The United States’ 19th president, Rutherford B. Hayes, like many other presidents, was happy to leave office. According to the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, by the end of his political career — he served in Congress and did three terms as Ohio’s governor — he “yearned” to leave public life behind. Like James K. Polk and James Buchanan, Hayes had already promised to serve only one term. And so he left office on March 4 1881, and again like many others, retired to his home — Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio. On January 17, 1893, he died of heart disease.
Hayes was one of the most controversial presidents. He entered the White House in 1877 in the aftermath of the Civil War that ended in 1865 and the Jim Crow-era that followed, and he was elected amidst a constitutional crisis. Regardless, he was content with his decision to step down — and his legacy. “I left this great country prosperous and happy and the party of my choice strong, victorious, and united,” he wrote a diary entry. “In serving the country I served my party.”
