Rutherford B. Hayes’s early life and career were closely tied to Delaware, Ohio. In 1822, his mother Sophia moved there from Dummerston, Vermont, and his father died of a fever that October before Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born in 1823 at the family home on East William Street. The family later moved to a new home at Franklin and William Street, and after his older brother Lorenzo drowned while ice skating on the Olentangy River, Hayes attended Mrs. Murray’s private school and then the new district public school in Delaware before studying at Norwalk Academy, Kenyon College, where he graduated as valedictorian, and Harvard University, where he received his law degree. Lucy Webb moved to Delaware in 1844, and Hayes met her in 1847 while visiting the Sulphur Spring on the Ohio Wesleyan University campus; he moved to Cincinnati to practice law in 1850, and they married there in 1852. During the Civil War, after volunteering, he was appointed major in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was wounded five times in battle, and held the rank of major general at the war’s conclusion; while on furlough in Delaware in 1862, he moved the graves of his father, brother, and sister to Oak Grove Cemetery, and in 1863 he visited Camp Delaware, a training site for African American soldiers fighting for the Union. Hayes was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1864 and re-elected in 1866, then elected governor of Ohio in 1867 and served three terms. In 1872, his family spent the summer near Delaware before moving in 1873 to Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio. Nominated by the Republican Party in 1876, Hayes became president after Samuel Tilden won the popular vote but fell one electoral vote short, and a congressional Electoral Commission resolved contested electoral votes in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida in Hayes’s favor by one electoral vote. From 1877 to 1881, he served as the 19th president of the United States, declaring in his inaugural address, “He serves his party best who serves his country best.” He stressed civil service reform in the federal government, reconciliation between North and South, sound U.S. currency, and a single presidential term, helped restore confidence in the chief of state, was the first to use a typewriter and telephone in the White House, accepted from Queen Victoria the gift of the Resolute desk still used today in the Oval Office, and became the first sitting president to visit the U.S. west coast. After his presidency, he was active in prison reform, advocated universal education as the best way to eliminate social injustice and advance social harmony in American life, worked to secure veteran benefits, and served as a trustee at Ohio Wesleyan University, The Ohio State University, Western Reserve University, and Mount Union College. Lucy Webb Hayes died in 1889 in Fremont, and in 1891 Hayes attended Ohio Wesleyan’s commencement and helped place the University Hall cornerstone. He died on January 17, 1893, at age 70 and was buried beside Lucy in Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio.