Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums

Webb C. Hayes, III

HAYES-17

Introduction
Biographical Sketch
Scope and Content
Inventory

Introduction
Webb Cook Hayes III, the first child of Admiral Webb C. Hayes II and Martha Baker Hayes, was a great-grandson of President Rutherford B. Hayes and Lucy Webb Hayes. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II he attended law school and was a successful attorney in the Washington, D.C. area.

Biographical Sketch
Webb Cook Hayes III, first child of Webb C. Hayes II and Martha Baker Hayes, was born in Toledo, Ohio September 25, 1920. He attended Ottawa Hills Public School and graduated from The Hotchkiss School of Lakeville, Connecticut in 1939. He then enrolled in Yale University where he played football and rugby, receiving an AB degree in 1942.

Upon graduating from Yale, Webb Hayes entered the U.S. Navy where he reached the rank of Navy Lieutenant. Most of his service was as a gunnery officer aboard the destroyer USS Haley Powell during several Pacific campaigns. He received the Bronze Star for his efforts during a kamikaze attack.

After the war, Webb Hayes attended George Washington Law School. He joined the Washington, D.C. law firm Frost and Towers becoming senior partner specializing in securities law. Frost and Towers later merged with Baker and Hostetler where he was the managing partner.

Webb Hayes served on many corporate and charitable boards, including the National Bank of Washington, Textron, Security Storage Co., the Washington Hospital Center, and the Beauvoir School in Washington, D.C. He was a trustee of the Ohio Historical Society (Now the Ohio Historical Connection) and Secretary-Treasurer of the Washington Senators Baseball Club. He was also a long-time trustee and president of The Hayes Historical Society and the Rutherford B. Hayes and Lucy Webb Hayes Foundation, later the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center (now the Hayes Presidential Library and Museums).

Webb Hayes married Betty Frost May 14, 1945 and they were the parents of four sons: Webb Cook Hayes IV, Burke Frost Hayes, Stephen Austin Hayes, and Jeffrey Kent Hayes.

Webb C. Hayes III died at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. May 7, 1999 and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery at Fremont, Ohio.

Scope and Content
The majority of this collection consists of school materials of Webb C. Hayes III including class notes and notebooks from The Hotchkiss School and Yale University. Personal items include newspaper clippings detailing Webb’s college activities and marriage to Betty Frost as well as his letters to his mother while he served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Miscellaneous information about the Hayes home at Spiegel Grove completes the collection.

Inventory

Box 1

Folder:
1 Potomac Private School Notebook 1927
2 Hotchkiss – Physics Notebook 1938
3 Hotchkiss – Literature
4 Hotchkiss – Miscellaneous Items
5 Yale – History Notebooks
6 Yale – Art Notebooks
7 Yale – Miscellaneous Items
8 Military, Yale Diploma
9 Correspondence 1944
10 Correspondence 1945
11 Miscellaneous Correspondence
12 Newspaper Clippings
13 Spiegel Grove

Box 2

Folder:
1 200^th Anniversary of First Inauguration, April 29-30, 19889, New York City
2 Checking Account
3 Miscellaneous