Ohio History Journal

COLLECTIONS AND EXHIBITS                              153

Hayes. Webb began his collecting hobby

as a young man, when, on a number of

hunting trips in the Rocky Mountains

with his godfather, Major General George

Crook, he brought together a collection

of hunting and Indian relics. Among

the pieces of hunting equipment are three

guns given Webb by General Crook, a

very rare Sharps rifle with the mono-

gram "G.C.," a Winchester rifle with a

telescopic sight especially mounted for

Crook, and a fine Marlin repeating rifle,

all of which were used by Crook on the

Rocky Mountain frontier. Webb's big

collecting efforts, however, were con-

nected with his military service during

and after the Spanish-American War. In

1898 he served in Cuba and Puerto Rico

as a major of the First Ohio Cavalry,

returning with a quantity of curios of the

war. Shortly after his return from Cuba,

he sailed for the Philippines, where he

served as a lieutenant colonel of the

Thirty-First United States Volunteer In-

fantry Regiment in putting down the

Philippine Insurrection and received the

Congressional Medal of Honor for gal-

lantry in the campaign against the Moros

on Mindanao. From the Philippines he

sailed to China as a member of Major

General Adna R. Chaffee's staff in the

China Relief Expedition against the Boxer

Rebellion in 1900, and several years later

he was an observer in the Russo-Japanese

War, at one point with the Japanese army

on its march through Korea to the Yalu

River, and at another time with the Rus-

sian army near Mukden.

In the Philippines and in China, Webb

made a special effort to add to his and

his father's growing collections, especially

of Oriental weapons. Now, to the presi-

dent's collection of antique Japanese

swords and knives, some of which are

jewel-encrusted, Webb added numerous

pieces. Among them was a cannon used

first in the Manchu conquest of China in

the early seventeenth century and finally

captured from the Boxers as they were

attacking the foreign legations in Peking.

Another piece, a single-barreled Spanish

lantaca, or culverin, from the royal barge

of the sultan of Mindanao, was a present

from the sultan, who also offered Lieu-

tenant Colonel Hayes ten of his three

hundred Moro wives.

Along with the collection of Oriental

and Spanish weapons, the museum con-

tains a small but valuable group of other

guns. Several, representing the first four

wars in the nation's history, are of par-

ticular interest. One is a bronze cannon

inscribed with the British coat of arms

and the royal ciphers of the kings of

England and France, and marked "R.

Gilpin Fecit 1761." It was captured near

Saratoga, October 7, 1777, by Benedict

Arnold. His name was in the inscription

recording its capture placed on the can-

non at Arnold's order, but apparently

was removed after he was found guilty

of treason. Another is a British coehorn

taken during the War of 1812. A third

is a bronze cannon, inscribed   "San

Juan," which was captured during the

Mexican War. It was one of four guns

known as the Apostles' Battery, or the

Four Apostles, which were given to Cor-

tez by the Spanish sovereigns and used

in the conquest of Mexico. The fourth

is a brass six-pound gun, inscribed

"Louisiana," captured by Union forces

during the Civil War.

In addition to these materials, there are

collections of relics of the Civil War and

World War I, of things associated with

Lincoln, including his slippers, a pair of

his gloves, and a handbill of the perform-

ance at Ford Theater on the night of the

assassination, of political badges dating

back to the campaign of 1840, and many

other items. Letters bearing the signa-

tures of all of the presidents of the United

States are also on display.

154                                          OHIO HISTORY

More significant than the museum ma-

terials, however, are the library collec-

tions, which have grown through the

years and have transformed the Hayes

State Memorial into an important re

search center in American history. With

three-quarters of a million manuscripts,

over sixty-five thousand volumes, hun-

dreds of scrapbooks, many thousands of

pamphlets, booklets, periodicals, and

newspapers, well over fifty thousand

photographs and pictures, a sizeable

group of maps, and a considerable col-

lection of microfilm, the Rutherford B.

Hayes Library has become a notable

source of primary information on Presi-

dent Hayes and his administration, the

Civil War, reconstruction following that

war, civil service reform, monetary re-

form, prison reform, education, especially

in the South, the history of the Negro,

the Spanish-American War, and the his-

tory of the Sandusky Valley in Ohio.

The president's personal library of over

ten thousand volumes and a quantity of

ephemera, contains valuable materials

for the serious student of the West, In-

dians, American literature and biography,

and the literature of travel in America.

Another distinguished collection of books

consists of over four hundred volumes of

first editions and variation copies of the

writings of William Dean Howells.

