Are you ready? Millard Fillmore’s birthday, January 7

January 6, 2010

Millard Fillmore turns 210 tomorrow.

Millard Fillmore in the 1850s, NY Times image, Wikimedia

Millard Fillmore in the 1850s, wondering about that birthday cake. Wikimedia, via New York Times image

How do you plan to celebrate?

Some are planning big fetes:

From 10:00AM to 3:00PM on Sun Jan 10, 2010.

Save the date! Cayuga-Owasco Lakes Historical Society will once again host a birthday party for Millard Fillmore on Sunday, January 10 from 10:00am to 3pm. The history museum at 14 West Cayuga Street will be open for visitors and will serve refreshments in honor of our 13th President’s birthday. This will be the last official function until March, 2010. Throughout December the house will be open on Mondays 9:00 am until noon. If you have not visited lately, the recently refurbished Fillmore Room features a timeline of his life and presidency as well as photos and memorabilia.  (From Auburnpub.com)

Tradition is on a glide path at the University of Buffalo, a school founded by Millard Fillmore; from the UB Media Center:

Media Advisory: UB to Commemorate 210th Birthday of Millard Fillmore

Release Date: January 6, 2010

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The University at Buffalo will uphold a longstanding winter tradition as it celebrates the 210th anniversary of the birth of Millard Fillmore, UB’s first chancellor and the 13th president of the United States, at a ceremony to be held at 10 a.m. Jan. 7 at Fillmore’s gravesite in Forest Lawn Cemetery.

The outdoor ceremony marking the 210th anniversary of Fillmore’s birth on Jan. 7, 1800, is hosted by UB, the Forest Lawn Group and the Buffalo Club. It is free and open to the public.

The commemoration address will be delivered by James A. Willis, UB executive vice president for university support services. Wreaths will be presented by Col. Timothy G. Vaughn, 107th Mission Support Group Commander, New York Air National Guard, representing the White House; Marc Adler, adjunct professor in Millard Fillmore College and immediate past president of the UB Alumni Association, representing UB; Charles M. Mitschow, president of the Buffalo Club; and Dean H. Jewett, chairman of the board of the Forest Lawn Group.

The invocation will be presented by The Rev. Joel Miller, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo. The UB Police Color Guard will present the flags, and West Richter, a UB student and member of the UB Marching Band, will play taps.

A reception with refreshments will immediately follow in the Forest Lawn Chapel.

Fillmore helped establish UB, serving as its first chancellor from 1847 until his death in 1874. He also was instrumental in framing the charter transforming the Village of Buffalo into the City of Buffalo. He helped establish Buffalo General Hospital, the SPCA, the Buffalo Historical Society, the Fine Arts Academy, Buffalo Savings Bank, Buffalo’s public library system and the Buffalo Club. As a congressman, he secured funding to enlarge the Buffalo Harbor and expand the Erie Canal. Fillmore served as president from 1850 to 1853.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of UB’s stewardship of Fillmore’s service, but the tradition to honor Fillmore dates back to 1937. From 1937 until 1965, the ceremonies were staged by the City of Buffalo and the Buffalo Board of Education. The events were administered by Irving R. Templeton, a 1909 graduate of UB, who scheduled two programs annually on or near Jan. 7, one in City Hall and one in Forest Lawn.

The responsibility shifted to UB when Templeton died in 1965. Although UB participated in the Fillmore birthday commemoration during Templeton’s stewardship, the university took over the ceremonies and made it a community event starting in 1966.

Media arrangements: Charles Anzalone onsite at 440-8824.

According to Buffalo Rising!, tradition wins out at Forest Lawn, New York, too:

By Sandy Starks

Okay… the frenzy of holiday visits and activities are past, the decorations are put away, and the final game in regular season football has been played. The winter doldrums are about to set in, and what are we to do?

The Forest Lawn Cemetery Heritage Foundation has come up with programming that will help you get over the inevitable winter blues. We all love the Summer in the Cemetery tours the cemetery offered each year, so in 2010 the folks at Forest Lawn have decided to celebrate the winter season by hosting a four-part series of concerts and lectures to be held at the historic chapel, located in the heart of the cemetery.

On the second Sunday of each month, January through April, at 2PM, programs will include a mini concert, followed by a lecture on a topic related to Forest Lawn and the History of Buffalo. This Sunday January 10th, the topic will be The History of Music in Buffalo.

