OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE: PROCEEDINGS 127
William D. Overman, Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical
Society, was elected secretary.
Mr. Cook's paper on "Judge John
Tyler--Pioneer Jurist"
will be published in the QUARTERLY later if
not published other-
wise.
Professor A. T. Volwiler's paper on "Harrison, Blaine
and American Foreign Policy,
1889-1893" will be published in
the Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society, Vol. 79,
no. 4. Mr. Garrison's paper follows.
A PRESIDENT'S LIBRARY
By CURTIS W. GARRISON
Private libraries, like figures, often
lie. It is hazardous to judge a
man by the contents of his library. Thus
the possession of Herodotus by
Grant, and the possession of Gibbon by
Lincoln arouses contrary feelings.
And yet, we should study the
circumstances which led to the acquisition of
these volumes and the evidences of their
use, before we pass judgment.
To those interested in such matters I
commend a paper read before
the American Antiquarian Society in 1934
by Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach,
in the preparation of which he was
assisted by Dr. Clarence S. "Brigham,
entitled "The Libraries of the
Presidents of the United States" (Wor-
cester, 1935). I felt sad as I read
therein of the dispersal of Presidential
collections. Dr. Rosenbach can see some
good in it, for note his last word:
"It is a pity that the great
institutions of the United States do not contain
more books that at one time belonged to our
Presidents, for it is possible
to obtain volumes from the private
libraries of all of them." Thus,
you
have the opposite point of view of
collector and librarian, and I am not
sure but that Dr. Rosenbach is right.
Three Presidential libraries, of all
those from Washington through
Grant, were handed down intact:
Jefferson's, John Quincy Adams', and
Grant's. Jefferson's, numbering over
7,000 volumes, was two-thirds de-
stroyed in the Capitol fire of 1851;
John Quincy Adams', numbering about
6,500 volumes, is still preserved in the
structure adjoining the Adams House
in Quincy, Massachusetts, together with
some 750 titles in the Boston
Athenaeum; and the small and unimportant
Grant collection is in the Cali-
fornia Building in Balboa Park. We may
deduct from this that the Hayes
Library at Spiegel Grove, Fremont,
together with the John Quincy Adams
Library, stand out as the two most
important collections still intact and
still open to the student public.
Strange to say, all the important collec-
tions after Hayes' time are closed to
the public. Those which would ir
128
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
any way compare--Benjamin Harrison's,
Theodore Roosevelt's, Taft's,
Wilson's, and Hoover's--are in private
possession. We might except the
Hoover War Library at Leland Stanford,
but this is obviously not his
entire personal library.
When Hayes died he handed down about
8,000 volumes besides several
thousand pamphlets, a few leading files
of newspapers, over a hundred
volumes of clippings, and a good
collection of manuscripts. This library
with its additions was deeded to the
state of Ohio in 1912 and is jointly
maintained in its own building by the
State, acting through the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Society,
and the Hayes Foundation. It has
been arranged and cataloged.
Catalogs, lists and bibliographies are
intended to be printed and not
read aloud, so the most painless process
of assimilating your mind to the
meaning of this collection is to sketch
briefly the reading and acquisition
habits and background of Rutherford B.
Hayes.
In November, 1875, when many referred to
him as the next Presi-
dent, Hayes finished reading a biography
of William H. Seward and noted
in his diary: "'He was not a
scholar but he had scholarly tastes and
aptitudes.'" He had quoted this
from the book, and added, "This is my
case." The library which he had
then accumulated was a scholar's library,
but Hayes' estimate of himself is
correct. He was well balanced between
the student and the man of action. His
appetite for print was not guided
by esthetic considerations. All of his
books are cut. He revered study
and source books and great writers as
the record of our national history,
but he did not substitute the symbol of
the printed page for the idea.
His father having died several months
before his birth, an uncle,
Sardis Birchard, saw Rutherford through
preparatory school, Kenyon Col-
lege, and Harvard Law School. His uncle
illustrates for society in general
the transit of culture to the
trans-Appalachia. He was an early store-
keeper, Indian trader, merchant, and
banker of Lower Sandusky. In his
well-selected library of best read
authors in English and American litera-
ture, Ruskin strikes the predominating
note. He also became interested
in Emerson. The great historians and
philosophers of the day, including
Bacon, Robertson, and Hume, were present
and were read. In common
with the educators of the age, he
believed thoroughly in the Greek and
Latin classics, and in ethics. Xenophon,
Livy, Cicero, Tacitus, Plato, Herod-
otus, and Virgil must have developed
tough mental fiber in collegians,
and seemed to have done little harm. To
balance this fare Rutherford
enjoyed himself with Gibbon, Milman, and
other ponderous histories. He
worried little over his studies. They
came easily to him. The lives and
exploits of his fellow students
furnished the main stuff for his diary. In
his junior year he became much affected
with the beauties of Edmund
Spenser, which led to further poetical
reading--Pope, Byron, Thomas
Moore, and Milton lumped together. Let
us hope this neutralized the
classics.
OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE:
PROCEEDINGS 129
The Harvard Law School was probably the
most important era in
Hayes' life. It broadened him to sit at
the feet of Justice Joseph Story,
to hear his comments on men and events,
his reminiscences of great debates,
his moral, legal, and common sense obiter
dicta. Whig political meetings,
where John Quincy Adams and Webster
thundered, the variety of churches,
the literary lectures of Longfellow,
Boston in the flux of the transcendental
movement, raised him to a higher mental
sphere. All this time he con-
tinued the reading of the poets.
Nathaniel P. Willis, Byron and Scott
were giving way to Goethe and Schiller.
Harvard gave him mental stimu-
lation and equipment, but the western
student with Vermont relatives
wandered on the periphery of the hub,
impressed by the outlook, but not
enough to addle his clear vision and
judgment.
In 1850 he made the most decisive change
in his life by starting
afresh in Cincinnati, after four
desultory years in Lower Sandusky. In
our own time we cannot fully appreciate
the importance of our oppor-
tunities for freeing the mind from the
petty encirclements of a small com-
munity. Someone has recently pointed out
that New York is now more
provincial than the small town. But when
Hayes entered Cincinnati it
was as with the winged feet of Hermes.
His mind ceased to read books
as lessons. The old favorites served as
a springboard. He continued his
Byron to give him that "copia
verborum and power of intense expression"
no jury advocate should lack. His
favorite Shakespeare plays were re-
read, and Bulwer's Schiller gripped him
peculiarly. How the reading
orgies of our youth return when we see
in his diary that on December 1,
"Unshaved and unshirted spent the
day in reading David Copperfield."
Possibly the greatest stimulus to his
mental life came in the per-
sonal contact with Emerson in May, 1850.
Emerson's visit to Cincinnati,
the cultural center of the West, to
deliver his lectures on "England,"
"Instinct and Inspiration,"
and "Nature," was the most exciting adventure
the members of the Literary Society had
experienced. Hayes was a mem-
ber of the delegation which waited on
him and conducted him to the
society's rooms. The
twenty-eight-year-old critic writes his sister, "There
is no logic or method in his essays or
lectures. A Syllogism he despises.
The force of a connected chain of
reasoning, his mind seems incapable
of appreciating. . . . He strikes me,
contrary to my preconceived notions
of him, as a close, keen observer,
rather than a profound thinker." He
goes on to analyze his philosophy, but
time will not permit quotation.
Forty-two years later Hayes reflected on
his very real debt to Emerson.
This time he wrote without analysis:
Logic is the weapon of youth.
The reading noted above means also
acquisition. Everything of
Emerson, for instance, is in the Hayes
Library, sometimes in several
editions, and lined throughout. But this
after all represents assorted
congeries of volumes without any
particular plan. The year 1856 is the
critical one for the Hayes Library. When
Fremont was defeated in the
130
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
election of that year, his anti-slavery
interest crystallized. He decided,
"further work is to be done and my
sense of duty determines me to keep
on in the path I have chosen--not to
dabble in politics at the expense of
duty to my family and to the neglect of
my profession, but to do what
I can consistently with other duties to
aid in forming a public opinion
on this subject which will 'mitigate and
finally eradicate the evil.' I must
study the subject, and am now beginning
with Clarkson's 'History of the
Abolition of the Slave Trade.'" His
collecting interests became chan-
nelized. From books on the liberation of
man he ramifies into exploration
and American empire making. Jessy Quinn
Thornton's Oregon and Cali-
fornia, Sir George Simpson's Narrative of a Journey around
the World,
Charles Wilkes' Narrative of the
United States Exploring Expedition dur-
ing . . . 1838 . . . 1842, arouse an oratorical exuberance. "What a
prodigious growth this English Race,
especially the American Branch of
it is having! How soon will it subdue
and occupy all the wild parts of
this continent and of the islands
adjacent. No prophecy, however seem-
ingly extravagant, as to future
achievements in this way are likely to equal
the reality." Two weeks later he
says he is "housed up all day trying to
keep warm reading Lewis and Clark's
'Expedition up the Missouri in
1804-5-6.'" He then swings back to
Frederick L. Olmstead's A Journey
in the Seaboard Slave States, the life of Wilberforce, Frederick Douglass'
Life and W. G. W. Lewis' Biography of Samuel Lewis. This
was the
best of his reading on the subject until
he substituted the bayonet for
argument, and volunteered for the Civil
War.
