Stupid American History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions

by Leland Gregory

  TOUGH LOVE

  In colonial Connecticut, the adage “spare the rod and spoil the child” was taken seriously. George Brinley’s book The Laws of Connecticut shows just how seriously they took this advice to heart. “If any Childe or Children above fifteen years old, and of sufficient understanding, shall Curse or Smite their natural Father or Mother, he or they shall be put to death, unless it can be sufficiently testified, that the Parents have been unchristianly negligent in the education of such Children.”

  LET’S MAKE A DEAL

  Here’s how it went: Spiro Agnew resigned after bribery allegations had surfaced. Richard Nixon appointed Gerald Ford to take Agnew’s place as vice president. When Richard Nixon resigned after Watergate, Gerald Ford took over as president of the United States, and he appointed Nelson Rockefeller as his vice president. Shortly after taking the reins of power, Gerald Ford granted Richard Nixon a full pardon for any crimes he may have committed in the Watergate case. Then Ford lobbied Congress to award former President Nixon $850,000 to cover expenses while he made the transition from the White House to civilian life—a compromise was reached and Nixon was given $200,000.

  Ford considered the sum of $850,000 to be fair because the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 provides ex-presidents [who complete their full term in office] funds not to exceed $900,000 to cover their expenses during the six-month transition period.

  A BIG WIG

  Beautiful elegant dresses, silk stockings, the newest fashions from France, and high-heeled boots to die for were the customary clothes of the governor of New York who served from 1702 to 1708. What’s the big deal, you might ask? Well, he wasn’t a female—he was a notorious transvestite named Lord Cornbury [Edward Hyde] and not surprisingly a favorite of Queen Anne. Lord Cornbury had long, luscious nails, wore his hair in the most fashionable coif, and was frequently seen parading around the grounds of the governor’s mansion. And you thought politicians today were a real drag.

  HERBERT HOOVER WAS THE ONLY PRESIDENT TO TURN

  HIS ENTIRE SALARY OVER TO CHARITY.

  GOING DOWN

  In 1975 Congress modernized the elevators in the Capitol building, changing them from the old-fashioned manually operated ones to the new push-button type. So the need for elevator operators was eliminated, right? This is Congress, remember. It was decided that the elevator operators would stay on the government payroll and continue their new duties—pushing the buttons on automatic elevators.

  SNOWFLAKE, ARIZONA, GOT ITS NAME FROM TWO EARLY SETTLERS:

  ERASTUS SNOW AND WILLIAM J. FLAKE.

  REPRESENTIN’

  The first African American elected to the U.S. Senate was Hiram Rhodes Revels, who represented Mississippi in 1870 and 1871, during Reconstruction. In an ironic twist, the man who occupied the seat before Revel was Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.

  In 1792, New York Governor George Clinton basically stole the governor’s race from John Jay, Alexander Hamilton’s handpicked candidate, simply by declaring the votes of three counties invalid and announcing himself the winner. Clinton was New York’s first and longest-serving governor, having been re-elected six times.

  A BAD FIRST ACT

  Most Americans imagine that our founding fathers were big on liberty, free speech, and all that other stuff—but not during the administration of John Adams. In 1798, Adams signed four bills into law called the Alien and Sedition Acts that were supposed to protect American interests against foreign intrusion during our undeclared naval war with France. One of the bills, the Sedition Act, made it a crime to publish “false, scandalous, and malicious writing against” the government or its officials. So the Federalists in Congress could jail anyone who criticized anything the government did. More than twenty Republican newspaper editors were indicted and most were sent to jail.

  Thomas Jefferson was vice president during the enforcement of the Alien and Sedition Acts, and he stopped signing his letters out of fear that postal clerks would search his mail looking for evidence to charge him with treason.

  REMEMBER IT CORRECTLY

  There are a few things that come to mind when the state of Texas is mentioned: big hats, longhorns, and the Battle of the Alamo. When the Mexican army was taken by surprise at the short-lived [approximately eighteen minutes] Battle of San Jacinto, “Remember the Alamo” was the battle cry of the Americans. But what was the Battle of the Alamo? Did Mexican forces invade the United States? No, it was just the opposite. Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was attempting to retake the province after an army of Texan settlers and adventurers had driven Mexican troops off their own land.

  IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED

  The Continental Congress, which met in three incarnations from 1774 to 1789, was very different from the Congress we have today. They actually got things done. But despite having to deal with highly important matters [establishing a country isn’t as easy as it sounds], they still had time for trivial matters—and I’m not talking about giving post offices celebrity names. During one session, the Continental Congress spent hours debating whether one James Whitehead should receive $64 in compensation for feeding British prisoners; they decided in his favor. Then there was the debate over paying a wagon master $222.60 for transporting army supplies to Dobbs Ferry, New York, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. After several hours of heated debate, they decided to pay him, too.