Music Librarian, Raya Lee, teams up with one of Buffalo’s favorite musical talents, Bruce Woody, to discuss how music evolved in Buffalo. The lecture includes information about the opening of the first music store in 1827, the first performance of super-star Jenny Lind in 1851, an overview featuring the greatest musical artists of the day, their stories, and the birth of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

People featured in the lecture include Millard Fillmore, James P. Sheppard, owner of the first music store in Buffalo; Marian de Forest, Zorah Berry, and conductors John Lund and Charles Kuhn. Tunes, some we are familiar with such as “Shuffle off to Buffalo,” “Buffalo Gals,” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (Harold Arlen), will be played throughout the lecture.

The series continues with a program on February 14th, with The Entertainers and Writers of Forest Lawn, presented by: Forest Lawn researcher, Patrick Kavanagh with a musical presentation performed by Buffalo musicians Billy McEwen and Joe Head.

Many of us know about Darwin Martin of the Larkin Soap Company but there is much to know about John Larkin and the company itself. The March 14th program, A Review of the Larkin Soap Company – A Man and His Products will familiarize us the dynamic Buffalo business. Larkin Enthusiast Jerry Puma will talk about the Larkin Soap Company and bring some of his Larkin collection for you to view. A musical presentation by The Docenko Brothers rounds out this fun yet informative day.

The series concludes on April 11th, with a talk by Author Laura Pederson (if you haven’t read the book Buffalo Gal yet, that is another way to beat the winter blues), talking about Smokestacks & Skyscrapers: A Lighthearted History of Buffalo. The musical presentation will be by Grace Stumberg, a rising Buffalo musical talent and student at Villa Maria College.

Admission is $15. Tickets may be purchased at Forest Lawn’s administration office, 1411 Delaware Avenue or by calling 716.885.1600. Ask about the discount that is available for all four programs.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Millard Fillmore, Whig candidate for Vice President

January 5, 2010

Campaign print from 1848 presidential election:

Millard Fillmore, Whig candidate for Vice President - Library of Congress

Millard Fillmore, Whig candidate for Vice President - Currier and Ives print, 1848, After a daguerreotype by John Plumbe, Jr. - Library of Congress

January 7, 2010, is the 210th anniversary of Millard Fillmore’s birth.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Millard Fillmore in cartoons: “Buck” takes the pot (1856 presidential elections)

January 1, 2010

The first Republican Party nominee to the presidency, Gen. John C. Fremont, has stumbled and is spread out on the floor.  Former Whig, now American Native Party (Know-Nothings) candidate Millard Fillmore carries a lantern, but is blindfolded.  James Buchanan takes the pot of soup, victory in the 1856 presidential race.

From the Library of Congress American Memory Collection, published by Currier and Ives in 1856:

Buck Takes the Pot, 1856 Presidential Election cartoon - Library of Congress, Alfred Whital Stern Lincolnia Collection

"Buck Takes the Pot, 1856 cartoon published by Currier and Ives - Library of Congress

Captions in the balloons, as read by the Library of Congress:

SUMMARY: A pro-Buchanan satire, critical of the divisive or sectionalist appeal of the other two presidential contenders in the 1856 race. “Buck” or Buchanan (left) has evidently won a card game over Fremont (fallen at right) and Millard Fillmore (at right, blindfolded).

Holding four aces and a large cauldron of “Union Soup” Buchanan vows, “I have fairly beaten them at their own game, and now that I have became possessed of this great “Reservoir” I will see that each and Every State of this great and glorious Union receives its proper Share of this sacred food.”

Fremont has tripped over a “Rock of Disunion” and fallen to the ground, still holding his large spoon “Abolition.” He laments, “Oh, that I had been born a dog!–This is too much for mortal man to bear. Had I not stumbled over that “Blasted” rock I might have reached the fount of my ambition and with this good ladle ‘Deal’ to the North, and leave the South to ‘Shuffle & Cut’ off their mortal coil, by starvation, I shall have to ‘Pass’!”

Behind Fremont, Fillmore wanders blindfolded, holding a Know Nothing lantern (reflecting his party’s nativist affiliation) and a spoon. He despairs, “I regret to say that ‘Going It Blind’ is a loosing Game, I did hope that I would be able to dip my spoon in the Pot without much difficulty.–My Hand is played out–‘Buck’ wins, and I am satisfied–Four aces can’t be beat! and Buck holds them.”

One severe handicap of these 19th century cartoons:  They are much too wordy!

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Millard Fillmore in cartoons: “The Great Presidential Race of 1856”

December 31, 2009

Four years out of the presidency, some voters thought Millard Fillmore might be a good candidate again.  His old Whig Party was dead, but he won the nomination of the Know-Nothings, or the Native American Party (“Native American” not meaning “American Indian” at the time).

