Oval Office Oddities

by Bill Fawcett

  Tis true I profess myself a votary to Love. I acknowledge that a Lady is in the case; and, further, I confess that this lady is known to you. Yes, Madam, as well as she is to one who is too sensible of her Charms to deny the Power whose influence he feels and must ever submit to…. You have drawn me, my dear Madam, or rather I have drawn myself, into an honest confession of a Simple Fact. Misconstrue not my meaning, ’tis obvious; doubt it not or expose it. The world has no business to know the object of my love, declared in this manner to—you, when I want to conceal it. One thing above all things, in this World I wish to know, and only one person of your acquaintance can solve me that or guess my meaning—but adieu to this till happier times, if ever I shall see them.

  Even many years later his feelings remained, though all through his life Washington remained the faithful and devoted husband of Martha:

  …never been able to eradicate from my mind those happy moments, the happiest in my life, which I have enjoyed in your company.

  There is a final irony to the story. George William was a Tory and was forced to flee after losing most of his wealth. He planned to return to Virginia after the insurrection was put down, but when Independence occurred instead, like many who had supported the king, he could not and never did return. He died in 1787 and Sally remained alone in England for another twenty-four years.

  HE DIDN’T DO IT

  Never in his life did George Washington throw a dollar across the Rappahannock River, which runs through Virginia. Nor did he ever cut down a cherry tree and then tell his father he had done it. In the early years, the United States was still finding itself. There was a need for bigger-than-life heroes and the first president was one of these already. Both of these stories appeared in a book, purported to be a biography of George Washington, by Mason Locke Weems. This book, A History of the Life and Death Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington (yep, the title was that long), included not only actual stories of Washington’s leadership, but also made-up stories used to make him a near mythic figure and role model. The book was a success and since then, when someone thinks of a young Washington, they remember Weems’s two stories. That’s a pity since he was an ambitious young man who started in the middle class and rose through his own efforts to become the “Father of His Country” after fighting in two wars and leading a revolt against the most powerful empire in the world.

  WITH A WHIMPER

  After surviving being a surveyor in the wilderness, two wars, Valley Forge, and years of politics, the first president succumbed to a “sore throat” that was really an oedematous affection of the windpipe on December 14, 1799, only three years after leaving office. He might well have survived except for what was done and not done to treat him. At first he did nothing after contracting the illness from being chilled while riding in a snow storm. When the illness got worse the doctors will called in. Because he was important and a public figure, his doctors were particularly aggressive in their efforts. The problem was that, at that point in time, medicine had taken a few wrong turns. First, the doctors bled the ill president four times. Then, the weakened leader was given a concoction of molasses, butter, and vinegar. When he did not improve dramatically, they took the next step and fed him a strong laxative. Washington spent his last hours of life dealing with the effects of that ill-conceived medication. He likely spent most of his last day on earth squatting over the chamber pot, or worse, until his weakened system succumbed not only to the illness, but to the cure.

  6

  BEFORE AND AFTER

  It may or may not be significant that two of our greatest presidents, Washington and Lincoln, were both surveyors when young. This was an extremely challenging position even in Lincoln’s day, where the land they surveyed could be lawless frontier or even land claimed by Native Americans who resented their presence. Still, so far surveyors are two for two in producing great presidents.

  Of the first thirty presidents (up to Hoover), most were lawyers. Twenty-three of the thirty practiced law or were involved in some way in the legal profession. Four were professionally trained soldiers—Washington (who was also a plantation owner), Grant (who was a very bad businessman), Harrison, and Taylor. Warren Harding ran a newspaper and edited it as well. Woodrow Wilson had been a college president, while Herbert Hoover was a mining engineer. Andrew Johnson started his political career as a tailor. After Hoover, they get harder to classify effectively, since many of the recent presidents were professional officeholders, but not all. Eisenhower was another soldier. Carter a peanut farmer, a distinction always made from farmer since peanut growing is heavily subsidized and regulated and he was really more of a businessman than a man of the soil. Reagan, of course, was an actor and radio announcer.

  SENIORITY

  The first job future President John Quincy Adams held was at the age of fourteen. He went to Russia to serve as the secretary to the United States minister there. Of course, as the son of the second president, John Adams, he did have a few connections getting the position. From this point, J. Q. Adams was in service to the government for the next sixty-six years. He was still a member of the House of Representatives when he died at age eighty. All that time and there were no government pensions yet.

  JUST LIKE A LAWYER?

  Benjamin Harrison has the distinction of being one of the least likable and most irritating men to ever hold the office of president. While he could inspire thousands with his speeches, when meeting with individuals one to one, he invariably managed to antagonize them. Even members of his own cabinet were known to go out of their way to avoid meeting with this president. His abrasive conversational style never hurt his career. Not only was he nominated and elected president, but upon leaving office he became one of the most successful lawyers in the nation, earning annually what today would be millions of dollars in fees. Why do I have the sudden urge to do a lawyer joke?