  OFF KEY

  Contrary to what most people believe, Francis Scott Key didn’t write the song The Star-Spangled Banner. He wrote a poem called Defense of Fort McHenry from which the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner were taken.

  RICHARD M. NIXON WAS THE FIRST PRESIDENT TO BE NOMINATED

  FOR A GRAMMY AWARD. HE WAS NOMINATED FOR BEST SPOKEN

  WORD AWARD FOR AN ALBUM MADE FROM THE SOUNDTRACK OF

  HIS TELEVISION INTERVIEW WITH DAVID FROST.

  SUB-STANDARD

  Submarine warfare is usually thought of in terms of German U2s and the well-documented battles during World War II. But the first submarine used in warfare came much earlier. In fact, the Americans used the first submarine during the War of Independence. A sub was invented by Yale graduate David Bushnell, and was used only once. The small wooden-framed, oval-shaped vessel [called “the Turtle”] only had enough room for one person and enough oxygen for a half-hour submersion. On September 6, 1776, First Sergeant Ezra Lee propelled the small submarine close to the British warship HMS Eagle and attempted to attach a bomb to the hull of the ship with an iron screw. Unfortunately, the ship had a copper-sheathed hull that the screw could not penetrate. Even though George Washington was an enthusiastic supporter of the Turtle and submarine technology, the Continental Congress cut off all funding for the project.

  THE GOOD OLE DAYS—PART I

  Most people think our forefathers were gracious and eloquent men of class and honor—not like the members of Congress we have today. Well, I hate to burst the bubble, but here are verbatim excerpts from the Historical Summary of Conduct Cases in the House of Representatives by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct:

  Representative Matthew Lyon [VT] [1798] “Disorderly behavior” [spat on Rep. Roger Griswold after an exchange of insults], [Jan. 30, 1798]; charge added of “gross indecency of language in his defense before this House” [Feb. 8, 1798].

  Representative Roger Griswold [CT] and Representative Matthew Lyon [VT] “Disorderly behavior” [Rep. Griswold assaulted Representative Lyon with a “stout cane” on the House floor before the House was in session and Rep. Lyon responded by attacking Representative Griswold with fireplace tongs], [Feb. 15, 1798].

  PEAL AND CRACK

  The Liberty Bell was cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London, England, and delivered to Philadelphia in late August to early September 1752 via the ship Hibernia. In March of 1753, the bell was hung from temporary scaffolding in the square outside the State House, and it cracked when it was first rung. It was repaired and recast several times, but the crack kept coming back. />
  Eli Whitney technically didn’t invent the cotton gin; he borrowed the idea from an earlier invention and improved upon it. The “gin” part of the name was short for “engine.”

  ETYMOLOGICALLY SPEAKING

  During the debate over the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Felix Walker, congressman from Buncombe County, North Carolina, stood up in the House and said he wanted “to make a speech for Buncombe” even though the matter up for debate was irrelevant to Walker’s district. His rant was so long-winded and disjointed that a new word, “buncombe” [later respelled “bunkum”], was coined. It was defined as “Speech-making for the gratification of constituents, or to gain public applause” or “nonsense,” and from that word we get the more modern derivative, “bunk.”

  DEAL OR NO DEAL

  A loyalist spy learned that George Washington and his small Continental Army had secretly crossed the Delaware River earlier on the day after Christmas in 1776 and were headed toward Trenton, New Jersey. The spy arrived at the home of merchant Abraham Hunt where the leader of the Hessian army, Colonel Johann Rall, was drinking and playing cards. The colonel refused to break from his game of cards and demanded the spy hand over the written message, which he promptly put in his vest pocket without reading. Colonel Rall was awakened the next day to the sound of musket fire and, having no time to organize or rally his troops, suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Washington’s army. He also suffered two wounds that led to his eventual death the following day and gave the Continental Army its first victory over the British.

  GRAND OLD FLAG

  When Vermont and Kentucky came into the Union on March 4, 1791, and June 1, 1792, respectively, Congress altered the standard flag of thirteen stars and thirteen stripes and adopted a flag of fifteen stars and fifteen stripes. In 1818, after Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, and Indiana joined the Union, Congress knew that the flag would soon look like a quilt if they kept adding stripes for each new state. They decided to revert back to the original thirteen stripes and to simply add a star for every new state.

  Andrew Jackson was the first president to be handed a baby to kiss during his campaign. He refused to kiss the infant, and instead he handed the baby over to his secretary of war.

  NO, NO, SIRHAN SIRHAN

  On May 10, 1982, convicted killer Sirhan Sirhan told a parole board, “I sincerely believe that if Robert Kennedy were alive today, I believe he would not countenance singling me out for this kind of treatment. I think he would be among the first to say that, however horrible the deed I committed fourteen years ago was, that it should not be the cause for denying me equal treatment under the laws of this country.” Sirhan is serving life in prison for the June 5, 1968, assassination of Robert Kennedy.

