A Chronology of Rutherford B. Hayes Life
Rutherford B. Hayes Chronology
1822 October 4. Born in Delaware, Ohio, the last of five children of Rutherford and Sophia Birchard Hayes.
1836 Enrolled in Norwalk (Ohio) Academy, a Methodist school run by Jonah Chaplin.
1837 Fall. Enrolled in Isaac Webb’s Preparatory School in Middletown, Connecticut.
1838 Early November. Enrolled at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio.
1842 August 3. Graduated valedictorian of his class.
1842 Fall. Began studying law in the office of Thomas Sparrow, brother of Dr. William Sparrow, president of
Kenyon College.
1843 August 28. Entered Dane Law School at Harvard as a member of the “middle class.”
1845 March 10. Admitted to the Ohio bar at Marietta.
1845 August 27. Awarded a Bachelor of Laws degree from Harvard University.
1845-1849 Practicing law in Lower Sandusky, now Fremont, Ohio.
1850-1861 Practicing attorney in Cincinnati, Ohio.
1852 December 30. Married Lucy Ware Webb, formerly of Chillicothe, Ohio.
1853 November 4. Birth of first child, Birchard Austin Hayes.
1853 December 26. Established a partnership in Cincinnati with Richard M. Corwine and William K. Rogers;
law firm known as Corwin, Hayes and Rogers.
1856 March 20. Birth of second child, Webb Cook Hayes.
1856 Fall. Delegate to the state Republican convention in Columbus; campaigned for John C. Fremont, the
Republican nominee for President.
1858 June 24. Birth of third child, Rutherford Platt Hayes.
1858 December 9. Appointed City Solicitor by the Cincinnati City Council, incumbent Samuel Hart
died in office.
1859 April. Elected City Solicitor, leading Republican ticket.
1861 April 1. Defeated in his bid to be re-elected City Solicitor.
1861 April 15. Responded to Lincoln’s call for volunteers by joining home guard unit.
1861 June 27. Commissioned a Major in the Twenty-Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
1861 December 21. Birth of fourth child, Joseph Thompson Hayes.
1861 – 1865 Distinguished himself as an able field commander in the campaigns of the Twenty-Third Ohio in
western Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, rising to the rank of Brevet Major General of
Volunteers.
1863 June 24. Joseph Thompson Hayes, son of Rutherford and Lucy, dies while visiting his father’s military
encampment at Camp White, near Charleston, West Virginia.
1864 September 29. Birth of fifth child, George Crook Hayes.
1864 October 17. Elected to the House of Representatives (Thirty-Ninth Congress) from Ohio’s Second District.
1865 June 8. Resigned his commission in the army to ready his affairs before taking his seat in Congress.
1865 December 4. Took his seat in the House of Representatives.
1866 May 24. George Crook Hayes, son of Rutherford and Lucy, dies of scarlet fever.
1866 October. Re-elected Representative to Fortieth Congress.
1867 June 19. Nominated for governor of Ohio on Union Party ticket.
1867 July 20. Resigned his seat in Congress.
1867 September 2. Birth of sixth child, and only daughter, Fanny Hayes.
1867 October 8. Elected governor of Ohio, defeated Allen G. Thurman, the Democratic candidate.
1868 January 13. Inaugurated governor at Columbus.
1869 October 12. Re-elected governor, defeating Democratic Congressman George H. Pendleton by some
7,500 votes.
1870 January 10. Inaugurated governor for the second time.
1871 February 8. Birth of seventh child, Scott Russell Hayes.
1871 July Road trip to Connecticut and New England to do his family history
1872 January. Refused offer to run for the United States Senate against John Sherman.
1872 June. Delegate to Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, where he served as a member of the
platform committee.
1872 August 6. Reluctantly accepted the nomination for Congress from Republicans of Ohio’s Second District.
1872 October. Lost his bid for Congress by 1,500 votes, running ahead of the Republican ticket.
1873 March. Declined President Grant’s appointment as Assistant United States Treasurer at Cincinnati.
1873 May 3. Moved to Fremont and settled at Spiegel Grove, avowing that he had retired from politics.
1873 August 1. Birth of eighth child, Manning Force Hayes.
1874 January 21. Sardis Birchard, his uncle, died, leaving bulk of his estate to Hayes, including Spiegel Grove,
his home in Fremont, Ohio.
