In October 1876, when James A. Garfield purchased the Dickey Farm in Mentor, Ohio, the property included a small, partitioned building in the rear of the main farmhouse. Farmhands used it as a dormitory. Garfield “resolved to gut the old house…and fit it up for a library.” By the following spring, he had hired a crew of carpenters to build large black walnut bookshelves. He even helped lay the flooring himself. As he moved into the building, he realized he had more books than he could store and had to have two more sets of shelving built. Some varnish on the floors and the hanging of a reading lamp completed the building on July 21, 1877, and it functioned as Garfield’s private library for the next few years. The election of 1880 transformed it by necessity into a telegraph office, a consulting office, and what we now refer to as the Campaign Office. During the campaign, two telegraph lines were installed and ran directly to the desks. The building became a flurry of activity, with messages pouring in from all corners of the country. Garfield’s secretary Joseph Stanley-Brown and several staffers worked night and day inside, receiving and recording incoming messages. Stanley-Brown recalled that "the floor was almost always hopelessly littered with papers." The Campaign Office had five desks, two telegraph sets, a letter press, and a large number of books. The telegraph operator, O.L. Judd, continued receiving messages on both telegraph sets in this building right up until the Garfield Family left for Washington, D.C. and Garfield’s March 4, 1881 inauguration as president. Interact with the image above or use the links below to learn more about the role of the campaign office
during the 1880 campaign. |
Last updated: August 1, 2021