Ohio History Journal

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THE BIRTHPLACE OF PRESIDENT HAYES:

THE BIRTHPLACE OF PRESIDENT HAYES:

A STUDY IN ORAL TRADITION

by

C. E. VAN SICKLE

Professor of History, Ohio Wesleyan University

and

JAMES T. MAY

The people of Delaware, Ohio, have long pointed with pride

to the fact that their city is the birthplace of President Rutherford

B. Hayes. A Delaware tradition so old that no one now living

seems to remember anything about its origin, marks as his birth-

place a two-story brick house, which it asserts his father had built

and which stood until 1930 on the north side of East William

Street, a short distance from Sandusky Street. So strong was the

confidence of the Delaware citizenry in this story that when the

Standard Oil Company of Ohio tore down the building to make

room for a filling station, the Daughters of the American Revolution

erected a marker to identify the spot. Recent studies have raised

very serious doubts about the truth of the tradition and have thrown

considerable light on its origin.

The reliability of the legend regarding President Hayes's birth-

place was first checked by the prosaic evidence of the deed books

preserved in the office of the recorder of Delaware County, which

produced some surprising data. The brick house on East William

Street stood on a parcel of real estate known on the early plats

of Delaware as In Lot 66, for which a complete list of owners

is available. The Hayes family never owned it, as can be seen

from the following table, which covers the whole period of their

residence in Delaware:

Grantor        Grantee                                  Price            Date      Deed Book

Moses Byxbe Little                                       $ 30        9-15-1808 V.             I P. 58

Little                  Kester                                  1195       3-10-1813               II           290

Kester                Robinson                             1300       10-18-1813             II           432

Robinson            B. Tuller                               1350       1- 5-1815                III                      379

H. Tuller             Cox (west l/2)                        500         5-24-1822               XIII                   93

H. Tuller             L. Tuller (east l/2)                500         9-20-1822               XI                      497

Cox                    Goodrich (west l/2)              350         4- 3-1837                XV                    281

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