1874 August 28. Manning Force Hayes, son of Rutherford and Lucy, dies at Spiegel Grove.
1875 June 2. Nominated by Republicans at state convention in Columbus to run for governor.
1875 October 12. Elected governor by 5,500 votes; name immediately mentioned as a presidential possibility.
1876 January 10. Inaugurated governor for unprecedented third time.
1876 March 29. Selected as favorite son candidate of Ohio delegates to the National Convention to be held in
Cincinnati.
1876 June 14-16 Nominated for President by the Republican National Convention on the seventh ballot;
William Almon Wheeler of New York was chosen for Vice-President.
1876 November 7. Disputed election; Samuel J. Tilden one electoral vote shy of a majority with 184; Hayes
received 166 votes, with nineteen votes questioned.
1876 – 1877 November-February. Election controversy.
1877 January 26. The Electoral Count Act passed by Congress, creating an Electoral Commission composed of
five Senators, five Representatives, and five Supreme Court Justices.
1877 February 28. Electoral Commission awards last of contested electoral votes to Hayes, giving him the
presidency by the margin of one vote.
1877 March 1. Hayes and his family start for Washington.
1877 March 2. Congress declared Hayes and Wheeler duly elected with 185 votes to 184 for Tilden and
Hendricks; Hayes resigns governorship.
1877 March 3. Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite privately administered oath of office to Hayes after dinner at
the Executive Mansion so the nation would have a President on Sunday, March 4.
1877 March 5. Publicly inaugurated as the nineteenth President of the United States, stressing in his inaugural
address the importance of settling the “Southern Problem.”
1877 March 15. Appointed Frederick Douglass United States Marshal of the District of Columbia.
1877 April 24. Removed military support from remaining two carpetbag governments in Louisiana and
South Carolina, officially bringing Reconstruction to an end.
1877 June. Beginning of war with Nez Perce Indians and Chief Joseph.
1877 June 22. Civil service reform implemented in the executive department by executive order.
1877 July. Great Railway Strike, federal troops sent to four states to suppress the rioters.
1877 October. War with Nez Perce Indians ended with surrender of Chief Joseph.
1877 October 6. Elected trustee of the Peabody Education Fund.
1877 October 16. Appointed John Marshall Harlan of Kentucky to the Supreme Court.
1877 December 30. Celebrated Silver Wedding Anniversary in the White House.
1878 February 28. Vetoed the Bland-Allison Act, Congress passing it over his veto the same day.
1878 July 11. Suspended Chester A. Arthur and Alonzo B. Cornell from the New York Customs House.
1878 September 28. Received first native Chinese ambassador, Chen Lan Pin, in Washington.
1879 March 1. Vetoed Chinese Exclusion Bill on the grounds that it violated the Burlingame Treaty of 1868.
1879 May 10. First telephone placed in the White House.
1880 March 8. Special message emphasizing American control of interoceanic canal sent to Congress.
1880 September-November. Made an extended tour of the western United States, first time a United States
President went to the West Coast while in office.
1880 November 17. Treaty negotiated with China giving the United States the right to supervise and limit, but
not prohibit, Chinese immigration.
1880 December 15. Appointed William Burnham Woods of Georgia to the Supreme Court.
1881 January 26. Appointed Stanley Matthews of Ohio to the Supreme Court.
1881 March 4. Retired from the Presidency, returning to his Spiegel Grove estate in Fremont, Ohio.
1881 Spring. Appointed a trustee of the Western Reserve University; became more active in the affairs of the
Peabody Fund.
1882 May 3. Joined the Grand Army of the Republic and Ohio and National Commandery of the Military Order
of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
1882 May 18. Chosen first president of the John F. Slater Fund.
1883 September 7. Selected president of the National Prison Association.
1883 December. Appointed a trustee of Mount Union College.
1884 Appointed a trustee of Ohio Wesleyan University.
1887 January. Appointed a trustee of The Ohio State University.
1888 October 17. Chosen commander of the National Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion,
a position he held until his death.
1889 June 25. Death of his wife, Lucy Webb Hayes, in Fremont.
1890 April-May. Visited Bermuda with his daughter Fanny.
1892 October 20. Named president of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.
1893 January 17. Died at his home in Fremont.