Dead Presidents

Chris White is touring the gravesites, birthplaces and homes of the U.S. presidents. Here are his notes from those visits, which he probably means to be funny. Eh.

19. Rutherford B. Hayes

Spiegel Grove, Fremont, Ohio

Spiegel Grove, April 9, 2007

Rutherford Birchard Hayes was our 19th president, and he had a hellacious beard.

It was not always so. There was a time when he was clean shaven, before the war. But war changes men. For example, it can make them grow beards. Seriously, the thing was just huge.

Hayes was born in 1822, sans beard, in Ohio. He never knew his father, who died two months before his birth; Hayes was instead raised by his mother, who had no beard, and his bachelor uncle Sardis, who did. He went to Harvard Law, then returned to Ohio to be a litigator.

When the Civil War broke out, Hayes was so moved by the cause that he formed the volunteer Ohio 23rd Regiment, despite having a wife, several kids and a flourishing law practice. With no prior military training or command experience, his men saw little reason to respect or follow such a baby-faced dandy. Yet such was his love of country, so desperate was Hayes to defend the name of freedom, that he sat, concentrated, and in a 12-hour period, grew a foot-long table duster. It was called “Old Soupy.” History would never be the same.

Hayes was shot five times while fighting in Virginia, his beard in every case slowing the bullet and saving his life. The Republican party of Cincinnati, hearing tales of the beard’s heroics, nominated Hayes’ beard as a candidate for the U.S. Congress in 1864. It served two and a half terms before moving on to the Ohio governorship, developing along the way a reputation for honesty, rectitude, and flava-saving. In 1876, Old Soupy was nominated as a compromise Republican candidate for the presidency. Voters, hesitant to trust the foreign policy of facial hair, actually favored New York Governor Samuel Tilden in the popular vote. But a dispute over election results in the South threw the election to a special 15-member electoral commission, and three days before the Inauguration, 20 electoral votes were awarded to Old Soupy, allowing it to best Tilden 185-184. To avoid any controversy or national strife, the gracious Old Soupy withdrew, and the vice presidential candidate, Hayes himself, was sworn in.

After four uneventful years in the White House, Hayes and his beard retired to Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio, living in a house that still stands today. I checked it out last weekend and it’s a very nice display -- Hayes’ family lived in the house for generations before turning it into a full-on museum. The house is three stories, with tremendously high ceilings and some swank decorating – it’s got more visual pop than most of the presidential homes I’ve visited. There’s also a Hayes museum standing about 100 feet away, which is only mildly informative but does have two chairs made out of animal horns, so that’s something. Hayes is buried on site, and if you want, you can stand in front of his grave, throw a rock and break a window in the residential subdivision creeping alongside the property. This is a huge selling point for those homes – “4 BR, 3 Baths, great view of a dead president!”

Hayes’ beard continues to live in Fremont to this day; it is married, has four children and coaches basketball at the YMCA.

  • Hayes’ wife Lucy began the tradition of the White House Easter egg roll, and also the less popular White House St. Patrick’s Day drunken unconscious immigrant roll.
  • The only man in history named Rutherford.
  • Though dubbed “Rutherfraud Hayes” by opponents following his controversial election, he fared better than Vice President Cassface Mutthole Smeckerhead.
  • Collected walking canes, which is why he ranks #2 on Pimpin’ Magazine’s all-time greatest presidents list.
  • Hayes ended Reconstruction abruptly upon entering office, which explains why most of the South looks like it isn’t finished.
  • Instead of using the standard presidential carriage, Hayes prefered that all official trips be taken in the ZZ Top hot rod.
  • One of the troops under Hayes’ command in the 23rd Ohio was William McKinley, and though the men were close, Hayes failed to teach McKinley the art of surviving a shooting.
  • The first president to have a phone in the White House. The first call was placed to Alexander Graham Bell, to bitch about the first long-distance bill.
  • Hayes fired future president Chester A. Arthur from the New York Custom House (the chief revenue collector for the federal government). Arthur returned the favor in 1882 by ordering Spiegel Grove burned to the ground and the earth sown with salt.
  • Campaigned on the promise to serve only one term, believing that it would free him from the political pressures of seeking re-election, and allow him an additional four hours a day on beard maintenance.
  • Ceilings in one wing of Spiegel Grove were put at 13’ to accommodate a huge, 11’ portrait of Hayes. So no, I don’t think it’s all that egocentric to have five pictures of myself on my mantelpiece, and why don’t you cram it?

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