In this race, he was portrayed in a number of editorial cartoons.

The Great Presidential Race of 1856, political cartoon featuring Millard Fillmore - LOC Lincolnia collection

The Great Presidential Race of 1856, political cartoon featuring Millard Fillmore, and some of the ugly biases of the day. Library of Congress, Alfred Whital Stern Lincolnia Collection - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,attributed to J. L. Magee

* Update:  Links to the cartoon are working badly, or not at all; check image at this thumbnail: 

Millard Fillmore in the 1856 presidential race (warning - some images may be offensive for racial portrayals)

Remember, this was two years before Sen. Stephen Douglas and former Rep. Abraham Lincoln squared off for the Illinois U.S. Senate seat in a series of debates.  This was four years prior to Lincoln’s election as president, and five years to the Civil War.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Millard Fillmore’s 1856 campaign poster, on the Native American Party ticket

December 31, 2009

Millard Fillmore 1856 campaign poster - Library of Congress

Notes from the Library of Congress:

MILLARD FILLMORE, AMERICAN CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

CREATED/PUBLISHED
1856.

SUMMARY
A large woodcut proof for a campaign banner or poster for the Native American party’s 1856 presidential candidate. A bust portrait of Millard Fillmore appears in a roundel, flanked by allegorical figures of Justice (left) and Liberty (right). Both figures wear classical gowns and tiaras. Justice holds a large sword and scales, Liberty a staff and Phrygian cap and the Constitution. Atop the roundel perches an eagle, with American flags on either side. Below are a document “The Union” (left) and bundled fasces (right).

NOTES
Entered . . . 1856, by Baker & Godwin . . . New York.

The Library’s proof was deposited for copyright on July 10, 1856.

Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1856-6.

Notice the striking resemblance to this 1860 campaign poster:

Poster for campaign of Abraham Lincoln for President, 1860 - Baker & Godwin, publisher; Library of Congress

Poster for campaign of Abraham Lincoln for President, 1860 - Baker & Godwin, publisher; Library of Congress

The Library of Congress notes:

SUMMARY: A print for a large campaign banner or poster for Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln. It features a central roundel with a bust portrait of the candidate, flanked by standing deities Justice and Liberty. Justice (left) holds scales and a sword, while Liberty (right) holds the Constitution and a staff with Phrygian cap. An eagle with wings spread perches atop the roundel, behind which are several American flags on pointed staffs. Below the roundel a document “The Union” and a fasces lie on the ground. The image appears to have been printed from the same blocks (or a stereotype of them) as Baker & Godwin’s 1856 banner for Millard Fillmore (no. 1856-6). Only the central portrait has changed.

MEDIUM: 1 print on calendered paper : woodcut with letterpress ; image 39.3 x 55 cm.

CREATED/PUBLISHED: [New York] : Published and for sale by Baker & Godwin, Tribune Buildings, N.Y., c1860.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

President Millard Fillmore, by John Sartain

December 31, 2009

John Sartain’s (1808-1897) engraving of Millard Fillmore as President, published by William Smith in Philadelphia, sometime between 1850 and 1853.  Image from the Library of Congress’s collection of portraits of the presidents.

President Millard Fillmore, by John Sartain - Library of Congress

President Millard Fillmore, engraving by John Sartain (1808-1897) - Library of Congress

January 7, 2009, is the 209th anniversary of the birth of Millard Fillmore.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Millard Fillmore in 1858

December 30, 2009

R. J. Compton lithograph of Millard Fillmore, published in 1858 - Library of Congress

Millard Fillmore lithograph, published March 14, 1858, by R. J. Compton - Library of Congress image

Millard Fillmore’s birthday will be celebrated on January 7.  He was born January 7, 1800, and was our 13th president.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Millard Fillmore’s birthday, January 7 – How will you celebrate in 2010?

December 30, 2009

In honor of Millard Fillmore’s birthday on January 7, I’ll post a collection of images of Fillmore and his administration that I’ve come across over the past year.  Though photography was invented in 1837, and though Fillmore was thought to be a handsome man, not many images of our 13th president survive on the internet.  For that matter, there is not a lot of good biographical information, either.

Many of these images come from the Library of Congress’s collections.

Millard Fillmore, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Collection - Duval image

Millard Fillmore, undated lithograph, Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has one copy of a print of this image.  A note with the image says “Duval,” but little is known about it otherwise, at least to the Library of Congress.  No date is given.  Judging from the color of his hair, I think this may be an image done for his unsuccessful 1856 campaign.

