The Extraordinary Book of Useless Information (11 page)

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In the election of 1828, between President John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, accusations flew that Jackson was a murderer and an adulterer and that his wife was a bigamist, who was a “dirty black wench” and prone to “open and notorious lewdness.”

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Adams was accused of serving as a pimp to the czar of Russia for providing his wife's maid as a concubine and of having a government-funded billiard table in the White House. Jackson won the election, and his wife Rachel died before the inauguration from the stress of the campaign. Jackson blamed his enemies for her death and refused to meet the outgoing President Adams as was customary, and Adams refused to attend Jackson's inauguration.

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In the 1860 election between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, Douglas called Lincoln a “horrid– looking wretch, sooty and scoundrelly in aspect, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper and the nightman,” as well as the “leanest, lankest, most ungainly mass of legs and arms and hatchet face ever strung on a single frame.” Lincoln, for his part, referred to Douglas as “about five feet nothing in height and about the same in diameter the other way.”

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In 1928, Herbert Hoover faced Catholic New York governor Al Smith. The Holland Tunnel was just being completed at the time, and Hoover supporters claimed that the tunnel would go all the way to the Vatican and that the pope would have a say in all presidential decisions if Smith were elected.

FIRST FOIBLES

Bill Clinton has admitted to having adulterous affairs with Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers. Numerous other women have accused him of sexual harassment or rape. He paid Paula Jones $850,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit she had brought against him.

In 1976, George W. Bush lost his driver's license for two years because of a DUI conviction.

PRESIDENTIAL PERIL

In 1776, future president James Monroe was shot in the shoulder during the Battle of Trenton. Surgeons could not remove the bullet. In 1785, during a visit to Mississippi, Monroe contracted malaria, from which he would suffer recurring bouts for the rest of his life. In 1830, he developed what is thought to have been tuberculois and died the next year.

In 1841, William Henry Harrison developed pneumonia after giving his inauguration speech in the rain. The lack of heating in the White House may have contributued to his death thirty days later.

While president, Teddy Roosevelt boxed regularly in the White House, until a sparring partner detached his left retina. He also liked to skinny-dip in the Potomac during the winter.

Just before he was inaugurated president, Franklin Pierce, his wife, and his son were in a terrible train wreck in which Benjamin, his only living son, was decapitated in front of him.

Pierce was an alcoholic.

William Howard Taft was known as “Big Bill,” because of his insatiable appetite and severe obesity. This condition caused him to belch and fart uncontrollably at times.

In 1924, from playing tennis on the White House courts, Calvin Coolidge's son, Calvin Coolidge Jr., developed a blister that became infected, killing him within days.

William McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He was hit twice, and doctors were unable to find the second bullet in his body. Ironically, a new invention—the X-ray machine—was on exhibit at the exposition, but doctors were afraid to use it because they feared it might have adverse side effects.

Warren G. Harding had a nervous breakdown when he was twenty-four, and convalesced at the Battle Creek Sanatorium, run by the Kellogg brothers of cereal fame.

Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke in 1896 that left him unable to write for a year. He suffered numerous smaller strokes after that, and a massive one in 1919 left him blind in one eye and wheelchair-bound.

FDR could not walk without assistance from 1921 until his death in 1945. He was terrified of being left alone, in case there was a fire and he could not escape.

Dwight David Eisenhower smoked four packs of cigarettes a day, until his doctors told him to stop. He quit cold turkey.

President Obama suffered a split lip from an elbow to the face delivered during a pickup basketball game in 2010. He required twelve stitches.

In 1997, President Bill Clinton fell down a flight of steps and needed a two-hour surgery to repair a damaged tendon in his leg.

As a teenager, Andrew Jackson acquired a scar on his hand and head from the sword of a British officer whom Jackson refused to polish the boots of while imprisoned by the British during the Revolutionary War. He also contracted smallpox while held by the British.

