SANDUSKY COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY of Sandusky County [Part 5]
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Historical Collections of Ohio
Henry Howe LL. D.
Published in 1904
copyright 1888
Sandusky County

Traveling Notes
A Day at Spiegel Grove

On my original visit to Fremont,  then known as Lower Sandusky,  I made
the acquaintance of a young man several years younger than myself, 
which has been lifelong and I feel mutually regardful,  Mr. R.B. Hayes, 
a young attorney then just beginning to practice the law.  Associated
afterwards for years in the Cincinnati Literary Club,  we learned to
know each other well,  living our lives in the same great current of
events and thoughts that have marked this century's march in the ever
broadening,  brightening line of humanizing intelligence and action.

Naturally such a visit as mine interested a young man born when Ohio was
largely a wilderness,  and living on the very spot that had signalized a
great victory by its pioneers over British redcoats and their yelling, 
scalp hunting,  red skinned confreres.  Connecticut,  my State,  long
before had sent out her sons,  largely farmer's sons,  to perambulate
the "new countries" on trading ventures.  That was before the ingress of
any of the youthful Isaacs and Jacobs and Abrams of Judea on the same
ventures.

Those Connecticut young men each bore,  suspended by a wooden yoke from
their shoulders,  huge square tin boxes,  containing their stock in
trade,  when they made their way from house to house among "the heathen
of the South and West,"  disposing of their varied notions,  such as
kerchiefs,  laces,  finger and earrings,  blue,  crimson,  and yellow
beads,  gilt washed for necklaces,  fancy colored silks and blazoning
calicoes,  printed in what they called thunder and lightning colors; 
ribbons,  tapes,  thimbles,  silver washed and shining,  hair combs and
brushes;  hair pins and pins not hair,  needles warranted not at all and
needles "warranted not to cut in the eye;"  buckles,  buttons and
bodkins.  And when there was a pressing demand,  nutmegs,  neatly turned
in wood;  hence the expression as of yore applied to Connecticut,  "the
Nutmeg State."  These,  when used,  must have been as necklaces,  after
having been drilled and strung for "the heathen" aforesaid.  Now and
then too,  Connecticut sent out a schoolmaster in advance of a homegrown
supply of that useful article.  Such,  on their arrival in the woodsy
wilds,  found no lack of material for the enforcement of knowledge at
their very foundations,  according to the precept of the ancient sage, 
Solomon.

It was true I had come from Connecticut,  but it was on another mission
the like of which there had not been seen.  It had touched the
imagination of the young man.  In after years he said he felt I was a
second Heroditus,  traveling the land to gather its history.  The
feeling might have had its uncomplimentary drawback,  inasmuch as the
great Heroditus had been charged with having been the most unwholesome, 
prolific pater familias known,  the "Great Father of Lies."  Still,  I
think not,  for since the day of publication of "Howes Ohio,"  he has
always had a copy within easy reach of his writing desk,  and I verily
believe in his often reaches he has felt,  as he grasped it,  that he
held Truth herself,  mirror and all.

Ere coming to Ohio a second time I was invited by Mr. Hayes to pause at
Spiegel Grove before starting over the now largely wood shorn steel
ribbed land.  My arrival was Nov. 21,  1885,  at this writing over five
years gone.

The homestead at Spiegel Grove was built by his uncle,  Sardis
Birchard,  in 1860,  to which additions have since been made by Mr.
Hayes.  The name given by Mr. Birchard is peculiarly adapted to its
inhabitants,  "The Grove of Good Spirits."  It is about half a mile
inland from the town in a level country,  in the midst of a forest of
some thirty acres.  Around the mansion,  which is at the rear and
approached by a long,  winding walk and drive,  are some of the noblest
of forest trees.  The soil is the richest and some of the trees
immense,  the growth of centuries,  and still vigorous;  others are in
decay,  with their trunks only standing,  yet interest from the
clustering leaves of the vines which,  planted by loving hands,  at
their base wind around their scraggly forms,  and flutter in the passing
wind like youth dancing around hoary old age,  and trying to make old
bones feel young again.

The mansion is a spot of public interest.  To learn how and where the
family live of one who has been at the head of this great nation is a
wise curiosity. We are marvelously alike,  sparks from the one great
benignant source,  and our conditions here but mere temporary
arrangements.  I verily believe,  for something higher which,  when
attained,  we indeed may feel this truly is life;  the other was "a make
believe,"  but good as far as it went.

On another page is a general view of the home,  with a ground plan
showing the internal arrangements of the lower story.  The house is of
brick,  ceilings of ample height,  and the rooms spacious.  It is well
lighted everywhere;  the furniture being largely of oak and other light
hued wood helps to render all within bright and cheery.  Not the least
attraction is the long spacious veranda,  over 80 feet long,  where,  on
summer evenings,  the family and friends were wont to gather for social
intercourse;  or on mornings after breakfast,  for the ladies and
gentlemen,  arm in arm,  to take a few turns up and down,  and then part
for the various duties of the day.  And the days were filled with them, 
and largely by Mr. and Mrs. Hayes with matters of public welfare;  and
so their days were days of calm and peace.