Only a tiny handful of images of Fillmore show up regularly — this is not one of them.  I wonder whether my posting it here will have any effect in spreading its popularity.

Fillmore will perhaps always remain enigmatic, out of step with his own times in many ways, and forced to the edges of history by other events and people more in the mainstream.  Fillmore was born January 7, 1800, 24 days after the death of George Washington (d. December 14, 1799), and lived through the administration of Abraham Lincoln, and the Civil War.  Fillmore had some things in common with both of those great presidents, but no real dealings except for his opposition to Lincoln.

History uneasily deals with such men, who refuse to be put into pigeon holes.

Resources:

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Posted by Ed Darrell

A neglected, “Neglected Anniversary” – Mencken, Fillmore and the bathtub

December 29, 2009

Otherwise occupied, I nearly forgot:  92 years ago yesterday, on December 28, 1917, this column by H. L. Mencken was published in The New York Evening Mail:

A Neglected Anniversary

Mencken on April 7, 1933 - end of low-alcohol beer - Baltimore Sun Photo

H. L. Mencken at approximately 12:30 a.m., April 7, 1933, at the Rennert Hotel, corner of Saratoga and Liberty Streets, 17 years later, not neglecting a sudsy anniversary - Baltimore Sun photo

On December 20 there flitted past us, absolutely without public notice, one of the most important profane anniversaries in American history, to wit, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the introduction of the bathtub into These States. Not a plumber fired a salute or hung out a flag. Not a governor proclaimed a day of prayer. Not a newspaper called attention to the day.

True enough, it was not entirely forgotten. Eight or nine months ago one of the younger surgeons connected with the Public Health Service in Washington happened upon the facts while looking into the early history of public hygiene, and at his suggestion a committee was formed to celebrate the anniversary with a banquet. But before the plan was perfected Washington went dry (This was war-time Prohibition, preliminary to the main catastrophe. — HLM), and so the banquet had to be abandoned. As it was, the day passed wholly unmarked, even in the capital of the nation.

Bathtubs are so common today that it is almost impossible to imagine a world without them. They are familiar to nearly everyone in all incorporated towns; in most of the large cities it is unlawful to build a dwelling house without putting them in; even on the farm they have begun to come into use. And yet the first American bathtub was installed and dedicated so recently as December 20, 1842, and, for all I know to the contrary, it may still be in existence and in use.

Curiously enough, the scene of its setting up was Cincinnati, then a squalid frontier town, and even today surely no leader in culture. But Cincinnati, in those days as in these, contained many enterprising merchants, and one of them was a man named Adam Thompson, a dealer in cotton and grain. Thompson shipped his grain by steamboat down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, and from there sent it to England in sailing vessels. This trade frequently took him to England, and in that country, during the ’30s, he acquired the habit of bathing.

The bathtub was then still a novelty in England. It had been introduced in 1828 by Lord John Russell and its use was yet confined to a small class of enthusiasts. Moreover, the English bathtub, then as now, was a puny and inconvenient contrivance — little more, in fact, than a glorified dishpan — and filling and emptying it required the attendance of a servant. Taking a bath, indeed, was a rather heavy ceremony, and Lord John in 1835 was said to be the only man in England who had yet come to doing it every day.

Thompson, who was of inventive fancy — he later devised the machine that is still used for bagging hams and bacon — conceived the notion that the English bathtub would be much improved if it were made large enough to admit the whole body of an adult man, and if its supply of water, instead of being hauled to the scene by a maid, were admitted by pipes from a central reservoir and run off by the same means. Accordingly, early in 1842 he set about building the first modern bathroom in his Cincinnati home — a large house with Doric pillars, standing near what is now the corner of Monastery and Orleans streets.

There was then, of course, no city water supply, at least in that part of the city, but Thompson had a large well in his garden, and he installed a pump to lift its water to the house. This pump, which was operated by six Negroes, much like an old-time fire engine, was connected by a pipe with a cypress tank in the garret of the house, and here the water was stored until needed. From the tank two other pipes ran to the bathroom. One, carrying cold water, was a direct line. The other, designed to provide warm water, ran down the great chimney of the kitchen, and was coiled inside it like a giant spring.

The tub itself was of new design, and became the grandfather of all the bathtubs of today. Thompson had it made by James Cullness, the leading Cincinnati cabinetmaker of those days, and its material was Nicaragua mahogany. It was nearly seven feet long and fully four feet wide. To make it water-tight, the interior was lined with sheet lead, carefully soldered at the joints. The whole contraption weighed about 1,750 pounds, and the floor of the room in which it was placed had to be reinforced to support it. The exterior was elaborately polished.

