[6][7]

Family and early life[edit]
Childhood and family history[edit]
Hayes's childhood home in Delaware, Ohio
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, on October 4, 1822, to Rutherford Hayes, Jr. and Sophia Birchard. Hayes's father, a Vermont storekeeper, had taken the family to Ohio in 1817. He died ten weeks before Rutherford's birth. Sophia took charge of the family, raising Hayes and his sister, Fanny, the only two of the four children to survive to adulthood.[8] She never remarried,[9] and Sophia's younger brother, Sardis Birchard, lived with the family for a time.[10] He was always close to Hayes and became a father figure to him, contributing to his early education.[11]
Through each of his parents, Hayes was descended from New England colonists.[12] His earliest immigrant ancestor came to Connecticut from Scotland in 1625.[13] Hayes's great-grandfather Ezekiel Hayes was a militia captain in Connecticut in the American Revolutionary War, but Ezekiel's son (Hayes's grandfather, also named Rutherford) left his Branford home during the war for the relative peace of Vermont.[14] His mother's ancestors migrated to Vermont at a similar time. 