Part 2

Abigail Powers was born in Saratoga County, New York, and reared in poverty. In order to help her widowed mother she taught from very early youth, although still a student herself. Fine health, height, fair coloring, delicate features, kindly eyes and an expression of humor, made her attractive, if not classically beautiful. At twenty-eight she married Millard Fillmore. In his early professional struggles her varied talents were devoted to his interests. When he became President she graced her position with ease; if possible, never neglecting any functions, but owing to feeble health late in life she often gave place to her daughter, Mary Abigail, who, though young, was a charming and dignified hostess. Mrs. Fillmore established the White House Library, no books having been there on her advent. Three weeks after her husband’s term expired she passed away quite suddenly, leaving the memory of a devoted wife and mother.

Jane Appleton Pierce

FOURTEENTH PRESIDING LADY

1853-1857

Jane Means Appleton, daughter of the President of Bowdoin College, and later wife of Franklin Pierce, was delicate in her physical and nervous organizations from early childhood. She was rendered more so, however, at the time of her husband’s inauguration, by the death of their only remaining child, a son of fourteen, in a railway accident. Nevertheless she did not give way to her personal grief, but dispensed cordial hospitality from the White House, presiding at every function requiring her presence, and thus sustained her popular husband, although her own preference would have been for a more retired life. Unselfishness and great mental ability distinguished her; as she was a deeply religious woman, she materially influenced the Sabbath observances of the White House circle while presiding there. In 1857, after her husband’s term expired, they went abroad for two years, but her health was not restored, and she died six years before her husband.

Harriet Lane

FIFTEENTH PRESIDING LADY

1857-1861

Harriet Lane was left an orphan at nine years of age, and was brought up by her uncle, James Buchanan, who took great pains with her education. When he became Minister to England in 1852, she accompanied him and was a marked favorite in court and diplomatic circles. She was a handsome blonde of twenty, dignified, graceful, clever and an engaging talker. On her uncle’s return to America, and his subsequent election she became mistress of the White House and was renowned for her charm, good taste and diplomacy. She entertained the Prince of Wales, now King Edward VII, while in America in 1860, and in recognition of this was an especially invited guest at his Coronation Ceremony. Shortly after her return to America she developed symptoms of a serious illness, to which she succumbed in July, 1903. After her uncle passed away, her great sorrows were the deaths of her husband, Henry Elliot Johnston, and her two young sons.

Mary Todd Lincoln

SIXTEENTH PRESIDING LADY

1861-1865

Mary Todd, born in Lexington, Ky., had from girlhood a supreme desire to become mistress of the White House, which, however, did not seem probable when she married Abraham Lincoln in 1842, but later her ambition was realized. She was small, attractive in appearance, inclined to stoutness, self possessed in manner, and would have enjoyed her high position had not the troublous events of the Rebellion prevented all festivities and converted the White House into a public institution. The death of her second son preyed sorely upon her, but when in 1865 her husband was assassinated, the shock was too great, and that, added to the blow of her youngest boy’s death soon after his father’s, partly unsettled her reason. Although she traveled much abroad, she never recovered, mentally or physically. She died of paralysis in her sister’s home at Springfield, Ill., in 1882, and was interred in the Lincoln Monument vault with her husband and children.

Eliza McCardle Johnson

SEVENTEENTH PRESIDING LADY

1865-1869

Eliza McCardle, of Tennessee, married in 1826 Andrew Johnson, a tailor, eighteen years old, whose early education she superintended perseveringly until his learning exceeded her own. Her character was simple, true and unostentatious, the duties of wife and mother being always conscientiously fulfilled. Her health being undermined by suffering during the Rebellion, she was a confirmed invalid when called to the White House, therefore Mrs. Patterson, her eldest daughter, became hostess. She presided with simple elegance, ease, grace and remarkable tact during her father’s stormy administration. Their home life was delightful, and when they left Washington the whole family was much regretted socially and by all retainers, as their popularity was widespread. Mrs. Johnson’s influence over her husband was always very marked, and throughout his life she was his greatest helper and adviser. She survived him only six months.

Julia Dent Grant

EIGHTEENTH PRESIDING LADY

1869-1877

Julia Dent, in 1844, became engaged to Lieut. Grant. The Mexican war separated them, but they married in 1848. Years of failure and poverty followed, but her faith in his ability survived, and when his military prowess made him famous, she shared his triumphs. Later, as the President’s wife, she was most hospitable, entertaining extensively in private as well as in public life, making Grant’s administrations, socially, very notable. When his term expired, General and Mrs. Grant journeyed around the world and met with a continuous ovation. A special feature of it was the dinner given to Mrs. Grant by the wife of China’s Viceroy, which was the first of its kind. During her husband’s last illness she was his constant nurse, and was always an adored mother. Her remains, with those of her husband, share the famous mausoleum, built as a memorial to him, on Riverside Drive, New York City, the site of which she herself chose.

