Sunday, March 8, 2009

The President who Rolled Eggs

Rutherford Birchard Hayes - 19th President of the United States
4 October 1822 - 17 January 1893

RBH lived in this Spiegel Grove home on and off from 1863 to 1880 and it served as his primary, post-presidency, residence from 1880 until his death in 1893. Hayes is the forgotten president who started the annual Easter egg roll on The White House South Lawn in 1878. A similar tradition occurs each Easter at the Hayes Home:
Our route to the Seneca County Maple Festival in Republic, Ohio took us down Hayes Avenue, past the nation's first presidential library: The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center at Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio. On the day I took these photos, Northwest Ohio had already received well-over an inch of rain overnight, and the rain continued to pour. For this reason, these photos appear a bit grainy, but they aren't grainy, they're rainy. Notice the unique, ornamental gates in front of the center, they may seem familiar. They are the original White House gates; a souvenir of Hayes's tenure:
NC

1 comment:

Reference Services said...

The photos from the Hayes Presidential Center are great!
The library there is fantastic, too!