The chief rooms are the reception room and the study,  which both go
under the general name of the library.  In effect they are one room,  no
door separating,  only an arch near the hall end some 12 feet wide and
15 feet high.  The reception room is a place of elegance;  pictures on
the walls;  marble busts,  life size;  Portraits of notables on easels; 
large,  beautifully illustrated works on the tables,  with here and
there a dainty booklet that is a charm to hold,  and whose leaves,  as
you turn page after page,  may sparkle with gems of fancy and the
heart.  These,  as they catch your eye,  may lift you out,  as I once
heard a broad brogued pious Scotch Presbyterian pronounce it,  "lift you
out of a vain and desateful wurld."

The general's study is in reality the library.  All the walls to the
ceiling are filled with books.  He has some 11,000 under his roof,  and
half of them are there.  As illustrating his intense regard for his
country and people some 6,000 of them are upon American history and
biography.  His study is his place of work.  His desk is at the extreme
north and where the light comes,  for his writing and reading,  over his
left shoulder and down from the skylight above,  and there is nothing to
prevent the spirit of Spiegel Grove from watching and ministering to him
in his labors.

My arrival was in the mid forenoon.  Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hayes were
in.  The latter was absent in the village but was the first to arrive
and with a friendly greeting took me into the study,  and was about to
drive off a pair of greyhounds that lay stretched on the rug before the
blazing greatfire,  thinking they might annoy me,  when I begged her not
to disturb them in their comfort,  and she did not,  so when an hour
later she took my arm for the dining room and with the others
following,  those animals brought up the rear,  but where the luxurious
creatures went I knew not.

No one could be in the house long without feeling that it was a place
where love and cheerfulness reigned supreme.  Both Mr. and Mrs. Hayes
seemed as an elder brother and sister to their children,  and each to
the other were only Rutherford and Lucy.  Each possessed the same
characteristics,  a love of the humorous,  their minds receptive and
looking for the pleasant things that each new-born morning may bring on
its bright white wings.

Such natures run to reminiscence and anecdote.  In one instance,  when
at the social board,  Mrs. Hayes arose from her seat at its head and
acted out an incident in a sort of pantomime to impress the point of an
amusing story.  Her voice was low and musical,  and her flow of good
spirits as from an exhaustless rippling reservoir.  One incident she
gave to illustrate the reputation at an early date of the lower Scioto
Valley for malaria,  that when the first railroad trains passed through
Chillocothe,  the conductors were accustomed to stop and call out to the
passengers,  "twenty minutes for quinine."

Mr. Hayes brought to the table one of my books wherein was an extract
from Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables,"  which led him to say,  when they
first got hold of that work they were in Virginia idling their time in a
winter camp.  Not knowing with certainty the pronunciation of its
title,  some of the officers around termed it "Lee's Miserables."

He also read from its pages an incident of my personal history,  the
scene of which occurred when I was a young man,  traveling on foot over
the State of New York in 1840 for my book on that State.  This I repeat
here as printed:

"I was footing it with my knapsack on my back over the hills near the
headwaters of the Susquehanna when I was overtaken by an elderly
grave-visaged man in a grey suit riding on horseback.  "Good Morning,"
said he,  and then in solemn tones added "are you a professor sir?"

"Thinks I.  'this man sees something uncommon about me,  and I rather
think his head is level,  he probably imagines I am one of the sage
Pundits of Yale or Harvard on a scientific tour of exploration,'  and
therefore in pleased tones I replied 'Professor of what sir?'  Judge of
my surprise when he answered,  'Professor of religion.'"

At this unexpected finale Mrs. Hayes gave one of her low full toned
merry laughs.

I have said the study was a place of work,  it was also a favorite
gathering spot on evenings where the family gathered before the grate to
talk down the hours and Mrs. Hayes was ever there joining in with
pleasing words and merry laugh.  On the evening of my arrival Mr. Hayes
varied the entertainment,  taking from a basket varied kinds of apples
one after another,  peeling and quartering each and passing them round
to sample and obtain judgment as to their respective qualities.  And as
the evening progressed we talked our recollections of the old Cincinnati
Club,  before the war,  and of the good times we had when at our monthly
socials where we usually closed by some forty or more joining hands all
round and singing "Auld Lang Syne."

The next morning before breakfast I was standing before the grate
cogitating when Mrs. Hayes came in and said,  "Mr. Howe,  I don't know
but what I may be rather hard on you,  but I want you to go out and see
my cows;  they are beauties."  So she put on her shawl and rubbers and
picked up somewhere an ear of corn.  As we stepped out of the hall door
into the yard she sent forth a loud trumpet like call that went forth
like the call of an Alpine shepherdess.  Instantly every feathered thing
about the place gave an answering cry,  and it seemed to me as though
they must have numbered hundreds,  so strongly did the varied orchestra
of mingled sounds fill the air;  some from far and some from near, 
almost under our feet.  The guinea hens and pea hens screamed and came
running up with their speckled backs,  and the pigeons and turkeys sent
forth their varied airs and clustering around her followed to the barn
while she wrenched the corn from the ear and cast it to the right and
left as we rapidly proceeded.