In this luxurious tub Thompson took two baths on December 20, 1842 — a cold one at 8 a.m. and a warm one some time during the afternoon. The warm water, heated by the kitchen fire, reached a temperature of 105 degrees. On Christmas day, having a party of gentlemen to dinner, he exhibited the new marvel to them and gave an exhibition of its use, and four of them, including a French visitor, Col. Duchanel, risked plunges into it. The next day all Cincinnati — then a town of about 100,000 people — had heard of it, and the local newspapers described it at length and opened their columns to violent discussions of it.

The thing, in fact, became a public matter, and before long there was bitter and double- headed opposition to the new invention, which had been promptly imitated by several other wealthy Cincinnatians. On the one hand it was denounced as an epicurean and obnoxious toy from England, designed to corrupt the democratic simplicity of the Republic, and on the other hand it was attacked by the medical faculty as dangerous to health and a certain inviter of “phthisic, rheumatic fevers, inflammation of the lungs and the whole category of zymotic diseases.” (I quote from the Western Medical Repository of April 23, 1843.)

The noise of the controversy soon reached other cities, and in more than one place medical opposition reached such strength that it was reflected in legislation. Late in 1843, for example, the Philadelphia Common Council considered an ordinance prohibiting bathing between November 1 and March 15, and it failed of passage by but two votes. During the same year the legislature of Virginia laid a tax of $30 a year on all bathtubs that might be set up, and in Hartford, Providence, Charleston and Wilmington (Del.) special and very heavy water rates were levied upon those who had them. Boston, very early in 1845, made bathing unlawful except upon medical advice, but the ordinance was never enforced and in 1862 it was repealed.

This legislation, I suspect, had some class feeling in it, for the Thompson bathtub was plainly too expensive to be owned by any save the wealthy; indeed, the common price for installing one in New York in 1845 was $500. Thus the low caste politicians of the time made capital by fulminating against it, and there is even some suspicion of political bias in many of the early medical denunciations. But the invention of the common pine bathtub, lined with zinc, in 1847, cut off this line of attack, and thereafter the bathtub made steady progress.

The zinc tub was devised by John F. Simpson, a Brooklyn plumber, and his efforts to protect it by a patent occupied the courts until 1855. But the decisions were steadily against him, and after 1848 all the plumbers of New York were equipped for putting in bathtubs. According to a writer in the Christian Register for July 17, 1857, the first one in New York was opened for traffic on September 12, 1847, and by the beginning of 1850 there were already nearly 1,000 in use in the big town.

After this medical opposition began to collapse, and among other eminent physicians Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes declared for the bathtub, and vigorously opposed the lingering movement against it in Boston. The American Medical Association held its annual meeting in Boston in 1849, and a poll of the members in attendance showed that nearly 55 per cent of them now regarded bathing as harmless, and that more than 20 per cent advocated it as beneficial. At its meeting in 1850 a resolution was formally passed giving the imprimatur of the faculty to the bathtub. The homeopaths followed with a like resolution in 1853.

But it was the example of President Millard Fillmore that, even more than the grudging medical approval, gave the bathtub recognition and respectability in the United States. While he was still Vice-President, in March, 1850, he visited Cincinnati on a stumping tour, and inspected the original Thompson tub. Thompson himself was now dead, but his bathroom was preserved by the gentlemen who had bought his house from the estate. Fillmore was entertained in this house and, according to Chamberlain, his biographer, took a bath in the tub. Experiencing no ill effects, he became an ardent advocate of the new invention, and on succeeding to the Presidency at Taylor’s death, July 9, 1850, he instructed his secretary of war, Gen. Charles M. Conrad, to invite tenders for the construction of a bathtub in the White House.

This action, for a moment, revived the old controversy, and its opponents made much of the fact that there was no bathtub at Mount Vernon, or at Monticello, and that all the Presidents and other magnificoes of the past had got along without any such monarchical luxuries. The elder Bennett, in the New York Herald, charged that Fillmore really aspired to buy and install in the White House a porphyry and alabaster bath that had been used by Louis Philippe at Versailles. But Conrad, disregarding all this clamor, duly called for bids, and the contract was presently awarded to Harper & Gillespie, a firm of Philadelphia engineers, who proposed to furnish a tub of thin cast iron, capable of floating the largest man.

