We Took a Trip to Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio Today
The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museums site is worth multiple visits
We went to the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums in Fremont, Ohio today. This site includes the very first US presidential library. The whole site is amazing.
The library and museum are on the grounds of Spiegel Grove, where the home bequeathed to President Hayes by his uncle sets. The house is fabulous and was occupied by members of the Hayes family until 1965.
Hayes, born in 1822, was nearly forty when the Civil War broke out. Already a successful lawyer, he enlisted and was made a major, rising to the rank of brevet general by war’s end. He was wounded four times in the fight to end Confederate treason, once quite seriously. Ulysses Grant, among others, lauded Hayes’ bravery in battle. He was nominated for the US House of Representatives near war’s end and was elected. Later, he was elected Ohio’s governor three times. (Before the war, he defended runaway slaves in Ohio courts, was an active Abolitionist, and was a friend and admirer of Abraham Lincoln.)
Hayes is as interesting for his post-presidential career as he is for the rest of his crowded life. After leaving the White House, he actively worked for prison reform and educational opportunities for former slaves.
The short video below shows a portion of the 25-acres of Spiegel Grove.
The house tour was engaging and all the personnel on the site were friendly and helpful.
This was the first visit for me to the Hayes museum, library, and house. I hope it’s not the last. In the summer months, there are concerts on the grounds; I hope to make one or more of those.
If you’re interested in reading a full biography of Hayes, I’m told by library personnel that Ari Hoogenboom’s Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President is the best one around. If you go to the site, avoid making the mistake I made by buying the book in their gift shop, where it’s $14 cheaper than it is on Amazon.
A Hayes biography I don’t recommend is the Hans L. Trefousse contribution to The American Presidents Series. Trefousse was a fine historian. But in this book, he seems to assume that readers know way more about the era in which Hayes lived.
It was great being back in northwest Ohio, a part of the state we came to dearly love during my time as pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church near Okolona, Ohio. The reclaimed swampland of that portion of the state has yielded some of the richest farmland to be found in America and the people are among the most earnest and fun I have ever known. My pastoral internship supervisor who was born and raised in Wood County, also in northwest Ohio, said that he always felt that part of the state should be called “Big Sky Country” because the sky was always around you in that flat landscape. He had a point. I love it there.