FREMONT, Ohio — President Rutherford B. Hayes is known nationally as one of the presidents in office during the reconstruction of the post Civil War south.
But in Ohio, prior to his presidency, he also played a key role in the earlier portions of the abolitionist movement.
Following the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, while a lawyer in Cincinnati, Hayes acted as the defense attorney for multiple runaway slaves in court.
According to his account, Hayes represented nearly 40 former slaves, but there's only official court documentation of two.
The first is Rosetta Armstead, who won her case with the help of Hayes and was allowed to go free.
The other, a slave named only Lewis also went free, but with a different ending to his court case.
"Hayes and the other representation were talking to the judges while Lewis had snuck out of the courtroom and ran away. So, we don't actually know how that would have come out. He actually escaped and made it to Canada, presumably, without ever hearing the judgment," Hayes museum historian Dustin Mclochlin said.
The Hayes Presidential Center has plans to add new exhibits detailing this portion of the president's past sometime in the future.
