Dead President Fact Sheet

After reading the excellent “Dead Presidents,” I realized, because it was written thematically rather than sequentially, that I was a bit muddled on my presidential trivia facts. So I went back through the book, like a crazy person, gave myself homework, and made a list.

Here’s a bunch of trivia about the presidents you probably didn’t know. You’re welcome.

• George Washington- a tomb was built for him in the Capitol rotunda, but he isn’t buried in it
• John Adams- died on July 4 and was kinda terrible father
• Thomas Jefferson- “the Sage of Monticello”; didn’t include his presidency on his obelisk’s list of personal achievements
• James Madison- his grave went unmarked for two decades after he had to sell his land to pay off his stepson’s gambling debt
• James Monroe- ran unopposed for reelection, the only president (besides Washington) to do so
• John Quincy Adams- died in the House of Representatives of a heart attack/very vocal “NO” vote
• Andrew Jackson- “Old Hickory”; his pet parrot cursed loud and long at his funeral and had to be removed
• Martin Van Buren- known as “The Little Magician”
• William Henry Harrison- died after 1 month in office, so soon his family hadn’t even made it up to Washington yet
• John Tyler- known as “His Accidency.” He had to hire the first presidential bodyguards.
• James K. Polk- micromanaged his Cabinet and the whole presidency
• Zachary Taylor- was thought to have been poisoned, was disinterred in the 1990s…nope, not poisoned.
• Millard Fillmore- official White House biography calls him an “uninspiring man”
• Franklin Pierce- Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote his campaign biography; his son died in the days before he took office, leading his wife to believe Franklin had somehow caused God’s wrath to be directed at them
• James Buchanan- he adopted his niece, Harried Lane, after her parents died; as he was unmarried, she served as first lady
• Abraham Lincoln- “the Great Emancipator”; was taken on the “Great American Death Tour” after he died; the impromptu stage built for his funeral has been used in every state funeral since
• Andrew Johnson- first impeached president, but he wasn’t removed! He hired the first presidential doctor.
• Ulysses S. Grant- Mark Twain bought the publishing rights to his memoir
• Rutherford B. Hayes- “Rud”; created the first presidential center to protect/display his papers and artifacts; his election was known as the “ugliest, most contentious election ever”
• James A. Garfield- killed by an assassin–with an assist from his terrible doctors
• Chester Arthur-“Dude President”; first act as president was to cry in a bedroom
• Grover Cleveland- big supporter of Hawaiian independence
• Benjamin Harrison- grandson of William H. Harrison but didn’t like talking about it; gave us the tradition of the White House Christmas tree; also he married his niece, which is pretty icky
• William McKinley- Mt. McKinley (in Alaska) was named after the president by an opportunistic prospector who was trying to lobby for the gold standard; the name was reverted to the original Diwali this year
• Theodore Roosevelt- his daughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth was considered one of America’s greatest political wits and she was a pretty rowdy teenager, too
• William Howard Taft- that bathtub story? It’s not true! ….But he did stress-eat and develop sleep apnea while in the White House
• Woodrow Wilson- buried at the Washington National Cathedral with Helen Keller and a few other notables
• Warren G. Harding- had the first presidential celebrity pet, his dog “Laddie Boy”
• Calvin Coolidge- “Silent Cal”; a fan of artisinal cheese; his dad swore him into office at 2 in the morning, upon which they went back to bed
• Herbert Hoover- invented a sport called “Hoover-Ball”
• Franklin D. Roosevelt- first to plan his presidential library while in office, including a paper mache sphinx head of himself (you’d have to read it, it’s too hard to explain)
• Harry S Truman- gave personal tours of his presidential library
• Dwight D. Eisenhower- “Ike”; a toymaker friend created a set of presidential toys/collectibles to celebrate Ike’s presidency
• John F. Kennedy- his eternal flame was jerry-rigged together the day before; Jackie is personally responsible for the “Camelot” mythos
• Lyndon B. Johnson- robot LBJ tells jokes in the presidential library, which was intentionally built as a “vigorous, male building”
• Richard Nixon- titled his comeback plan post-Watergate “Wizard” and was eventually seen as an expert in foreign policy
• Gerald Ford- said “I am a Ford, not a Lincoln”
• Jimmy Carter- n/a
• Ronald Reagan- “The Great Communicator”; shot by an assassin but lived because he had good doctors; the “Legacy Project” is a concerted effort to get something named after Reagan in every county of the U.S.
• George H.W. Bush- n/a
• Bill Clinton- still very much alive, but the book noted that his cat, Socks, has his ashes at Clinton’s library
• George W. Bush – n/a
• Barack Obama- n/a