  THE FIRST CHILD BORN ON THE MAYFLOWER

  WAS NAMED OCEANUS HOPKINS.

  CABIN FEVER

  President William Henry Harrison, who served only thirty-two days in office before his death from blood poisoning complicated by pneumonia and jaundice, campaigned as a candidate of humble beginnings. He was touted as having been born in a log cabin, and Harrison himself made references to his “log cabin home.” But he was actually born in a two-and-a-half-story red brick mansion located on a large plantation on the James River in Virginia. The only log cabin to which he could lay claim was one that happened to be on his property and that one he most definitely never lived in.

  NO BULL

  There is a much believed but erroneous story that Sitting Bull killed Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer during the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. Sitting Bull didn’t fight in the battle because he was simply too old at the time, but he did serve as his tribe’s holy man. His earlier premonitions that all his enemies would be delivered into his hands came true after Custer’s Last Stand.

  Abraham Lincoln was the first and only president to receive a patent. Patent 6469 was a very complex device, much like car safety air-bags of today, that incorporated chambers of air. But Lincoln’s invention was much grander and was designed to help heavy ships pass through shallow water.

  CUT TO THE CHASE

  In 1903, when the Gillette Company started selling safety razors with disposable blades, they were shocked when hundreds of men complained that the razors didn’t work. It was soon discovered that the stubby disgruntled customers weren’t removing the wrapping from around the blades before they put them into the razor.

  American author Sherwood Anderson died in Panama at the age of sixty-four from peritonitis. The infection resulted when the author accidentally swallowed a piece of a toothpick embedded in a martini olive.

  DOESN’T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE

  When one thinks of outrageous American folk heroes it doesn’t take long for the names Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed to pop up. Johnny Appleseed was a real person, but old Paul was a myth. Johnny Appleseed, born John Chapman [1774–1845], was an eccentric American nurseryman who introduced the apple to large parts of mainly Ohio, but also to Indiana and Illinois. Appleseed planted orchards and then turned their care over to neighbors who sold the apples and gave some of the profit to Appleseed. He would usually give it all away to charity. The image of him going barefoot is true—he never wore shoes even in winter—and it’s possible that he wore a pot on his head because Appleseed remained a wanderer his entire life and carried all his meager belongings with him.

  EVERY VOTE COUNTS

  Before he died on October 18, 1931, Thomas Edison, “The Wizard of Menlo Park,” held 1,093 U.S. patents. His first patent, granted in 1868, was for a vote counter intended to speed up the election process in Congress. Members of Congress, however, rejected the invention because they felt that, somehow, slowly tabulating votes was to their advantage.

  A correspondent for the New York Tribune who reported on politics in Europe during the Civil War later became infamous not as a newspaperman but as the father of modern communism—Karl Marx.

  LOOK AT THE FLIP SIDE

  Even though American money bears the motto “In God We Trust,” which Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase had placed on the two-cent coin in 1864, not everyone has thought it an enlightened move. In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to a friend saying, “It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements.” However, the courts have consistently upheld the use of the motto even though it has historically had opposition from constitutionalists [citing the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”].

  ON JULY 30, 1956, PRESIDENT DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

  DECLARED “IN GOD WE TRUST” THE NATIONAL MOTTO

  OF THE UNITED STATES.

  GOING OFF HALF-COCKED

  Robert Shurtleff [1760–1827] was a former indentured servant who enlisted in the Continental Army in 1782 and fought with the Fourth Massachusetts. Fellow soldiers gave Shurtleff the nickname Molly because of his inability to grow facial hair. Shurtleff was treated for a wound to the head but didn’t tell the doctor about being shot in the thigh and tried to treat the wound personally. After being struck down with a fever, it was soon discovered that facial hair wasn’t the only thing “Molly” hadn’t grown—you see, Robert Shurtleff was actually a woman named Deborah Sampson. Sampson was discharged in 1783 and was the only woman to officially fight in the Revolutionary War. She was given a small pension, and, in 1802, she became one of the first American women to speak on a lecture tour. In 1838 Congress granted her heirs a full military pension.

  THE ORIGINAL BENEDICT ARNOLD

  How did the best general and most accomplished leader in the Continental Army become America’s best known traitor? It started when the Continental Congress passed over Benedict Arnold for promotion even though if it hadn’t been for his heroic contributions to the American Revolution we would all speak with an English accent. Arnold became despondent with what he believed was an affront to his honor and accomplishments [other general
s took credit for a number of his deeds]. Then Congress investigated his accounts because of his personal debts, and he became the target of political adversaries. He was charged with corruption, and he opposed America’s new alliance with France. So when he was given command of the American fort at West Point, New York, he had had enough and decided to change sides.