This habit of calling up the feathered tribe was common with her.  At
times the doves came from the cotes quite a distance away when they
fluttered over her head and alighted upon her person.  Even the wild
birds of the grove received her attention,  for she was wont to minister
to them in their timidity by placing food in covert places where they
could eat and not be afraid.

On our arrival at the barn, lo!  the Jerseys were gone.  They had been
taken off to nibble awhile in the yet green pasture.  Mrs. Hayes, 
however,  showed some snow white goats from the mountains of Cashmere, 
and what the children would call a "cunning" little calf.

We returned to the house,  and when in the middle of the great hall, 
happened to cast her eyes down she exclaimed,  "How neglectful I have
been not to have had your shoes blacked,  please take them off."  and
then opening a closet door brought out a pair of slippers and dropping
them at my feet,  bore away my shoes for their blacking.

Some few minutes elapsed and I was standing alone in the study musing, 
when its hall door opened and in tripped and old aunty with a turban on
her head bearing my shoes nicely polished.  She was slender and neither
black nor white;  but there was no mistaking,  she was "Ole Virginny"
all over,  and an "Aunty."  She came in tripping,  a lively old
creature,  a grinning and with a quick jerky courtesy dropped the shoes
at my feet;  then started for the hall door.  I called her back,  and
placing a coin in her hand,  she again grinned and repeated her jerk, 
with a "Thank you sah,"  darted off,  she richer by a piece of silver
and I by a nicely polished pair of shoes.

As the door closed,  I again fell to musing,  thinking of the good woman
whose qualities had just been illustrated to my experience.  The secret
of her character was her ineffable spirit of love.  It went everywhere; 
to the wee little flowers at her feet,  the birds,  the animals,  and
especially to human beings.  She yearned to do them good,  saw brothers
and sisters in them all,  wanted to fill them with the joy she felt, 
and sympathized with their wants with a spirit that was divine.  Had she
been with Christ when he wept over Jerusalem she would have wept with
him.

Old men who knew her when she was a child in the town of Chillicothe, 
when her name was spoken,  smiled as with a beautiful memory and
followed with words of praise.  One incident which I know to be true of
the many of her blessing career,  I here relate as written by Mr. henry
L. Detwiler,  from El Paso,  Texas,  and published in the St. Louis
Globe Democrat.:

I wish to relate a little circumstance which came under my own
observation more than twenty four years ago,  while Mr. Hayes was
Governor of my native State,  Ohio.  One day while passing up State
street in Columbus,  I saw a woman sitting on the curbstone,  and a
dozen or more small boys were teasing her.  She was very drunk, 
apparently.  About the time that I reached the spot a carriage drove up
and stopped near the scene.  A lady looked out of the window,  and
taking in the situation at a glance,  opened the carriage door,  got
out,  walked up to the drunken woman,  and speaking kindly to her, 
asked her to take a drive with her.  The drunken woman,  in a maundering
way,  complied,  and was assisted to the carriage and driven away. 
After they had gone I asked of a bystander who the lady in the carriage
was,  and he told me it was the wife of Gov. Hayes."

My day at Spiegel Grove ended. Mr. Hayes first took me in his buggy to
show me around the town that I might see what a place of thrift and
comfort it had become.  I could but admire its broad streets,  its neat
cleanly homes,  the graceful spire of the Catholic church,  modeled
after one on the Cathedral at Milan,  240 feet in height,  the Birchard
library,  and its patriotic relics,  the calm flowing river,  with its
embosoming island, etc.,  but all this took time,  so when we neared the
depot the express was starting out,  and had got some 200 feet away when
he rose and signaling  they paused for me,  and I was borne on my way
with new pictures to hang on "memory's walls."  And more new ones came
quick,  for going westerly through the Black Swamp Forest region I could
but be astonished to see what an Eden it had become since when in 1846 I
had threaded its mazes on the back of "Old Pomp."

"Into every heart some rainy days must fall."--Longfellow

June 25,  1889,  was a sad day at Spiegel Grove.  The beautiful mother
and universal friend,  whose living presence had been a light and a love
was no more.  The Nation sorrowed.

Human annals fail to present the record of a single other of her sex, 
so widely beloved,  so widely mourned.  Had she been the mother in a
humble laborers cabin she would have been the same good woman alike
loved of God and the angels.  Her lot was to become the first lady in
the land;  all eyes rested upon her,  all hearts paid her reverence. 
None other in such a position had illustrated such love and sympathy for
the humble,  the weak,  and the suffering.  She gathered the richest of
harvests,  the harvests of the heart.

Though her spirit has gone her memory remains,  an unending
benediction.  Children yet to be as they enter upon this mysterious
existence will learn of her and be blessed,  and old age hopeful as it
nears its end may look beyond and as her image arises to their vision
feel "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."


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