The principal manuscript collection in

the library is that of the personal papers

of Rutherford B. Hayes, ranging from

1834 to the time of his death in 1893,

which constitutes one of the nation's most

important sources on the history of the

United States in the latter half of the

nineteenth century. The chief groups

among the papers are Hayes's diary of

34 volumes, which he started in 1834 and

continued throughout his life; 5,000 let-

ters and drafts written by Hayes; 60,000

letters received; messages and speeches,

consisting of 2,500 pieces; Civil War

papers; and about 300 volumes of letter-

books, notebooks, appointment records,

scrapbooks, and newspaper clipping

books. The library continues a constant

search for original R. B. Hayes letters

and has added also photographic copies

of Hayes letters in the papers of many

of his correspondents located in libraries

throughout the country.

A second valuable group of manu-

scripts is made up of the Hayes family

papers. Among these are the correspond-

ence and other papers of Lucy Webb

Hayes, the president's wife (7,500

pieces); the correspondence, diaries and

journals, and miscellaneous notes of So-

phia Hayes, his mother (215 pieces and

6 volumes); the diaries and journals of

Chloe Smith Hayes, his grandmother (4

volumes, 1821-42); and the papers, total-

ing more than 4,000 pieces, of Sardis

Birchard, a Fremont merchant and

banker, and Hayes's uncle. There are pa-

pers of Hayes's sons and daughter--

Birchard A., Rutherford P., Scott R.,

Webb C., and Fanny--and the diaries,

journals, and papers of Mary Miller

Hayes, Webb's wife (8 volumes, and

many thousands of pieces of correspond-

ence.) The papers of Colonel Webb C.

Hayes are the most numerous and com-

plete and reflect his business interests

and those of his father, and his service

in the Spanish-American War and World

War I. In this collection are twenty thou-

sand pieces of correspondence and other

papers, 1862-1934, four volumes and a

hundred and fifty pieces of military pa-

pers, 1898-1902, thirteen volumes of ac-

count and note books, four volumes of

diaries and notebooks kept while Webb

was in school in Columbus, 1871-74,

seven volumes of diaries and journals of

the presidential period, three volumes of

diaries and journals kept on his jaunts

to the Philippines and China, 1899-1900,

and three volumes of diaries and journals

COLLECTIONS AND EXHIBITS                             155

of travel in various parts of the world,

1900-1909.

The diaries and journals of Colonel

Webb Hayes and his wife are of great

interest and have seen little use. Among

them is the colonel's account of his fan-

tastic voyage to the Philippines in 1899

with a body of troops under his com-

mand. Assigned to the British ship

Manauense, he was quarantined in port

for some time when a contagious disease

broke out aboard. Once afloat, the ship

turned out to be a leaky old tub and

water in the hold wrecked the electrical

system and destroyed food supplies.

Webb Hayes was finally forced to seize

command of the ship to keep it afloat.

The calm Pacific turned on him too and

churned up a typhoon in which the Man-

auense was lost from its convoy.

Among Mary Miller Hayes's diaries is

an account of the Hayeses' reaction to

the outbreak of World War I. On a trip

to Cleveland when war was announced,

they called back to Fremont to order

that their bags be packed and a quantity

of gold money be gotten from the bank

for them. They returned to Fremont

quickly, and immediately set out for

England--without passports. Their arri-

val in London in brilliant moonlight

prompted them to order a car and take

a midnight ride through the city instead

of going to bed. They were soon on their

way to Paris and their good friend Am-

bassador Myron T. Herrick. Webb was

determined to see the war. He managed

transportation through "No Man's Land"

to Brussels, where he had old friends in

Ambassador Brand Whitlock and the

German commandant, who had lived in

Cleveland for a time. With the comman-

dant's help, he traveled to Berlin and

back to Brussels, and eventually met Mrs.

Hayes and sailed for home.

Other groups of papers in the library

include a quantity on the Civil War,

among them rosters, muster rolls, lists of

casualties, records of officers, orders, and

letters of the Twenty-Third, Forty-Ninth,

and Seventy-Second Ohio Volunteer In-

fantry regiments, recollections of the

Twenty-Third O.V.I. by James M. Comly,

Russell Hastings, and an unnamed au-

thor, the diaries of Colonel F. W. Swift,

the letters of General B. F. Coates, a

letterbook containing over 500 letters

plus 75 photographs of military installa-

tions which belonged to General Henry

W. Benham, and records of Sandusky

County men in the conflict.

