, bracing air at night which
restores the vigor again, and gives you
the advantage of the best climate of the temperate
zone. . . . No man can doubt, . . . that here is a
soil fit to feed the millions of the earth.
. . . Wherever we go we see such
provision for education as insures the prosperity of the
country. Here people will gather from
every known land, and by a process peculiar to the
American school-house, be fused into one
harmonious whole. . . . What is to be the future
of this beautiful land? . . . In my
judgment, there is no equal of people anywhere in the
United States having such advantages and
opportunities to do great service to the nation
and mankind as the million or million
and a half of people inhabiting what are known as
the Pacific States and Territories of
the United States. You occupy seventeen degrees of
latitude on the Pacific Ocean. . . . You
have your mines of inexhaustible wealth, and your
commerce; you have the capacity for a
population not less than that of our whole country
at the present time; fifty millions can
live upon this stretch of territory. . . . I am glad
to meet you in California, and I say to
you that we are looking to you as the vanguard
of progress. As civilization advances we
have generally moved to the westward. You have
got to the end of the march. You have
reached the margin, and now it is for you--and I
believe you may safely be trusted with
that destiny--to see that in the future, as in the past,
American institutions and the American
name shall lose nothing at your hands.23
From the California capital the Oregon
division of the Central Pacific carried
the visitors to its terminus at Redding.
Here the presidential party divided into
three contingents. One went directly to
Portland by sea, while a second section
journeyed by regular day and night stage
to Roseburg, Oregon. The third group
comprised of the President and First
Lady, the John Herrons, Mrs. Mitchell, Dr.
Huntington, and Colonel Jameson (with
General Sherman riding "shotgun" on
the box beside the driver!), traveled by
a special stagecoach, drawn by six large
and handsome horses, matched grays, and
stopped each night on its way to
Roseburg, 275 miles distant.24 Sherman
had advised this six-day trek by daylight
in order to permit the President to see
the magnificent scenery and to experience
the wild and exciting drive along the
narrow and precipitous road from Ashland
to Sevens, Oregon, as well as to observe
a government fish hatchery and the local
color of several old mining camps along
the way.25
On the night of September 27, the
presidential stage halted in Jacksonville,
Oregon, a small frontier mining town of
one thousand population. Madam de
22. Ibid., 20.
23. Hayes Scrapbook, Hayes Papers, 106,
114-115.
24. Gonya, "Hayes and Unity,"
41-42.
25. Sherman to Hayes, August 20, 1880,
Hayes Papers; Gen. Irvin McDowell to Sherman, August
13, 1880, with attached notations of Lt.
Hoyle, Sherman Papers, copy in Rutherford B. Hayes Library.
Travels of R. B. Hayes 69
Robaum's boarding house afforded them
overnight accommodations. But next morn-
ing the big Frenchwoman, unlike other
proprietors who had entertained the Presi-
dent without charge just to gain the
added prestige, presented her guests with an
exhorbitant bill amounting to one
hundred dollars! In the embarrassing circum-
stances, John Herron, the President's
former law partner, saved the day. He in-
formed the proprietress that the party
had no intention of buying her hotel, handed
her twenty-five dollars, and bid adieu.
Before the flabbergasted woman could pro-
test further, the stage was gone.26
At Roseburg the Portland special of the
Oregon and California Railroad took
the travelers by nightfall to the
northern border of the state. Several relaxing days
were spent in Portland with excursions
to nearby points. The most interesting of
these side trips was a journey to the
Government Indian School at Forest Grove
where Hayes delivered a particularly
stirring speech:
I think it is the wish and prayer of
every good citizen that these Indian boys and girls
should become wise, useful, and good
citizens. Some people seem to think that God has
decreed that Indians should die off like
wild animals. With this we have nothing to do.
If they are to become extinct we ought
to leave that to Providence, and we, as good pa-
triotic, Christian people, should do our
best to improve their physical, mental, and moral
condition. We should prepare them to
become part of the great American family. If it turns
out that their destiny is to be
different, we shall have at least done our duty. This country
was once theirs. They owned it as much
as you own your farms. We have displaced them,
and are now completing that work. I am
glad that Oregon has taken a step in the right
direction. I am glad that she is
preparing Indian boys and girls to become good, law-
abiding citizens.27
Going from Portland to Vancouver, the
Hayes party spent Sunday with the area
military commander, General O. O.