Lucy Ware Webb Hayes

NINETEENTH PRESIDING LADY

1877-1881

Lucy Ware Webb was born in Ohio, and married Mr. Hayes in 1852, the union resulting most happily. During her husband’s military career she often visited him in the field and endeared herself to the soldiers by her gracious sympathy. Frank, cordial, hospitable and beautiful, she freely expressed her pleasure at becoming mistress of the Executive Mansion, winning many friends by her sunny smile and sincere greeting. She was very popular, although she displeased a certain few among her guests by banishing wine from the White House table, thereby gaining strong support from the temperance advocates. A fine oil painting of her was added by these adherents to the collection at the Mansion, Frances Willard making the presentation. During her husband’s administration their silver wedding was celebrated, the occasion arousing national interest. She did not long survive her husband, who died at their home in Fremont, Ohio, in 1893.

Lucretia Randolph Garfield

TWENTIETH PRESIDING LADY

1881

Lucretia Rudolph, born in Hiram, Ohio, married James Abram Garfield in 1868, soon after he became President of Hiram College, where both studied. The marriage was ideal, his wife’s intelligent sympathy and co-operative ability aiding greatly in his advancement to his high office. Through the terrible ordeal of his assassination, painful illness and death, Mrs. Garfield was vastly sustained by her power of self-control. Her short stay at the White House proved her tactful and cordial in dispensing public and private hospitality, gaining for her the nation’s love and sympathy in her sorrow. President Garfield’s was the first mother of a President to reside at the Executive Mansion, although others had seen their sons thus honored. A fund of over three hundred and fifty thousand dollars was partially raised for the Garfield family before the President’s death, and the knowledge of this was a great comfort to him in his dying moments.

Mary Arthur McElroy

TWENTY-FIRST PRESIDING LADY

1881-1885

Mary Arthur McElroy presided at the White House when her brother, Chester Alan Arthur succeeded to the Executive office upon the death of President Garfield. In 1859 he had married Ellen Lewis Herndon, daughter of Commander William Lewis Herndon, who, by order of the Government, explored the Amazon River in 1857, but she died in January, 1880, less than one year previous to his election as Vice-President. Mrs. McElroy was specially adapted to fill such a position from her natural tact and previous social experience. Her residence at the White House was therefore marked by graceful and dignified hospitality and the task of entertainment was greatly lightened by the extreme geniality of the President. Like her brother, she was of fine and imposing appearance. After the death of Mr. Arthur his only daughter Ellen Herndon Arthur, lived in Albany with her aunt, Mrs. McElroy, the son, Chester A. Arthur Jr., residing chiefly abroad.

Frances Folsom Cleveland

TWENTY-SECOND PRESIDING LADY

1885-89--1893-97

Frances Folsom, ward of Grover Cleveland and daughter of his late law partner became his wife in 1886. She was the first President’s wife to be married in the White House and to give birth to a child there, the second daughter being born during her father’s second term. As President Cleveland was a bachelor when elected his sister, Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, presided at the White House. Beside being a literary woman she earnestly and creditably fulfilled all social demands. Mrs. Madison and Mrs. Cleveland were the youngest wives of Presidents. The latter quickly won all hearts by her ease, grace and charming manners, and upon her return in 1893, she received a hearty welcome. Since his retirement from office Ex-President Cleveland’s home has been at Princeton, New Jersey, where Mrs. Cleveland and her young daughters sustain the popularity of earlier years gained by them in the Executive Mansion at Washington.

Caroline Scott Harrison

TWENTY-THIRD PRESIDING LADY

1889-1892

Caroline Lavinia Scott, daughter of Prof. Scott, President of Oxford Seminary, was born in Oxford, Ohio. She married Benjamin Harrison in 1853, before he attained his majority. Nearly forty years passed in congenial companionship, before death deprived him of a faithful and devoted wife. She was talented in music and painting and had decided literary taste. She was also an earnest church worker and truly charitable. Her social bearing in her high station was dignified, womanly and hospitable, and her death during her husband’s term cast a heavy shadow over its closing months. They had two children, Russell and Mary. The latter, Mrs. McKee, made her home at the Executive Mansion, assisting her mother most graciously in her many and varied social duties. After Mrs. Harrison’s death, she assumed entire charge as mistress of the White House, until the close of her father’s administration in 1893.