The men who won the war should see that
its peace secured the vic-
tory. This was a natural philosophy.
Hayes gladly accepted the oppor-
tunity to practise it, and was elected,
even while in the field, to a seat in
Congress from Cincinnati. On December 1,
1865, having settled down in
his Washington office, he prudently
noted his perquisites, the most im-
portant being all the back numbers of
the Congressional Globe, a small
library of some value, and fifty dollars
for newspapers. Ten days later
he noted that he had been appointed a
member of the Joint Library Com-
mittee. "It is one of the
no-account committees in a public sense," he
writes, "but has some private
interest. . . It brings one in association
with the bookish." For the
remainder of his term in Congress and dur-
ing his two terms as Governor, he
probably read a preponderance of docu-
ments and newspapers. Scarcely out of
the governor's chair, in January,
1872, however, he writes, "One of
my pet schemes for the future will
be to form--to collect--a complete
library of Ohio books. . . . I may hope,
at least for twenty years of life. In
that time I may gather what in the
State Library, or other fit place, will
be of much interest." His hope was
fulfilled. He had twenty-one years of
life. He did gather the library,
not especially on Ohio, for his
interests ultimately transcended the State.
Within two years he acquired in one
group, that part usually referred to
as the Clarke purchase.
OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE:
PROCEEDINGS 131
During his Cincinnati days Hayes had met
Robert Clarke, the book
dealer, publisher, and bibliophile. Very
little has been written about him
and we are indebted to Dr. Reginald C.
McGrane's sketch in the Dictionary
of American Biography. Justin Winsor, in the first volume of his Critical
and Narrative History, published in 1889, believed that "the most
important
Americana lists at present issued by
American dealers are those of Robert
Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, which
are admirable specimens of such lists."
Clarke issued about eight catalogs from
1869 to 1889, and sold at least
two large collections of books, the one
purchased by Hayes in 1874, and
a later lot by Newberry Library. Hayes
had just come into the estate
left him by his uncle, Sardis Birchard,
and looked forward to a life of
scholarly and historical activity.
It is quite clear that it was his
private collection which Clarke sold
to Hayes. On October 27, 1874, he wrote
to him from Glendale: "I have
packed all of my Americana & shipped
them last night as per enclosed
B/L. . . . I have marked in the
catalogue the contents of each box. . . .
Ohio is in no. 13, Central West in No.
14. . . ." Something more than
the student and something more than the
collector speaks in the next para-
graph: "It is only by handling the
books that one can appreciate their
value. I feel certain that no individual
or society in the west has such a
collection, and they are worth much more
than the price I placed on them.
I hope & have no doubt that you will
have as much pleasure in them as
I have had. I have had the blues
terribly in packing them, they are like
old friends. In some cases I have
retained my old copies & given you
new ones, but in all cases better than
the ones retained."
The appraisal he put on his library was
no idle boast. There must
have been over four thousand volumes in
the lot. As now arranged Ameri-
can local history occupies over three-fourths
of the shelving devoted to the
Clarke purchase. It is arranged
geographically commencing with New
England and the Atlantic seaboard,
followed by the Southern States, then
the states of the Central West, the
Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the
Pacific Coast, and a small collection on
Canada and Mexico. There
are also good sections on the Indians,
general American travel and
description, general historical works,
collections of statesmen, and the
wars from 1754 to 1815. Clarke built the
collection on the foundation of
source books. It is preponderantly a
series of descriptions and narratives
of participants and observers of the
contemporary scene, or compilations
of such writings. It is not altogether a
book collector's paradise. If we
had to use only those books which
collectors in their whimsy hand us
as rarities, I would fear for the future
of our historical writing. To
illustrate, let us take a shelf on
general description, travel and history of
the Mississippi River and Valley as classified
by the Library of Congress
scheme F 351 to 354. There are about
fifty works in this section. I note
132
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
that in general works, we have Jacob
Ferris' The States and Territories
of the Great West, 1856; Timothy Flint's Condensed Geography and His-
tory of the Western States, 1828; the same author's History and Geography
of the Mississippi Valley, 1832; John W. Foster's The Mississippi Valley,
1869; James Hall's The Romance of
Western History, 1857; and the same
author's Sketches of History, Life,
and Manners in the West, 1835; Mil-
burn's Pioneers, Preachers and People
of the Mississippi Valley, 1860; and
Monette's well known work in the first
edition of 1846. Selecting a few
of the outstanding in the next class, F
352, comprehending works of ex-
ploration before 1803, we have Daniel
Coxe's Description of the English
Province of Carolana, 1741; Father Hennepin's Discovery, the London
edition of 1698; and the first, second,
and third editions of Gilbert Imlay's
Topographical Description of the
Western Territory of North America,
1792, 1793, and 1797. Thomas Ashe's
travels are also here, and John D.