This was installed early in 1851, and remained in service in the White House until the first Cleveland administration, when the present enameled tub was substituted. The example of the President soon broke down all that remained of the old opposition, and by 1860, according to the newspaper advertisements of the time, every hotel in New York had a bathtub, and some had two and even three. In 1862 bathing was introduced into the Army by Gen. McClellan, and in 1870 the first prison bathtub was set up at Moyamensing Prison, in Philadelphia.

So much for the history of the bathtub in America. One is astonished, on looking into it, to find that so little of it has been recorded. The literature, in fact, is almost nil. But perhaps this brief sketch will encourage other inquirers and so lay the foundation for an adequate celebration of the centennial in 1942.

(Text courtesy of Poor Mojo’s Almanac(k))

The entire history was a hoax composed by Mencken.

Even conservative wackoes appreciate the column.

Content with his private joke, Mencken remained silent about the hoax until a follow-up article, “Melancholy Reflections,” appeared in the Chicago Tribune on May 23, 1926, some eight years later. This was Mencken’s confession. It was also an appeal for reason to the American public.

His hoax was a joke gone bad. “A Neglected Anniversary” had been printed and reprinted hundreds of times in the intervening years. Mencken had been receiving letters of corroboration from some readers and requests for more details from others. His history of the bathtub had been cited repeatedly by other writers and was starting to find its way into reference works. As Mencken noted in “Melancholy Reflections,” his “facts” “began to be used by chiropractors and other such quacks as evidence of the stupidity of medical men. They began to be cited by medical men as proof of the progress of public hygiene.” And, because Fillmore’s presidency had been so uneventful, on the date of his birthday calendars often included the only interesting tidbit of information they could find: Fillmore had introduced the bathtub into the White House. (Even the later scholarly disclosure that Andrew Jackson had a bathtub installed there in 1834—years before Mencken claimed it was even invented—did not diminish America’s conviction that Fillmore was responsible.)

(No, dear reader, probably not correct; surely John Adams brought a bathtub with him when he moved into the White House, then called the President’s Mansion.  Plumbing, hot water, and finally hot water to a bathtub in the president’s residence, were installed between 1830 and 1853, as best I can determine.)

Mencken wrote an introduction to the piece in a later book,  A Mencken Chrestomathy (Alfred A. Knopf, 1949):

The success of this idle hoax, done in time of war, when more serious writing was impossible, vastly astonished me. It was taken gravely by a great many other newspapers, and presently made its way into medical literature and into standard reference books. It had, of course, no truth in it whatsoever, and I more than once confessed publicly that it was only a jocosity . . .  Scarcely a month goes by that I do not find the substance of it reprinted, not as foolishness but as fact, and not only in newspapers but in official documents and other works of the highest pretensions.

There’s a moral to the story:  Strive for accuracy!

So, Dear Reader, check for accuracy, and question authority.

Resources:

Warn others of the hoax!

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2 Comments | 1914-1918, A Good Story, Accuracy, Fillmore's bathtub, H. L. Mencken, History, Hoaxes, How do we know what we know, Journalism, Millard Fillmore, Newspapers, White House, World War I | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Zachary Taylor’s death, and Millard Fillmore’s ascendance to the presidency — in detail

July 17, 2009

Elektratig recounts President Zachary Taylor’s death, and Millard Fillmore’s swearing in as the 13th president, in deeper and more interesting detail than I had.

Bookmark that site, social studies teachers: It’s a great site for details on Millard Fillmore that your students won’t find easily anywhere else — and on Zachary Taylor, and on politics and history in general in the two decades prior to the Civil War.  Go see:  “Zachary Taylor is no more!”

3 Comments | History, Millard Fillmore, Presidents, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Historical anniversary: July 10, 1850, Millard Fillmore succeeds to the presidency

July 10, 2009

Millard Fillmore was elected vice president largely because he was on the ticket with the very popular Gen. Zachary Taylor, hero of the Mexican War.

About 15 months into his presidency, President Taylor took ill  after presiding over July 4 festivities in blazing heat.  He died on July 9, 1850; Vice President Millard Fillmore took the oath as president the next day, and served out the term.

Millard Fillmore in an 1850 lithograph by Francis DAvignon after a photograph by Matthew Brady (unclear if this was before or after his ascending to the presidency) - Library of Congress image

Millard Fillmore in an 1850 lithograph by Francis D'Avignon after a photograph by Matthew Brady (unclear if this was before or after his ascending to the presidency) - Library of Congress image

Taylor had encouraged New Mexico and California to draw up state constitutions, which would have disallowed slavery in those states.  To southern leaders who threatened secession, Taylor promised to personally lead the army that would hold the union together by force, and personally hang those who had proposed rebellion.