Ida Saxton McKinley

TWENTY-FOURTH PRESIDING LADY

1897-1901

Ida Saxton, daughter of a prominent banker of Canton, Ohio, married Wm. McKinley in January, 1871. She was a devoted wife and inspiring companion in whose sound judgment her husband placed entire faith, while her personal attractions were also great. An enduring sorrow, caused by the deaths, in infancy, of the two children born to them, added to a chronic physical ailment, rendered her an invalid. Therefore, when appearing at public functions she received her guests seated. However, the death of the President’s mother early in his term, and the grave situation resulting from the war with Spain, suppressed the festivities at the White House temporarily. Mrs. McKinley sustained a terrible shock in the assassination of her husband, early in September, 1901, from which she has never entirely rallied, although she shows great resignation, and a devotion to her husband’s memory as great as that bestowed upon him in life.

Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt

TWENTY-FIFTH PRESIDING LADY

1901

Edith Kermit Carow, the playmate of her husband in childhood and “perfect comrade” since their marriage in 1886, has transformed the White House into an ideal American home. She is a model housekeeper, and in spite of the exactions of time and duties, tunes her household in perfect accord amid the unusual stir of young life there. She is splendidly equipped for her arduous task by her delightful charm of manner, tact, and an unusual ability to connect names, faces and incidents. She is endowed with rare good sense, to which, combined with many winning attributes and accomplishments, she owes her remarkable social success. She has a charming ally in her step-daughter, Miss Alice Lee Roosevelt, a typical “out-of-doors” American girl, who shares with Mrs. Roosevelt’s five children a mother’s full-hearted devotion, which was so severely tested and so heroically demonstrated during their father’s perilous absence in Cuba.

THE WHITE HOUSE

The site for the erection of the White House, or the “President’s Palace” as it was termed on some of the earlier maps, was selected by President Washington and General L’Enfant when they laid out the city of Washington in 1792. The corner stone was placed in that year.

The plans were procured by competition, which gave the award to James Hoban, a distinguished young architect from Dublin, afterward identified for many years with the architectural work of the capital city. By the architects of to-day his design is considered to surpass anything of a similar style since constructed in this country. The White House was so called after the home of Martha Washington in Virginia.

According to the original plan, the building was 160 feet long. The North and South porches, constructed from designs made by Latrobe in 1803, were added twenty-five years after the first occupancy of the house; and in Jefferson’s time and under his direction, terraces were built extending 150 feet east and west of the mansion. The West Terrace, enclosed in glass and otherwise disguised, became in time the Conservatory so dear to the heart of the Washington sight-seer. The East Terrace was removed about the time of the Civil War, but, happily, both of these were restored and beautified during the general making-over of the house in 1902.

The White House, when President Adams came to take possession of it in 1800, was neither finished nor furnished, and its surroundings were rough and unattractive, little or no effort having been made to reclaim the adjacent country from its state of mud and ragged woodland. From time to time Congress made small appropriations for the adornment of the Executive Mansion, and this money was spent more or less wisely by the several administrations in their efforts to make the official residence comfortable. An appropriation of fifty thousand dollars was made to President Madison after the fire of 1814 for the purpose of refurnishing; but despite the expenditure of more than two million dollars upon the furnishing and decorating of the building during the first three-quarters of a century of its existence, it contained but few articles of value at the time of the remodelling under President Roosevelt.

It was originally intended that the public offices should be separate from the President’s home, and previous to 1814 the Executive Departments occupied small detached buildings in the White House grounds. But of necessity the President’s privacy was invaded by the business of his office, until finally, during the war, President Lincoln set aside the second story of the East Wing for official business purposes. This invasion limited the accommodations for comfortable living and introduced a degree of publicity into the family life of the Chief Executive that was far from agreeable. But these and many other discomforts were at last removed by the construction of the new office building and by the remodelling of the entire old building. There is now little business of an official nature conducted in the house proper, and the East Wing has been reclaimed for domestic purposes. With the exception of the outside walls, scarcely any part of the building has been left unchanged. The old flooring, long in a dangerous condition, has been replaced by new, supported upon steel beams. The latest improvements in heating, lighting, and plumbing have supplanted the old-fashioned arrangements tolerated by many administrations. In this process, it is to be regretted that many nooks and crannies of historic interest have been obliterated, but it is comforting to know that the alterations will preserve in good condition and for a much longer period the main structure and the chief beauties of the old house.