In 1844, President John Tyler was almost killed when the biggest naval gun at the time, known as the “Peacemaker,” exploded while he was onboard the USS
Princeton
. The accident killed the secretary of state, the secretary of the navy, several dignitaries, and Tyler's slave.

DEPARTURE DEPARTMENT

James Monroe was the third president in a row to die on the Fourth of July, in 1831. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had died exactly five years earlier.

In 1848, John Quincy Adams, who was a member of Congress at the time, collapsed on the floor of the House of Representatives due to a massive cerebral hemorrhage. He was taken to the House speaker's office inside the Capitol Building and died there two days later.

John Quincy Adams lived long enough to know both the Founding Fathers and Abraham Lincoln.

John Tyler is buried next to James Monroe in Richmond, Virginia.

Calvin Coolidge was born on July 4, 1872. He is the only president to have been born on Independence Day.

Just before his death, Chester Arthur had almost all of his personal and professional papers burned.

Woodrow Wilson, who was buried at the National Cathedral, is the only U.S. president interred in Washington, DC.

Ulysses S. Grant's Tomb in Riverside Park, New York, is the largest mausoleum in North America.

After his death, Congress granted William Henry Harrison's wife a payment of $25,000 and the right to mail letters for free.

FDR had a very close relationship with his secretary Marguerite “Missy” LeHand and his will stipulated that she would get half the income from his estate if he died before her. Sadly, she attempted suicide in 1941, a few weeks after Roosevelt became close to Princess Martha of Norway and distanced himself from her.

Lyndon Johnson died at the age of sixty-four from a heart attack, on January 22, 1973, the day before the peace treaty ending the Vietnam War was signed.

Gerald Ford lived the longest of any U.S. president—ninety-three years and 165 days, besting Ronald Reagan by forty-five days.

YAK ATTACK

While modern-day U.S. presidents speak to the public almost daily, either directly or through surrogates, chief executives in the old days pretty much remained silent. George Washington averaged just three public speeches a year, John Adams and Andrew Jackson only one, and James Madison zero.

Calvin Coolidge had a very outgoing wife, and he was rather quiet in social settings, leading to his nickname “Silent Cal.” Although perceived as quiet, with a retiring nature, Coolidge actually gave more press conferences—529—than any other president.

Dorothy Parker once said to Coolidge, “Mr. Coolidge, I've made a bet against a fellow who said it was impossible to get more than two words out of you.” Coolidge famously replied, “You lose.” When Parker heard years later that Coolidge had died, she replied, “How can they tell?”

ALL IN THE FAMILY

George Washington never had any biological children. It is believed that he was sterile.

Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, a wealthy widow who had four children from her first marriage, and he raised her two surviving kids as his own.

Washington had only met with Martha one or two times before asking for her hand.

John Adams married his third cousin Abigail Smith.

John Adams's second cousin was Founding Father Samuel Adams (who has no connection with Samuel Adams beer).

Just like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson married a widow named Martha—Martha Wayles Skelton.

Jefferson's slave, Sally Hemings, who historians believe had a sexual relationship with him, was a half-sister of Martha's, being her father's daughter.

Only two of Jefferson's six children lived to adulthood.

James Madison had eleven siblings.

As a child, Madison was known as “Jemmy.”

Madison was forty-three when he married widow Dolley Payne Todd. As Madison was not a Quaker and Dolley was, she was expelled from the religion.

John Quincy Adams was named for his mother's maternal grandfather, Colonel John Quincy, for whom the town of Quincy, Massachusetts, was named.

John Quincy Adams married London-born Louisa Catherine Johnson. She was the only foreign-born first lady in U.S. history. Adams first met Johnson when he was twelve and she was four.

Martin Van Buren married his first cousin once removed, Hannah Hoes.

Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Harrison was the father of President William Henry Harrison.

William Henry Harrison's grandson Benjamin Harrison was elected president in 1888.

Chester A. Arthur was named Chester after the doctor and family friend who delivered him.

