US Presidents
Contents - First Ladies - Classroomhelp.com

U.S. Presidents
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George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
William H. Harrison
John Tyler
James K. Polk
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
James A. Garfield
Chester A. Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William H. Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S Truman
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Richard M. Nixon
Gerald R. Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Barack Obama

Key Dates

1843 Rutherford graduates from Kenyon College.

1845 Hayes receives a law degree from Harvard University.

1856 Rutherford B. Hayes helps for the Ohio Republican Party.

1868 Hayes is elected governor of Ohio.

1876 General Custer is in the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

1877 After a very close election, a congressional committee declares Hayes the winner and President of the United States.

1878 The first Easter Egg roll is held on the White House lawn.

1879 Hayes signs an act allowing female lawyers to practice before the Supreme Court.

1880 Hayes declines to run for a second term. 1893 Hayes dies.  

Rutherford B. Hayes
1877 - 1881
19th President

Rutherford B. Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio on October 4, 1822.

According to some sources Rutherford Hayes lost his election for President. Samuel Tilden won the popular vote, and probably the electoral college vote, but the results were fixed to give Hayes the majority. His was the most disputed election in US History. It took a recount of the votes from three southern states by the House and Senate to determine the election.

He was inaugurated three days after he was elected by Congress.

He took the oath of office in private in the White House. Rutherford was the first President to take the oath in the White House. He took the oath in the Red Room.

Hayes had a beard and a mustache.


Rutherford B. Hayes.
Library of Congress
(Click for larger images.)

Upon becoming president in 1877, Hayes immediately banished wine and liquor from the White House. He was not a temperance fanatic but wanted to set a good example for the country. White House guests were not appreciative. He was ridiculed and his wife was called "Lemonade Lucy" since she refused to serve anything stronger than lemonade.

Lucy Hayes was the first president's wife to be called First Lady of the Land.

Rutherford Hayes's Vice President was William Wheeler (1877-1881).

Rutherford had a Greyhound dog named Grim. and an Elkhound named Weejie. He also had Sheperds named Hector and Nellie.

President Hayes had the first telephone installed in the White House. Then he talked to Alexander Graham Bell, who was 13 miles away.

The first White House Easter Egg Roll was held April 2, 1879. The presidential tie to the egg roll began when Congress abandoned its own long Easter Monday children's festival and declared in 1878 that the western slope of Capitol Hill and the Capitol lawns and terraces could no longer be used as "playgrounds or otherwise." Then on Easter Monday in 1879, Capitol police refused to admit the children to the grounds. They went to the grounds of the National Observatory and the White House, apparently at the invitation of the president.

No President with a last name that begins in "H" was elected to two Presidential terms.

Rutherford B. Hayes died in Fremont, Ohio on January 17, 1893. He was 70 years and 105 days old.

Quotes from Hayes:

"He serves his party best who serves his country best."

 

Topics

Nicknames for the Presidents

First Ladies

Presidents who died in office

Assassinations and Assassination Attempts

Vice Presidents who became Presidents

Presidential Salaries

Oldest living Presidents

Presidents' Military Service

Books about U.S. President

Pets of the Presidents

Sources:

The Presidents of the United States. 22 September 2004: http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/

Davis, Gibbs and Ilus. David A. Johnson. Wackiest White House Pets. New York: Scholastic Press, October 2004

James, Barber and Amy Pastan. Smithsonian Presidents and First Ladies. New York: DK Publishing, 2002

Kane, Joseph Natan. Facts about the Presidents from Washington to Johnson. New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1964.

Pine, Joslyn, Presidential Wit and Wisdom: Memorable Quotes from George Washington to Barack Obama . Dover Publications, Mineola, New York, 2009

Huffington Post web site.

Lang, Stephen, The Complete Book of Presidential Trivia, Pelican Publishing Company, Gretna, 2011

O'Reilly, Bill, and Dugard, Martin, Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2011

St. George, Judith In the Line of Fire: Presidents' Lives at Stake , Scholastic Inc. New York, 2001

I have set a goal of reading a book about all of the deceased presidents. I share the ones that I have read as well as my current reading. You can view the books on my book page. I am open to suggestions of books to read. (jim@anewadventure.org.)

What I am currently reading:

Gurzman, Kevin R.,James Madison and the Making of America, St. Martin's Press, New York, 2012
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This page was last updated on Monday, May 7, 2012

For comments or corrections email jim@anewadventure.org.