=The East Room.=--It is difficult to realize in viewing this magnificent apartment that it was at one time used by Mrs. John Adams as a drying-room for the family linen. The East Room was not finished until 1836, and a bare, bleak place it must have been in those early days. In former times state banquets were held here, but, in more recent years, it has been chiefly used for public receptions. During the administration of President Arthur this room was redecorated and refurnished, and afterward no changes of importance were made until 1902, when, with the rest of the building, it underwent almost complete transformation. The walls previous to this period were hung with historical portraits, among them the Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington, saved from the fire of 1814 by Mrs. Madison; but these were removed, as were also the pillars and beams of the old room, to give place to the present beautiful scheme of decoration. The walls and ceilings are now of white; the spaces over the doors and windows contain low-relief panels, each illustrating one of the fables of Æsop. The ceiling is most elaborate, but of delicate design; from each of its three panels depend the splendid cut-glass chandeliers, which have taken the place of the former larger, but less artistic ones. Four beautiful mantels of colored marbles are features of the recent remodelling. The draperies are of rich yellow silk.

=The Blue Room.=--It is in this famous apartment that the President receives his guests upon state occasions. The room is considered the handsomest in the house in point of decoration, and also in its beautiful proportions. The floor is a fine, highly polished parquetry, and the walls are covered with a heavy steel-blue silk with yellow embroideries at the ceiling and wainscot. In the pattern of this embroidery and in the decoration of the ceiling and the window hangings the star is used with graceful effect. Each of the three windows is surmounted by a golden eagle. A feature of the room is the fine marble mantel with its supports representing sheaves of arrows tipped with gold bronze. When receiving in the Blue Room, the presidential party stands in front of the windows, but formerly they occupied the north end of the room. A heavy rope of silk encloses a passageway for the procession of guests, who must pass from the Red Room into the presence of the host and thence into the Green Room. This change is one of the many that were brought about by the rearrangement of the entire premises. During the administration of John Adams, the Blue Room was used as a sort of vestibule, its convenient location making it available for this purpose.

=The Red Room.=--In early times this was the anteroom to the Library and the Cabinet Room. It adjoins the State Dining Room, and by recent changes has been turned into a smoking room, except when it is required for service on receiving days. It is then used as formerly, in conjunction with the series of state parlors. Its walls are covered with dark red velvet and hung with historical portraits. Its marble mantel is one of those which formerly adorned the State Dining Room, the other was placed in the Green Room.

=The Green Room.=--In old times the Green Room was the family dining room. The present Private Dining Room was then used for state dinners. Like the Blue Room, its walls are hung with velvet; here, however, the color is an exquisite silvery green. Some of the original paintings which, are reproduced in the White House Gallery of Portraits of the Presidents, also adorn the walls of this room.

=State and Private Dining Rooms.=--The State Dining Room was enlarged in 1902 by the addition of a corridor from which the private stairway led. This necessitated the removal of that portion of the stairs. The room now measures forty by fifty feet and will accommodate as many as one hundred guests at table. The walls are of panelled oak, and the window draperies of heavy green velvet. Flemish tapestries of the sixteenth century are a feature of the room, which is further decorated by a number of heads--trophies of the chase in American hunting-grounds--arranged around the beautifully carved cornice. The furniture is of red mahogany; it includes two tables, the larger, crescent in shape, and the smaller a rounded oblong.

An interesting feature of the furnishings of the State Dining Room is the complete service of china and cut glass, manufactured from special designs made exclusively for the White House and selected by Mrs. Roosevelt from a number submitted to her for approval. The design is simple but rich in effect and the china is of the purest texture, the whole having been very costly. The glass, which includes many pieces, is of the best American cut.

The Private Dining Room has been remodelled in a style essentially colonial, with an attractive color scheme of ivory white and red. The ceiling is domed and the window hangings are of red velvet. The furniture in this apartment harmonizes with the general plan of decoration, it also being distinctly colonial in design.

=The Library.=--The room, which is oval in shape, is situated on the second story of the Executive Mansion and was once used as the President’s office, but is now converted into a private sitting room. It was during President Fillmore’s administration that the Library was first organized, an appropriation being made for that purpose. The low book-cases line the walls which contain over seven thousand volumes, principally literature of an historical and classical character, and chiefly of Mrs. Fillmore’s own selection. She greatly deplored the lack of books in the White House and urged the need of a more extensive Library. However, it did not progress, as it should have done, and is not catalogued.