Sardis Birchard
American merchant and philanthropist (1801-1874)
Sardis Birchard (January 15, 1801 – January 21, 1874) was an American property developer and merchant. He was an early supporter of his nephew Rutherford B. Hayes, who served as the 19th President of the United States.
Birchard was born in Vermont, and lived in Fremont, Ohio for much of his life, where he became a prominent businessman. His estate in Fremont, Spiegel Grove, passed to Hayes and his family after Birchard's death and is now the site of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center. Birchard is the namesake of the Birchard Public Library of Sandusky County, which was founded by Hayes with funds from Birchard's estate.
Early life in Vermont and Ohio
Sardis Birchard was born on January 15, 1801, in Wilmington, Vermont to merchants Roger Birchard and Drusilla Austin Birchard. Roger and Drusilla died in 1805 and 1813 respectively, and Birchard took up residence with his sister Sophia and her husband Rutherford Ezekiel Hayes Jr. in Dummerston, Vermont.
The family moved to Delaware, Ohio in 1817. Rutherford Ezekiel Hayes died in 1822, and Birchard took over the family's affairs shortly afterward.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sardis Birchard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.