Table Of ContentAMERICAN
PRESIDENTS
YEAR BY YEAR
VOLUMES 1-3 • 1732-2000
L E N
YLE MERSON ELSON
First published 2003 by M.E. Sharpe
Published 2015 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Nelson, Lyle Emerson, 1924–
American presidents : year by year / Lyle Emerson Nelson.
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: v. 1. 1732-1860 -- v. 2. 1861-1932 -- v. 3. 1933-2000.
ISBN 0-7656-8046-7 (set : alk. paper)
1. Presidents--United States--Biography. 2. Presidents--United
States--History--Chronology. 3. United States--Politics and government--Chronology. 4.
United States--History--Chronology. I. Title.
E176.1 .N44 2002
973’.09’9--dc21
[B]
2002030898
ISBN 13: 9780765680464 (hbk)
CONTENTS
Preface v
Volume I: 1732–1860 1
Volume II: 1861–1932 281
Volume III: 1933–2000 519
Index 735
Page Intentionally Left Blank
P
REFACE
Pursuit of power, usually associated with ambition, drove most of the men who became President of the
United States. Theodore Roosevelt led America onto the world stage, and Franklin D. Roosevelt shared world
domination with Joseph Stalin. Since the implosion of the Soviet Union, the U.S. President, starting with George
Herbert Walker Bush, has been alone at the center of world political power.
Few of these men, however ambitious, aspired to the presidency and its enormous power before they were
well into middle age. George Washington, at Valley Forge, could not possibly have known that the presidency
of an uncreated nation later would be his, any more than Harry S Truman, at 27, walking behind a horse in
western Missouri, could have foreseen making the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. (Theodore
Roosevelt, at 27, incidentally was the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City, quite a contrast with
Truman.)
What I am showing, in a sense, is a unique vertical and horizontal view of future and former presidents at the
same time—snapshots frozen in time—when one old man in retirement and a baby in his mother’s arms were
contemporaries.
The vertical perspective shows us Washington was on his death bed at Mount Vernon in December, 1799,
while Millard Fillmore was in the womb in a scene of rural poverty on the Finger Lakes frontier of upstate New
York. Closer to our time, Bill Clinton was not born when Hiroshima was crushed like an eggshell, but George
W. Bush was a month old.
The horizontal pairings trace the paths each of these men took to the White House with all the paths not taken
and detours along the way. Thus the 27-year-old Theodore Roosevelt can be juxtaposed with Truman. At the
same age, Richard M. Nixon was studying oranges and trying to determine the technology needed to create
frozen juice to make himself rich, while at 27 Franklin D. Roosevelt is an unknown lawyer in Manhattan and
U.S. Grant an obscure soldier stationed in a backwater base on the banks of Lake Ontario.
But achieving power, in most cases, involved goal-oriented resolve, as shown by James Buchanan and Lyndon
B. Johnson. In John F. Kennedy’s case it was a father who pushed. Yet Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson,
Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Herbert Hoover, and Bill Clinton had no fathers to push them.
Few Presidents were reluctant to accept power: William Howard Taft was pushed by his wife, and in 1952
Truman, who hadn’t wanted the office in the first place, pushing a reluctant Adlai Stevenson to face a reluctant
Dwight D. Eisenhower. That’s a rare circumstance.
Most presidents were in the right place at the right time to seek political promotion. Luck, therefore was a
factor. Dumb luck is a better way to put it when looking at John Tyler, our first “accidental” President, or Gerald
R. Ford.
But positioning themselves for political gain was a game most played with skill and enthusiasm. When Desert
Storm made George Herbert Walker Bush a hero, top Democratic contenders Mario Cuomo, Bill Bradley,
Sam Nunn and others backed off, unwilling to face what looked like sure defeat. But by the 1992 Democratic
Preface American Presidents: Year by Year
convention, Bush’s popularity had nosedived bringing forth Clinton from out of nowhere—along with such
previous long shots as Jerry Brown and Paul Tsongas—along with independent H. Ross Perot.
For every reluctant Taft or Truman, there were endless men like Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, and Lyndon
Johnson consumed by ambition.
Throughout history, past and future presidents often knew each other, and these relationships have ranged
from affection and hero-worship (James Monroe for Thomas Jefferson) to bitter hostility or condescension
(Franklin D. Roosevelt for Herbert Hoover).
Reading Richard Hofstadter’s American Political Traditions (1948) was a major influence on my pursuit of
this subject in this way. He was discussing American political traditions, political philosophy, and thus included
John C. Calhoun who was never president. But his chapter on Hoover caught my attention: the young engineer,
an orphan, wealthy before he was 30, walking across Mongolia followed by an army of fascinated Chinese
peasants mumbling to each other that here was a man, a geologist, who could walk across terrain and “see”
gold under the ground. And Hoover was literally escorted by a Chinese Army on horseback there to keep away
marauding predators, ruthless bandits. Now there’s an experience Calvin Coolidge and Bill Clinton never had,
nor the rest of us. No doubt, Hoover must have looked back with fondness on the hardships of Mongolia
amidst the misery of his Depression-besieged presidency.
With my thanks to Adam A. “Bud” Smyser, Margaret Owen, Harold Morse, and Arlene Nelson.
Lyle Emerson Nelson
Honolulu, Hawaii
July 2003
vi
A P : Y Y
MERICAN RESIDENTS EAR BY EAR
1732 – 1860
1732 grandfather. Anne died in 1668, and John was to marry two
more times. He inherited the land at Little Hunting Creek,
GEORGE WASHINGTON was born on February 22 at Bridges now Mount Vernon.
