Sardis Birchard

Sardis Birchard (January 15, 1801 – January 21, 1874) was an American property developer and merchant. He was known for his familial association with Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th President of the United States, serving as an early supporter and uncle of Hayes. Birchard was born in Wilmington, Vermont, to parents Roger Birchard and Drusilla Austin Birchard. His parents died in 1805 and 1813 respectively, after which he resided with his sister Sophia and her husband Rutherford Ezekiel Hayes Jr. in Dummerston, Vermont. In 1817, the family relocated to Delaware, Ohio.

Birchard had limited formal education but developed skills in hunting, livestock herding, and retail trade. In 1817, he engaged in droving, herding hogs across the country, including a notable drive in 1817 delivering hogs to settlers of Fort Ball, which later became Tiffin, Ohio. In late 1824, Birchard encountered General Andrew Jackson while receiving assistance with a herd of hogs in Wheeling, West Virginia, during Jackson's journey to Washington, D.C.

Rutherford B. Hayes was born in 1822 to Sophia Birchard and Rutherford Ezekiel Hayes. Their family moved to Lower Sandusky (now Fremont), Ohio, in 1827. Birchard provided financial support for Hayes's education, including attendance at Middletown, Connecticut, boarding schools, Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and Harvard Law School, where Hayes enrolled in 1843 and graduated in 1845. Afterward, Hayes returned to Lower Sandusky to practice law and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1845.

Birchard began trading with the local Wyandot, Seneca, and Lenape tribes shortly after settling in Lower Sandusky, accumulating over $10,000 in wealth within three years. He expanded his retail operations and was involved in land development. Despite the Panic of 1837, Birchard acquired additional lands during the subsequent depression. He was a founding member of the Sandusky County chapter of the Whig Party and cultivated relationships with notable northwest Ohio figures, including Ebenezer Lane and Morrison Waite.

At his peak, Birchard owned extensive land holdings across several counties in northwest Ohio, such as Sandusky, Wood, Lucas, and Erie. In 1851, he established the first bank in Lower Sandusky with Lucius B. Otis. He narrowly avoided bankruptcy in 1857 through a loan from Rutherford Hayes.

Birchard developed a personal estate known as Spiegel Grove, constructed starting in 1859 on a wooded land parcel he had owned since 1846. The estate was named after the city’s name change from Lower Sandusky to Fremont, which occurred after United States Army officer John C. Frémont. Birchard designed the estate for his family, particularly considering the needs of Rutherford Hayes's future family.

Politically, Birchard initially supported the Whig candidate Zachary Taylor in the 1848 presidential election and was regarded as an antiabolitionist. His views on slavery evolved during the Civil War, and he became an supporter of Abraham Lincoln.

In his later years, Birchard's sons, Birchard Austin Hayes and Webb Hayes, resided at Spiegel Grove with him during Rutherford Hayes's gubernatorial terms in the late 1860s. During Hayes's presidency, Birchard engaged in negotiations over land transactions, including a 160-acre parcel near Toledo, which he eventually deeded to Hayes.

Birchard was a benefactor to the Fremont community, funding various civic institutions including the Birchard Library. In 1873, he announced a $50,000 donation aimed at supporting the library’s construction on the site of Fort Stephenson; he intended to fulfill this pledge during his lifetime. Following his death on January 21, 1874, in Fremont, he was interred in Oakwood Cemetery.

His estate remained significant in the community; after Rutherford B. Hayes's presidency, Spiegel Grove became the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, which opened to the public in 1916 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964. Birchard Avenue in Fremont is named after him, and he donated land in 1871 for public parks, notably Birchard Park and Triangle Park, the latter renamed for former mayor Richard D. Maier in 1986.