Howard. On Monday October 4 (the Presi-
dent's fifty-eighth birthday), the party
ascended the Columbia River, using three
steamers and two special trains to
penetrate as far as Walla Walla in the Wash-
ington territory. On the afternoon of
October 6, 1880, the return journey down the
Columbia River began, after the
travelers had witnessed at the military post one
of the most novel and dramatic episodes
of the entire trip, a wild one-hour war
dance presented by about fifty Umatilla
Indians.28
Several more pleasant days were passed
visiting Kalama, Olympia, Tacoma,
and finally Seattle where the President
made perhaps his most spectacular en-
trance to any city on the tour. Laura
Mitchell, a gifted letter writer, graphically
described this part of the journey for
her little cousins back home in Fremont:
We had a whole week of beauty and
delight on Puget Sound following its blue inlets in
and out among the many islands and
around the rugged fir-hung promontories or gently
sloping shores. The Olympic Range seemed
attending us in the blue distance, and Mt.
Rainer rose in the sky, a snow-crowned
shrine for our admiring worship, from time to
time. As we drew near Seattle, a fleet
of seven vessels--the flag-strung revenue cutter and
26. See Anne Holm Pogue,
"Madam De Robaum's Unsettled Claim-1880," in Helen Krebs Smith,
ed., With Her Own Wings (Portland,
1948), 142-144. In fairness it should be stated that Madam De
Robaum was an excellent cook and had
gone to considerable extra expense to entertain her distin-
guished guests. A new Brussels carpet
was placed in the bedroom occupied by the Hayes, a picture
was painted for the dining room, and many
food delicacies were imported from distant points.
27. Chicago Tribune, October 3,
1880; Hayes Scrapbook, Vol. 78, p. 127, Hayes Papers.
28. Ibid., 124.
70
OHIO HISTORY
big and little steamboats, came to meet
us, first circled round us, and ranging themselves
on either hand escorted us into port.29
Returning to Oregon the presidential
party embarked at Astoria aboard the
Columbia for a calm three-day weekend ocean voyage to San
Francisco. "The
sea is smooth, almost nobody
sick--certainly none of our party," Hayes informed
his daughter, Fanny. Laura, as usual,
was more picturesque:
Your Mama wishes me to tell you what a
superb sailor she has grown. For twenty-four
hours we have been on the ocean, and she
sings, and talks, and laughs like the jolliest
Jack Tar of them all. To be sure, the
ocean seems holding its breath, or rising and falling
with the gentlest sighs so that we are
asailing over it, and proud that we are able bodied
people, though a hypochondriac could
hardly imagine himself seasick on this serene sea
and in this smooth-going steamer. . . .
. We saw a pair of whales, yesterday, tossing up their
sun-lit spray quite near our steamer. .
. . To be a whale and spout must be the next best
happiness to being a little boy and
blowing bubbles.30
The party docked at San Francisco early
Monday morning, October 18, and
made their way to the Palace Hotel, then
probably the finest hostelry in all of
America. From here they entrained to
Madera where they mounted a six-horse
coach of the Yosemite Stage Line for a
delightful excursion through the big tree
valley. A historic photograph of the
presidential party, made against the backdrop
of Yosemite Falls, was taken in the
valley on October 21, 1880. By Friday they
were back in Madera and ready to travel
farther south by train to Los Angeles,
where General Sherman who had
temporarily left the group, rejoined them. Here
quick visits were paid to the orange
groves, the agricultural fair, the new University
of Southern California campus, and
Pasadena's vineyards, until they departed for
Mission San Gabriel where they boarded a
Southern Pacific train to Arizona
and New Mexico.31 A stop was
made in Tucson for a military parade and public
reception. General Wilcox and his staff
then joined them for the trip to the end
of the railroad at Shakespeare Ranch,
New Mexico, where they arrived on Monday
morning, October 25.32 Garvey has
described this trip as follows:
From this point wagons carried them to
Fort Cummings, a very dangerous journey con-
sidering threats from Apache raiders and
wild bands of Cowboys from the notorious San
Simon region; but Wilcox, avoiding any
undue alarm to his charges, ordered a heavy
military guard and increased picketing
along the route, and hurried them along to Cow
Springs and on to the Memembres River
before rolling into the fort--covering sixty-four
miles in eleven hours.33
At dawn they left Fort Cummings by army
ambulance and wagons, for Palomas,
sixty miles away, and camped there
overnight. On Wednesday the caravan covered
another twenty-eight miles up the Rio
Grande River near Fort McRea, and then
a final twenty miles to the railhead,
where an Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe special
29. Laura Platt Mitchell to Fanny and
Scott Hayes, October 17, 1880, Hayes Papers.
30. Hayes to Fanny Hayes, October 17,
1880, and Laura Mitchell to Fanny and Scott Hayes,
October 17, 1880, Hayes Papers.
31. John E. Baur, "A President
Visits Los Angeles: Rutherford B. Hayes' Tour of 1880," The
Historical Society of Southern
California Quarterly, XXXVII (March
1955), 33-47.
32. The return journey is not documented
as well as the rest of the trip. Garvey, "The Great
Western Tour," 50-55, is the best
account.
