Spiegel Grove, a twenty-five acre estate, was the home of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, the 19th president of the United States. It took its name from the German word "spiegel," meaning mirror, for the pools that collect beneath the trees after a rainstorm. Hayes's uncle, Sardis Birchard, a Fremont merchant, built the home on this site in 1863. The Hayes family moved to Spiegel Grove after Hayes's second term as Ohio governor ended in 1873, and they inherited the estate in 1874. The family left Fremont after Hayes's election as Ohio governor in 1874 and U.S. president in 1875, then returned to Spiegel Grove in 1881. The Hayeses expanded the home in 1880 and 1889. Lucy and Rutherford Hayes died at Spiegel Grove in 1889 and 1893 respectively, and they were reburied there in 1915. Their children donated the property to the state of Ohio in 1909 to establish the nation's first presidential library.