Fillmore had presided over the Senate during months of furious debate on issues that always seemed to come down to slavery.  Because he didn’t hold to the views of the Whig Party which had elected the Taylor-Fillmore ticket, even more than Taylor had strayed, the cabinet resigned.  Fillmore appointed Daniel Webster as Secretary of State, and proceeded to push for compromise on issues to avoid war.  His machinations helped get California admitted as a free state, but left New Mexico as a territory.  His support of the Fugitive Slave Act alienated even more Whigs, and by 1852 the Whigs refused to nominate Fillmore for a term of his own.  He left office in 1853, succeded by Franklin Pierce.

Fillmore’s greatest accomplishment as president, perhaps, was his sending a fleet of ships to Japan to force that nation to open up to trade from the U.S.  The political furor over the Fugitive Slave Act, the Missouri Compromise, and other issues around slavery, tend to eclipse the memory of the good that Fillmore did.

Nota bene:  Controversy surrounded the death of Taylor.  Because he had threatened southern secessionists and incurred anger from several other groups, from the time of his death there were rumors he had been poisoned with arsenic.  Officially, the cause of death was gastroenteritis; popular accounts note that he had, in the heat of July, drunk milk and eaten cherries and cucumbers.  Certainly strep, staph or other bacteria in the milk could have created a problem.  In 1991 a team led by George Washington University Law Professor James Starrs exhumed Taylor’s body from his Louisville, Kentucky burial plot, and tested his remains for arsenic at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  Analysis presented to the Kentucky medical examiner indicated aresenic levels way too low for a poisoning victim.

2 Comments | History, History images, Millard Fillmore, Presidents, Slavery | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Abigail Powers Fillmore (Women’s History Month)

March 18, 2009

Millard Fillmore’s life was shaped by the women he loved.  His first wife, Abigail Powers, probably was the chief spur for his drive which took him to the presidency.  In the White House, she stood for education and improvement of American culture — she founded the White House Library in 1851.  A remarkable woman you should know more about.

Abigail Fillmore, Library of Congress image

Abigail Fillmore, Library of Congress image

Short bio of Abigail Powers Fillmore, and her tragic death, at LynnSpirit.  Several other women are profiled — few you’ve heard of, most you should know.

(Oops – her birthday was yesterday, March 17.)

2 Comments | Education, History, Millard Fillmore, White House, Women's rights | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Millard Fillmore and March 8: Hurrah! and R.I.P.

March 8, 2009

Commodore Matthew C. Perrys squadron in Japan, 1854 - CSSVirginia.org image

The Black Ships — Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s squadron in Japan, 1854 – CSSVirginia.org image from Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion, Boston, May 15, 1852 (also, see BaxleyStamps.com); obviously the drawing was published prior to the expedition’s sailing.

On March 8, 1854, Commodore Matthew C. Perry landed for the second time in Japan, having been sent on a mission a year earlier by President Millard Fillmore.  On this trip, within 30 days he concluded a treaty with Japan which opened Japan to trade with the U.S. (the Convention of Kanagawa), and which began a cascade of events that opened Japan to trade with the world.

Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1852 photograph, Library of Congress via WikiMedia

Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1852 photograph, Library of Congress via WikiMedia

Within 50 years Japan would come to dominate the seas of the the Western Pacific, and would become a major world power.

1854 japanese woodblock print of U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry. Peabody Museum: The characters located across the top read from right to left, A North American Figure and Portrait of Perry. According to the Peabody Essex Museum, this print may be one of the first depictions of westerners in Japanese art, and exaggerates Perrys western features (oblong face, down-turned eyes, bushy brown eyebrows, and large nose). But compare with photo above, right. Peabody Museum holding, image from Library of Congress via WikiMedia

1854 japanese woodblock print of U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry. Peabody Museum: “The characters located across the top read from right to left, ‘A North American Figure’ and ‘Portrait of Perry.’ According to the Peabody Essex Museum, ‘this print may be one of the first depictions of westerners in Japanese art, and exaggerates Perry’s western features (oblong face, down-turned eyes, bushy brown eyebrows, and large nose).'” But compare with photo above, right. Peabody Museum holding, image from Library of Congress via WikiMedia

Then, 20 years later, on March 8, 1874, Millard Fillmore died in Buffalo, New York.