Some questioned Arthur's eligibility to become president, as his father and mother lived in Canada on and off in the years before he was born in 1829. These nineteenth-century “birthers” never were able to disprove that Arthur was born in northern Vermont.

As of 2012, there were two of President John Tyler's grandsons still alive. Tyler was the tenth president, serving from 1841 to 1845.

A minister refused to baptize James Polk when his father refused to recognize Christianity.

Polk, who fathered no children, was probably sterile due to an operation to remove urinary stones when he was a young man.

Grover Cleveland was the only president to get married in the White House. His twenty-one-year-old bride, Frances Folsom, was the youngest first lady ever.

Zachary Taylor's son was a Confederate general and Taylor's brother was a Union general in the Civil War.

James Madison was Zachary Taylor's second cousin.

After his wife's death Benjamin Harrison married her niece. She was twenty-five years younger than him. His two adult children disapproved of the match and refused to attend the wedding.

As a child, William McKinley was known as “Wobbly Willie.”

Former first lady Barbara Pierce Bush is a distant cousin of Franklin Pierce.

Theodore Roosevelt's childhood nickname was “Teedie.”

Teddy Roosevelt stood in for his niece Eleanor's father at her wedding to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Teddy had a son named Kermit.

William Howard Taft's father, Alphonso, cofounded the Yale Skull and Bones secret society in 1832.

Woodrow Wilson's parents were Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Jessie Janet Woodrow.

James Buchanan was engaged in 1819, but his fiancée died, some believe from a drug overdose, shortly after rumors of his seeing other women began to circulate.

Buchanan never married, but lived with another man—Alabama senator Rufus King—for the fifteen years before he was elected president. Many believe the two were gay.

James Garfield's father was a wrestler.

William G. Harding married the daughter of his archrival, Florence Kling DeWolfe. Her father was so incensed at the wedding that he didn't speak to either one of them for eight years.

The first time Harry S. Truman proposed to future wife Bess, she turned him down.

Dwight D. Eisenhower's family name when his ancestors lived in Germany was Eisenhauer, meaning “iron miner.” The name got misspelled when they came to the United States.

Eisenhower was one of seven boys, each of whom was given the nickname “Ike.” One was called “Big Ike,” one “Little Ike,” and Dwight was known as “Ugly Ike.”

Eisenhower was born David Dwight, but reversed the order of his names when he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Eisenhower's second son, John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower, graduated from West Point on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Eisenhower's mother was a Jehovah's Witness.

Jimmy Carter is a cousin of June Carter Cash and a distant cousin to Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr.

Jackie Kennedy's first pregnancy ended in miscarriage, her second with the baby being stillborn, and the couple's first surviving child died as a newborn.

Lady Bird Johnson was born Claudia Alta Taylor. Her nursemaid was the first to call her “Ladybird,” after the beetle. While her father called her “Lady,” LBJ called her “Bird.”

Richard Nixon met Pat Ryan while the two were performing in a community theater. She rebuffed his advances numerous times before agreeing to date him.

Before marrying Pat, Richard Nixon was engaged to another woman, but it didn't work out.

Gerald R. Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. on July 14, 1913. Ford's mother left his father sixteen days later, after he threatened to kill her and Ford with a butcher's knife.

Two years later, Ford's mother married Gerald Rudolff Ford and the couple began calling the future president Gerald Rudolff Ford Jr. Ford didn't officially change his name until 1935.

Ford didn't find out about his biological father or his half-siblings through King until he was seventeen.

Ford married Elizabeth “Betty” Bloomer Warren, a divorced ex-dancer.

Ronald Reagan is the only president who was divorced.

Actor William Holden was best man at Reagan's second marriage, to Nancy Davis.

Even while president, Reagan called Nancy “Mommy.”

George and Barbara Bush are the longest-married first couple, having been married sixty-seven years as of 2012.

George W. Bush had a sister who died at the age of three from leukemia.