Gilmary Shea, H. M. Brackenridge, John
Bradbury, Zadok Cramer's Navi-
gator, and so on. On Ohio, I doubt if there are any works not
found
elsewhere in the State, but use of the
Union Catalogs in Columbus and
in Cleveland might prove me mistaken.
The "Maxwell code" of laws
relating to the Northwest Territory,
1796, the first book printed in Cin-
cinnati, is in the Ohio section.
If Hayes did not use these books as a
historian, nevertheless very
few are in the "prime unused
condition," of book-dealers' parlance. Many
bear his autograph on the title-page.
Not all of Hayes' collecting was in the
realm of Americana. Sub-
sequent to this purchase he invested
mainly in contemporary politics and
economics of the 1870's and 1880's. Few
works of this type are rare,
save for pamphlets. In his pamphlet
collection of over ten thousand items
are many titles on the continual
political ferment, economic conditions,
education, and immigration appeals.
Immigration prospectuses are especially
numerous on the South and West, the
latter dating back before the Civil
War. One of the strongest subjects in
the file is prison reform. Many
reports of penal, correctional, and
welfare institutions were kept, for
Hayes was president of the American
Prison Association from 1882 to his
death in January, 1893. We would expect
to find a great deal on civil
service, temperance, currency, Chinese
immigration, and the election of
1876, and we are not disappointed.
The catalog is already too long, and I
must close with a mention
of the most important sources
accumulated by Hayes, the bound clipping
file, and his correspondence. The
clipping file is contained in 130 quarto
scrapbooks, of even size. They were
compiled and arranged by White
House secretaries, fitting onto a small
series started by Hayes himself.
Except for the first few volumes the
clippings are for the most part dated
and titled. They refer to reaction on
administration policies and national
events, from a wide spread of
newspapers.
OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE:
PROCEEDINGS 133
The Hayes Papers cannot be described in
a brief way. Read the
sketch of him by Allan 'Nevins in the Dictionary
of American Biography
and then seek for enlargement on
national themes in the Papers, and you
will not be disappointed. To a
biographer they are disappointing for the
lack of Hayes letters. Probably several
hundred drafts and originals were
retained or reclaimed, a mere handful to
those he sent out. H. J. Ecken-
rode, in his interesting biography has a
note on page 204 stating that
"Many of these letters have been
published, but thousands of them, mostly
trivial, remain unpublished in . . .
Fremont, Ohio." But, those published
in the Diary and Letters are,
with few exceptions, letters of Hayes. I am
sure this note suffers from loose
wording and does not mean what it might
import, for in his bibliography he calls
the Papers "an invaluable source."
There is very little but family
correspondence before 1860, but the series
between Hayes and his wife, Lucy, dating
from 1852 are quite valuable.
Several thousand pieces suffice to take
us up to the year 1876, including
some very important series of letters
from Ohioans, and then the collec-
tion broadens nationally and stays on
that plane until the end. The Presi-
dency probably covers about two-thirds
of the whole. One of the great
virtues of this collection is the high
relative quality of content. There
are interesting series on almost any
important question of the Presidency.
Hayes dropped politics after leaving it,
and devoted the last twelve years
to education (including his work on the
Peabody and Slater Funds),
manual training, prison reform, and interest
in the activities of the G. A. R.
and the Loyal Legion.
There are over one hundred thousand
pages of writing in the collec-
tion, and the whole has been filmed on
16mm. single perforate film, in an
alphabetical arrangement. The collection
is now being arranged chronolog-
ically, and that task is nearly
completed. It compares with the Cleveland
Papers in the Library of Congress, and
is larger than the Garfield and
McKinley collections. It is quite similar in many respects to that
of
Benjamin Harrison.
A President is a public man, and his
acts have no meaning apart
from the public weal. As valuable as it
is, the Hayes Library is valueless
without use. Please help to make it more
valuable.1
1 Citations to Rutherford B. Hayes'
reading and acquisition of books are to
Charles R. Williams, ed., Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (Colum-
bus, 1922-26). The other citations are
mentioned in the text, except the letter from
Robert Clarke, which is in the Hayes
MSS.