COLUMBUS, February 22, 1870.
DEAR SIR: — I am in receipt of your "History of the Guilford Branch of the Dickeman Family," and am greatly obliged to you for it. My father came to Ohio in 1817, thus separating from all his New England relatives, and died before my birth, so that I have not had an opportunity to learn much of his family. A Hayes record was published by George W. Noyes, of the Oneida Community in the State of New York, but the fullest account of my grandmother's family I have ever seen is in your pamphlet. There is an impression in the family that Grandmother Chloe Smith Hayes was a very superior woman possessing real genius. The Mead family, all having talent as artists, trace this quality to grandmother. The most distinguished member of the family is Larkin G. Mead, a sculptor of wide reputation. You may have heard of him as the boy who made the snow statue in Brattleboro twelve or fifteen years ago. He is the sculptor and architect of the great Lincoln Monument at Springfield, Illinois, and his studio in Florence probably receives as many orders as that of any artist.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, pp. 89-90
