Rutherford B. Hayes
Hayes thanks Mines, the Correspondence Secretary of the New York Prison Association, for his prompt reply to Hayes' letter about prison reform. Hayes expresses the hope that a “steady advance may be made toward a reformatory system.” Hayes also mentions the Irish system, a method of penal discipline created in the early 1850s by Sir Walter Crofton. Hayes served as Governor of Ohio from 1868 to 1872 and from 1876 to 1877, at which time he resigned to serve as the nineteenth President of the United States (1877-1881). Before assuming this office, Hayes had been a major general in the Civil War and had served in Congress.
This letter is available on the digital library project I Remain.