  PREACHING TO THE CONGRESS

  Certain jobs may better prepare a man to be president than others. James A. Garfield held such a job. He studied at, and eventually became, president of Hiram College near Cleveland, Ohio. During this time he also became an ordained minister in the Church of Christ. It is recorded that his sermons made him a popular preacher at the camp meetings and revivals that were common during his time. Even while president of the United States, Garfield regularly took the opportunity to preach at local churches. Again his eloquence and presentation made him popular and welcome. He also, as is almost expected, had become a lawyer, though he went directly into politics and practiced little law.

  NAMESAKES

  There is a certain irony in the image of Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill. As a general and president, Jackson wore himself out and spent a good deal of his own money. He left the White House less well-off than when he entered it. Having picked his successor, the popular ex-president spent a few extra weeks in Washington before leaving for Tennessee, enjoying the adulation of the crowds and attending several social events. He also stayed because the roads to Tennessee were difficult. It was very early spring and the former general had never fully recovered from a pistol ball that was lodged in his lungs from being shot in a duel with Charles Dickinson, so he wanted to leave rested. Even after the delay, the weather was atrocious and the journey to his home, the Hermitage, took over a month. When Jackson left Washington he took with him the remaining money he had there, just several hundred dollars. This was diminished along the way, not only by travel expenses but by an honor Andrew Jackson felt he was required to acknowledge. Jackson had been very popular with the people during his two terms, and many babies born at this time were named after the president. Whenever Andy Jackson was presented with one of his namesakes among the crowds that cheered him along the road, he gave the child one of three hundred silver half-dollars he had brought for that very purpose. He often told the mothers the coins were for the baby to “teethe on.” By the time he arrived home, the former president was down to under one hundred dollars. Fortunately his plantatio
n was profitable and Jackson was able to rebuild his savings.

  SORE LOSER

  With Washington, D.C., being the center of the government, it is hardly uncommon for an ex-president to return to the city. But there is one man who made a point of never returning. This was John Adams. Thomas Jefferson defeated Adams’s attempt to be reelected and the Founding Father took this very badly. On the morning of his last day as president, March 4, 1801, John Adams woke early and rode out of town. This allowed him to avoid riding in the parade with Jefferson. Adams remained bitter the rest of his life and never once returned to the capital of the nation he helped to form.

  SORE LOSER

  You would think the Fourth of July would be a lucky day for the Founding Fathers. This was certainly not the case for three of the first five presidents. Three former presidents died on July fourth—an amazing coincidence. These were John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe. Two of the presidents who died on the Fourth of July did so on the same day, July 4, 1826. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the document both men were best known for: the Declaration of Independence. Also coincidentally, all three were key leaders in the American Revolution. Monroe was the last president of the three. He died in 1831. Did some cranky British general curse them, or is it just one of those random timings that litter history?

  OLD FRIENDS, SORT OF

  No one can make you more angry than your friends. Such was the case with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. The two men were not only leaders among the Founding Fathers, but worked together on the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson actually wrote the document and John Adams was its best and most adamant advocate. It was Adams more than anyone else who convinced the representatives of the thirteen colonies to sign what was, at that point, an act of treason.

  The problems began when Jefferson was secretary of state and Adams was vice president under George Washington. Things came to a head when Adams ran for reelection in 1800 and Jefferson ran against him. Adams was outraged, and even more upset when Jefferson won. The two men became enemies and rivals. It did not help that Jefferson succeeded where Adams had failed and won reelection in 1804. What had been a close friendship ended.

  It was not until years after both men had left office that mutual friends managed to at least get the two ex-presidents to communicate civilly again. This resulted in an exchange of letters that is fascinating and unique. In 1826, John Adams, living near Boston, was ninety and Jefferson, in Virginia, was eighty-four. Both men were in poor health and knew they were dying. A bit of their old rivalry must have remained, however. Both men hung on, evidently wanting to outlive the other. When John Adams awakened on the Fourth of July he heard cannons being fired in the distance celebrating the anniversary. When asked by a friend if he knew what day it was, the dying Adams correctly said it was the “glorious Fourth.” He then went on to add, in a final gesture to their friendship and rivalry, “But my old friend Thomas Jefferson still lives.” He died a short time later without knowing he had, in fact, lived longer. Jefferson had died about two hours earlier. But since it took a message much longer than that to travel by horseback between Boston and Washington, D.C., neither knew the time of the other’s death, or that they shared the day, the anniversary of their great accomplishment.