The Perry expedition to Japan was the most famous, and perhaps the greatest recognized achievement of Fillmore’s presidency.  Fillmore had started the U.S. on a course of imperialistic exploitation and exploration of the world, with other expeditions of much less success to Africa and South America, according to the story of his death in The New York Times:

The general policy of his Administration was wise and liberal, and he left the country at peace with all the world and enjoying a high degree of prosperity. His Administration was distinguished by the Lopez fillibustering expeditions to Cuba, which were discountenanced by the Government, and by several important expeditions to distant lands. The expedition to Japan under Commodore Perry resulted in a favorable treaty with that country, but that dispatched under Lieut. Lynch, in search of gold in the interior of Africa, failed of its object. Exploring expeditions were also sent to the Chinese seas, and to the Valley of the Amazon.

Here we are in 2013, 160 years after the end of Millard Fillmore’s presidency, 159 years after Commodore Perry’s success on the mission to Japan Fillmore sent him on, 139 years after Millard Fillmore’s death, and not yet have we come to grips with Fillmore’s real legacy in U.S. history. Most of that legacy, we don’t even acknowledge in public. Santayana’s Ghost paces nervously.

6 Comments | foreign affairs, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, History and art, History images, History museums, Japan, Millard Fillmore, Transportation, Travel, Turning Points | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: Millard Fillmore on Peruvian guano

February 16, 2009

You couldn’t make this stuff up if you were Monty Python.

English: Millard Fillmore White House portrait

Millard Fillmore’s White House portrait, via Wikipedia

President Millard Fillmore, in the State of the Union Address, December 2, 1850

Peruvian guano has become so desirable an article to the agricultural interest of the United States that it is the duty of the Government to employ all the means properly in its power for the purpose of causing that article to be imported into the country at a reasonable price. Nothing will be omitted on my part toward accomplishing this desirable end. I am persuaded that in removing any restraints on this traffic the Peruvian Government will promote its own best interests, while it will afford a proof of a friendly disposition toward this country, which will be duly appreciated.

Update, May 22, 2013:  Phosphorus becomes even more critical, according to Mother Jones (phosphorus is a key component of bat and bird guano).

8 Comments | Economics, History, Millard Fillmore, Presidents | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Remembering Millard Fillmore on his birthday

January 7, 2009

Millard Fillmore was born January 7, 1800. Had he lived, Millard Fillmore would be 209 years old today, and probably very cranky.

Millard Fillmore, official portrait - WhiteHouseHistory.org; 1857, by George P. A. Healy

Millard Fillmore, official portrait - WhiteHouseHistory.org; 1857, by George P. A. Healy

Would you blame him?  He opened Japan to trade.  He got from Mexico the land necessary to make Los Angeles a great world city and the Southern Pacific a great railroad, without firing a shot.  Fillmore promoted economic development of the Mississippi River.  He managed to keep a fractious nation together despite itself for another three years.  Fillmore let end the practice of presidents using slaves to staff the White House (then called “the President’s Mansion”).

Then in 1852 his own party refused to nominate him for a full term, making him the last Whig to be president.  And to add insult to ignominy, H. L. Mencken falsely accused him of being known only for adding a bathtub to the White House, something he didn’t do.

As Antony said of Caesar, the good was interred with his bones — but Millard Fillmore doesn’t even get credit for whatever evil he might have done:  Fillmore is remembered most for being the butt of a hoax gone awry, committed years after his death.  Or worse, he’s misremembered for what the hoax alleged he did.

Even beneficiaries of his help promoting the Mississippi River have taken his name off their annual celebration of the event.  Fillmore has been eclipsed, even in mediocrity (is there still a Millard Fillmore Society in Washington?).

Happy birthday, Millard Fillmore.

The Buffalo News, in the town Fillmore loved and worked to make great, said this morning:

Today is Millard Fillmore’s 209th birthday. Every year we vow to join those hardy folks from the University at Buffalo for their birthday observance at the monument to the 13th President on his grave in Section F in Forest Lawn. And every year the weather convinces us to stay inside. If you want to brave it, it starts at 10 a.m. There’s a reception in the chapel after the ceremony.

I’m in Dallas.  You won’t see me there.

All the living presidents meet today in the White House.  Will they toast Fillmore?

Millard Fillmore was a man of great civic spirit, a man who answered the call to serve even when most others couldn’t hear it at all.  He was a successful lawyer, despite having had only six months of formal education (a tribute to non-high school graduates and lifelong learning).  Unable to save the Union, he established the University of Buffalo and the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society.  And, it is said of him, that Queen Victoria said he was the most handsome man she had ever met.

A guy like that deserves a toast, don’t you think?

Resources:

9 Comments | H. L. Mencken, History, Hoaxes, Millard Fillmore, Politics, Presidents | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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