President Rutherford B. Hayes is my 20th cousin 3x removed. The ancestor who connects us as relatives is, William Longespée 3rd Earl of de Longespee (1176 – 1226), my 19th great grandfather.

Historical narrative. Rutherford Birchard Hayes (October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) had been the nineteenth president of the United States from 1877 to 1881, having offered also being an American agent and governor of Ohio. Hayes was an attorney and staunch abolitionist who defended refugee slaves in court proceedings into the antebellum years. During the American Civil War, he was severely wounded while fighting within the Union Army.

He was nominated while the Republican candidate when it comes to the presidency in 1876 and elected through the Compromise of 1877 that officially ended the Reconstruction Era by leaving the South to govern its self. In office he withdrew military troops from the South, ending Army support for Republican state governments within the South plus the efforts of African-American freedmen to establish their own families as free residents. He promoted civil service reform and attempted to reconcile the divisions left through the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Hayes, a lawyer in Ohio, served as city solicitor of Cincinnati from 1858 to 1861. When the Civil War started, he left a fledgling political profession to participate in the Union Army being an officer. Hayes had been wounded five times, many seriously at the Battle of South Hill. He attained a reputation for bravery in combat and had been promoted towards the ranking of brevet major basic. Following the war, he served within the Congress from 1865 to 1867 as a Republican. Hayes left Congress to perform for governor of Ohio and ended up being elected to two consecutive terms, from 1868 to 1872. Later he served a 3rd two-year term, from 1876 to 1877.

In 1876, Hayes was elected president in a single of probably the most contentious elections in Nationwide history. He destroyed the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, but he won an intensely disputed electoral college vote following a Congressional commission awarded him twenty contested electoral votes. The result had been the Compromise of 1877, when the Democrats acquiesced to Hayes’s election on the condition he withdraws remaining U.S. troops protecting Republican officeholders into the South, therefore officially ending the Reconstruction era.

Hayes believed in meritocratic government and equal treatment without reference to race. He ordered federal troops to shield federal buildings and in doing this restored order through the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. He applied modest civil service reforms that laid the groundwork for further reform within the 1880s and 1890s. He vetoed the Bland–Allison Act, which may have placed silver cash into the blood circulation and raised nominal prices, insisting that maintenance of the gold standard had been necessary to economic data recovery. His policy toward Western Indians anticipated the assimilationist program of the Dawes Act of 1887.

Hayes kept their pledge to not ever run for re-election, retired to his home in Ohio, and became an advocate of social and academic reform. Biographer Ari Hoogenboom stated his best success would be to restore popular faith into the presidency also to reverse the deterioration of executive energy which had set in after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Although supporters have praised his dedication to civil service reform and protection of civil legal rights, Hayes is typically ranked as average or slightly below average by historians and scholars.

My genealogical chart showing that relative that connects us as relatives:

President Rutherford B. Hayes (1822 – 1893)
20th cousin 3x removed

Rutherford Hayes (1787 – 1822)
Father of President Rutherford B. Hayes

Chloe Smith
Mother of Rutherford Hayes

Abigail Chandler
Mother of Chloe Smith

Abigail Hale
Mother of Abigail Chandler

John Hale
Father of Abigail Hale

Priscilla Markham
Mother of John Hale

William Markham
Father of Priscilla Markham

Lydia Ward
Mother of William Markham

Judith Luckyn
Mother of Lydia Ward

Thomasine Walter
Mother of Judith Luckyn

Isabel Denton
Mother of Thomasine Walter

Thomas Denton
Father of Isabel Denton

Isabel Brome
Mother of Thomas Denton

Beatrix Shirley
Mother of Isabel Brome

Sir Ralph Shirley
Father of Beatrix Shirley

Beatrix de Braose
Mother of Sir Ralph Shirley

Sir Peter de Braose
Father of Beatrix de Braose

Peter de Braose
Father of Sir Peter de Braose

Mary de Ros
Mother of Peter de Braose

Robert de (Ros) de Ros
Father of Mary de Ros

Sir William I Ros (1192 – 1264)
Father of Robert de (Ros) de Ros

Robert de Ross ( – 1274)
Father of Sir William I Ros

Mary Longespee (1195 – 1275)
Mother of Robert de Ross

William Longespée 3rd Earl of de Longespee (1176 – 1226)
Father of Mary Longespee

Reference
Rutherford B. Hayes – Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_B._Hayes