  GOOD TRAINING

  Three presidents were the sons of ministers: Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, and Woodrow Wilson.

  BETTER TRAINING

  After decades of dominance by Army officers in the presidency, the U.S. Navy finally came into its own when John F. Kennedy was elected. They were on a roll, and the next four presidents, too, were Navy vets: Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter.

  UNDERGRADS?

  Nine presidents never went to college. Among them are some of the greatest presidents ever—and Millard Fillmore. The other eight are Washington, Jackson, Van Buren, Taylor (who had no formal education), Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Cleveland, and Truman.

  SECOND TRY

  Before John Adams helped write the U.S. Constitution, he wrote the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Which means that state is operating under a constitution that is even older than that of the nation it is in.

  JUST LIKE WITH CONGRESS

  If you want to visit a different spot from the others that honor incidents in Abraham Lincoln’s life, try the riverbank just below the “Rustic Mill” in New Salem, Illinois. It is on this spot that, in 1831, a young Lincoln ran aground while poling a flatboat of pigs. As part of his 1860 campaign, posters were made showing Lincoln guiding the ship of state, again poling a flatboat, but no squealing pigs this time.

  FUNERAL PROCESSION

  Abraham Lincoln was, by the end of the Civil War, held very dear by many Americans. When he died from the assassin’s gunshot on April 15, 1865, the nation mourned. The Civil War had also marked the beginning of the golden age for train travel. The movement of troops and supplies by train was one of the major reasons the North was victorious. The actual funeral was delayed until April 21, after which the casket was placed on a special train that would take Lincoln to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois. Also on the train for the same reason was the small casket of his son, Willie, who had died of smallpox in 1862. To bring the president full circle, in a sense, three men who had accompanied Lincoln on his train trip to Washington, D.C., on the way to take office were allowed to accompany the body back as well.

  The train ride itself was not very direct. Everyone wanted to say goodbye. The first stop was New York City, where the casket was left open and people walked past all night. The streets around the site were packed all night. Beginning at midnight, a chorus of seventy singers from the German community sang for several hours. The procession to return the beloved president’s casket to the train included just about every important politician, organization, and military unit that could get there. At the last minute, a group of two hundred recently freed slaves asked to march as well. They were given a position, though fear that their being in the march might cause a riot meant that they were preceded and followed by strong police units. Not only was there no problem, but in a spirit Lincoln would have approved of, they were applauded in several locations. The entire funeral procession was recorded as taking more than four hours to pass by any one spot.

  Every time the funeral train entered a town or city, it was met by large crowds. Often the tracks were lined by those saying goodbye as well. As the train approached each town, the bells were rung and guns fired. The telegraph wired ahead so everyone would know the exact time the train would reach the next black-and-crepe-covered station. Bonfires lined the route of the train every night and even heavy rain failed to prevent thousands from lining the tracks as it passed every day. Eventually the long journey to his final resting place brought Lincoln’s casket through Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New York City, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, and hundreds of small towns where the train did not stop. Finally, eighteen days later, now in a less-than-presentable condition, the casket arrived in Springfield, where it remains today beneath a massive and well-visited memorial.

  ANOTHER JULY 4 DEATH

  On July 4, 1850, there was a long and well-attended ceremony for the laying of the cornerstone of the Washington Monument. It was a typical July day in Washington, D.C.: the heat was intense and the humidity stifling. For hours on end, Zachary Taylor sat under the sun on the open reviewing stand. By the time the ceremony had ended, the former general was near collapse. He was driven back in a buggy to the White House. To recover, Taylor helped himself to large quantities of cool milk and fresh cherries. Five days later, he died. The diagnosis? Cholera, which he may have caught from the cherries and was too weak to fight off. Cholera is spread by contaminated food and has an incubation period of two to three days. Taylor had served just eighteen months of his term as president.

  ARLINGTON

  Though many presidents have served in the military,
only two are buried in the national cemetery at Arlington, Virginia. These are William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy. The Arlington cemetery was established during the American Civil War on land confiscated from the family of Robert E. Lee.

  SWM

  With the exception of those whose spouses are still alive, almost every president is buried with his wife. The one exception to this is James Buchanan, who was a lifelong bachelor and is buried alone in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

  BLACKMAIL ATTEMPT

  The year is 1876, and this is one of those examples of stupid criminals and not much more adept detectives. A gang of three counterfeiters has been broken up because one of them has been caught and is now in prison. The other two search for a way to get their partner freed. They decide that the best way is to kidnap Abraham Lincoln’s body. The plan is to break into the tomb at night when it is unguarded, take Lincoln’s casket and body, and then hide it in the Indiana Dunes. They then intend to ask as ransom the freedom of their friend.