There are 750 pieces of White House

correspondence of presidents who pre-

ceded Hayes between 1860 and 1875. In

addition there are other papers of a

number of men who served as president

or vice president, including James Bu-

chanan (14), Abraham Lincoln (180),

Andrew Johnson (158), Ulysses S. Grant

(255), James A. Garfield (30), Chester

A. Arthur   (16), Benjamin Harrison

(42), and Schuyler Colfax (34). Seven

"diaries" for the daily information of

the president, kept by Benjamin Frank-

lin Montgomery, White House telegrapher

under McKinley and Roosevelt (1898-

1902), are also in the collections. They

contain important messages sent and re-

ceived concerning the Spanish-American

War, the Philippine Insurrection, and the

Boxer Rebellion.

The largest single manuscript collec-

tion obtained since the direction of the

library passed from Colonel Hayes's

hands early in the thirties, is the corre-

spondence and business papers of Arthur

L. Conger, a resident of Akron who was

a prominent manufacturer and chairman

of the Republican state committee and a

member of the Republican national com-

mittee in the 1880's. Its more than fifteen

thousand pieces and fifteen volumes con-

stitute a valuable source on the political

history of Ohio and the nation in the

156                                              OHIO HISTORY

1880's and ¹⁸⁹0's, as well as on the his-

tory of the industrial development that

accompanied the gas boom in Ohio and

Indiana. Conger had a wide correspond-

ence with such notable figures as Russell

A. Alger of Michigan, James G. Blaine,

Charles W. Fairbanks of Indiana, Ohio

governors Charles Foster (1880-84) Jo-

seph B. Foraker (1886-90), and Asa H.

Bushnell (1896-1900), Murat Halstead,

Cincinnati newspaper publisher, Ben-

jamin Harrison, Congressman J. Warren

Keifer of Springfield, Ohio, who was

speaker of the United States House of

Representatives, 1881-83, Charles L.

Kurtz of Columbus, one of Foraker's

chief lieutenants, Cyrus H. McCormick,

William  McKinley, and Senator Henry

C. Payne of Ohio.

Other manuscript collections include

those of William K. Rogers of Columbus,

Ohio, and Duluth, Minnesota, who was a

personal friend and early law partner of

Hayes, served as his private secretary

during the presidency, and joined Hayes

in land development in the Duluth area

(3,018 pieces); Robinson Locke, editor

of the Toledo Blade (among these papers

are a number of Petroleum V. Nasby

items by Locke's father, David Ross

Locke)  (3,000 pieces); William  and

Mary Buckland Davenport Claflin, gov-

ernor of Massachusetts and United States

Congressman and author respectively

(8,500 pieces); Benson J. Lossing, jour-

nalist and historian (several thousand

pieces); Stanley Matthews, United States

Senator from Ohio, justice of the United

States Supreme Court, and warm friend

of R. B. Hayes (several thousand pieces);

William Dean Howells (323 pieces);

George William Curtis, author and edi-

tor of Harper's Weekly (279 pieces);

Benjamin H. Bristow, solicitor general

and secretary of the treasury under Grant

(182 pieces); Mary Clemmer Ames, nov-

elist of Utica, New York (145 pieces);

Charles O'Neill, a naval officer from

Massachusetts (408 pieces for the years

1895-99); General Jay J. Morrow, an

officer in the campaign against the Philip-

pines in 1899; Henry Ward Beecher (187

pieces); Harriet Beecher Stowe (68

pieces); and John G. Whittier (81

pieces).

There are also letterbooks (1841-45)

of Andrew E. Douglass, an astronomer

who is best known for his studies of the

use of tree rings in establishing the dates

of prehistoric sites; the diaries (1857-

1914) of William A. Hart, "an ordinary

citizen of Connecticut," a farmer, and a

Democrat; and two official letterbooks of

Major General George Crook for the

years 1871-90.

Finally, among the manuscript mate-

rials are a number of items concerning

Fremont and the area around it. There

are some papers of Thomas L. Hawkins

pertaining to his business interests and

to the establishment of Croghansville,

the early village located on the east side

of the Sandusky River, which, with Lower

Sandusky on the west side, later became

Fremont. There is also a collection of

papers of John R. Pease, a Fremont mer-

chant with whom Hayes lived when he

set up his law practice in 1845-47. Three

important personal collections of Fremont

citizens of the nineteenth century are

those of Dr. James Wilson (1,350 pieces),

Dr. John B. Rice, who served in the

United States House of Representatives

(1,800 pieces), and Colonel William E.

Haynes, who was a leading merchant and

banker as well as a congressman (1,200

pieces). The Lucy Elliot Keeler collec-

tion of over 1,000 letters and other pa-

pers, 14 volumes of diaries, and 66 vol-

umes of notes and memoranda, covering

the period from 1885 to 1925, is a valu-

able source of local history.

While adding to its manuscript files,

the Hayes Library has been expanding its