33. Ibid., 53.
waited to take them the final two hundred miles to Santa Fe. On Thursday morn- ing, about ten o'clock, the presidential train pulled into Santa Fe, and the rest of that day and evening the travelers witnessed a great celebration culminating in an evening concert and fiesta. From Santa Fe their special train headed northeast, reaching Kansas early Saturday, October 30. At Dodge City, Hayes wired Gar- field in Mentor, Ohio: "We have had a most delightful and instructive trip."34 In Kansas City the tour party broke up. Secretary Ramsey made a connection for St. Paul; the Shermans continued on to St. Louis; and the Hayes contingent boarded a Wabash express for Toledo via Hannibal, Missouri. In the wee hours of the morning, Monday, November 1, 1880, a carriage bearing President and Mrs. Hayes, together with their son Rud, drove up the winding path to their house at Spiegel Grove. The Great Western Tour, the longest journey ever undertaken by a Chief Executive up to that time, was over. 34. Hayes to Garfield, October 30, 1880, Hayes Papers. |
72
OHIO HISTORY
Back in the White House by Sunday,
November 7, 1880, Hayes penned a modest
one-paragraph resume of his odyssey; the
only reference to the event in his entire
Diary:
We left W [ashington] on our Pacific
tour Thursday evening 26th August and returned Sat-
urday morning after an absence of
Seventy one days. Our trip was most fortunate in all of
its circumstances. Superb weather, good
health and no accidents. A most gratifying recep-
tion greeted us everywhere from the
people and from noted and interesting individuals.35
What pleased the President most,
however, was Garfield's victory at the polls
along with Republican gains in the House
and the Senate. To Hayes, the presi-
dential election of November 2, 1880,
while disappointing in the loss of Nevada
and California to the Democrats, was a
personal victory since his administration
was vindicated by the people's vote of
confidence. The Republicans were main-
tained in power despite a four-year
effort by discontented politicians of both parties
to discredit him personally and to brand
his administration a fraud and a failure.
Courageous and determined in manner,
confident in the ultimate success of his
postwar pacification policy, Rutherford
B. Hayes effectively promoted national
unity and pride by his frequent
presidential tours and won the poet's tribute as
a "Healer of Strife."
Look in our eyes! Your welcome waits
you there--
North. South, East, West, from all
and everywhere!36
35. Hayes Diary, November 7, 1880, Hayes
Papers. Because of the length of the tour there are no
entries for the months of September and
October.
36. "To R. B. H." by Oliver
Wendell Holmes, June 26, 1877.
KENNETH E. DAVISON
Travels of President
Rutherford B. Hayes
In a predominantly newspaper age, long
before the advent of radio and television,
Ohio's President Rutherford B. Hayes
spent much of his four-year term traveling
throughout the United States. Beset by
critics in both the political arena and the
press, he strove to put his cause and
himself directly before the American people.
While many of his trips were avowedly
nonpolitical, they definitely helped to pro-
ject a favorable image of the Chief
Executive, his family, and his advisers. More-
over, the President's many travels
strengthened the power and reach of the
presidential office and proved to be one
of his more effective political maneuvers.
In addition to extended official tours
into New England, the South, and the West,
Hayes made many shorter trips to attend
state and county fairs, dedications, his-
torical anniversaries, and commencement
ceremonies. Harvard, Yale, and Johns
Hopkins all conferred honorary
doctorates on the visiting Chief Executive.1 In
New York City Hayes participated in the
dedication of new buildings for the Mus-
eum of Natural History and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, two major land-
marks in the nation's cultural progress.2
Other junkets took him to Mount Vernon
and James Madison's estate in Virginia.
In the summer of 1879, accompanied by
four cabinet officers, he explored the
ruins of Westmoreland (Washington's birth-
place). After dropping anchor in the
Potomac River, he was carried ashore by
sailors, and then hiked a mile over
marshy ground.3 What Hayes enjoyed most,
however, were soldiers' reunions.
On another trip to see the famous North
Dakota wheat fields just before harvest
time, he also attended the opening of the
Minnesota state fair. An episode typical of
the ineptitude of special committees
occurred here. Ex-Governor Alexander Ramsey
and his wife, friends of the Hayes,
wished to open their new home for a general recep-
tion, but the local committee declined
their offer in favor of a hotel banquet and
reception, adding the suggestion that
instead the Ramseys might entertain the
President and his party for breakfast.
So a club breakfast featuring filets mignon
and prairie chicken was prepared and
served by Mrs. Ramsey and her servants.
1. Hayes received a LL.D. at Harvard,
June 27, 1877; a LL.D. at Yale, July 1, 1880; a LL.D. at
Johns Hopkins, February 12, 1881.
2. Hayes Diary, December 26, 1877, and
April 1, 1880, Hayes Papers, Rutherford B. Hayes Library,
Fremont, Ohio.
3. Ibid., July 7, 1879.
Mr. Davison is chairman American Studies
department, Heidelberg College.