Creek (later Wakefield) in Westmoreland County, colonial John’s son Lawrence was educated in England and re-
Virginia, on the Potomac River and about 8 miles from the turned to Virginia to marry Mildred Warner, whose father
Rappahannock River. The site was sometimes called Pope’s was speaker of the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg.
Creek. His father was Augustine Washington, age 38; his Lawrence became a justice of the peace, a burgess himself,
mother was Mary Ball Washington, age 24. and a sheriff. He died at the age of 38.
Augustine, who had been born in Westmoreland County Mildred Warner Washington sent her children John, Au-
also, was a county justice, landowner, and planter with es- gustine, and Mildred to England to be educated. Augustine,
tates on both the Potomac and the Rappahannock. George’s father, attended the Appleby School in
Washington’s mother was born in Lancaster County just 40 Westmoreland for 4 years. He also briefly tried the sailor’s
miles down the peninsula toward Chesapeake Bay. She was life. After his mother, Mildred, died, Augustine returned to
Augustine’s second wife. Virginia and purchased the property at Little Hunting Creek
George’s father had married Jane Butler in 1715, and they from his sister Mildred.
produced a family of four: sons Butler, Lawrence, and Au- Augustine’s first wife, Jane, died while Augustine was on
gustine; and a daughter, Jane. Jane Butler Washington died a business trip to England. Two years after her death, Au-
in 1728, and Augustine remarried in 1730. George, Mary Ball gustine married Mary Ball, the daughter of Joseph Ball and
Washington’s first child, was baptized in the Episcopal Mary Johnson. When her father died, Mary inherited an es-
Church on April 5. tate near the Rappahannock River.
Washington was of English ancestry and had relatives Thus, at the time of George’s birth at Bridges Creek, Mary
living in Great Britain at the time of his birth. Bridges Creek was already looking after Augustine’s three motherless
was rural and in the thinly populated Atlantic Coast low- children. The population of the colonies was then about
lands. The frontier that was to be constantly pushed west- 629,400.
ward through the years of American growth was still close to
the Atlantic Seaboard. 1733
Sixty years after Washington’s birth, an Englishman asked
him for background information on his ancestors. Washing- GEORGE WASHINGTON celebrated his first birthday.
ton answered rather casually that he knew almost nothing June 20: George’s sister, Elizabeth, was born at the Wash-
and, furthermore, had no interest in genealogy. ington plantation at Bridges Creek, Virginia.
Notwithstanding his views on roots, the Washington ances-
1734
tral home was in Sulgrave, Northamptonshire, some 55 miles
northwest of London. Lawrence Washington, born about 1500,
became mayor of Northampton. The Washingtons were con- GEORGE WASHINGTON turned 2 in February.
sidered “gentlemen” and received estate lands from Henry November 16: A brother, Samuel, was born at the Virginia
VIII, king of England. Family fortunes suffered after the plantation home. Washington’s father was now supporting
Puritan Revolution, and the Puritans labeled the clergyman six children.
father of Washington’s great-grandfather a drunk.
1735
Washington’s great-grandfather, John Washington, came
to Virginia in 1657 as the mate on a ship. Upon leaving for the
return trip to England, the ship hit a shoreline obstruction GEORGE WASHINGTON was 3 years old when his father moved
and sank, and John decided to remain in the New World. the family from Bridges Creek to Mount Vernon, then Little
In Virginia, John married Anne Pope, whose father owned Hunting Creek, a Virginia plantation on the Potomac about
considerable land. John’s first son was Lawrence, George’s 70 miles northwest of George’s birthplace.
1736 – 1741 American Presidents
January 17: The family was reduced to five children when JOHN ADAMS turned 3 on October 30 in Braintree.
George’s half-sister Jane died. October 16: John’s brother, Peter Boylston, was born.
(cid:89)(cid:90)
1739
JOHN ADAMS was born on October 30 in Braintree (now a part
of Quincy) about 10 miles south and around the bay from the
small town of Boston in the colony of Massachusetts. His GEORGE WASHINGTON, now 7, was probably receiving his
father was John Adams, age 44, and his mother was Susanna first schooling from his parents at the Washington home at
Boylston Adams, age 36. John was their first child. Both Brunswick Parish, Virginia.
parents, older than usual for a first birth, were of English June 21: With the birth of Mildred, the bulging Washing-
extraction. Adams’s parents were married in 1734. His mother ton family numbered eight children.
(cid:89)(cid:90)
had a temper and hated when her husband brought home
stray, needy children to take care of. JOHN ADAMS was 4 years old and living on a small farm in
The senior Adams was a small landowner, farmer, maker of Braintree. With a religious revival sweeping New England
leather goods, selectman, deacon, and tax collector. Adams’s from European influences, his parents doubtless planned to
great-great grandfather, Henry Adams, came to Braintree from guide him eventually into the ministry.
Somersetshire, England, in 1640 with his wife, Edith Squire
1740
Adams, and nine children. Henry Adams was a farmer and
maker of malt.
Adams was the great-great grandson of John and Priscilla GEORGE WASHINGTON, at age 8, shared the excitement around
Alden through his paternal grandmother, Hannah Bass (1667– Brunswick Parish when his half-brother, Captain Lawrence
1705). Adams’s great-uncle was Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, who Washington, left home to join the Virginia troops and British
introduced inoculation to the colonies and vaccinated 240 regulars with Admiral Edward Vernon in his South American
people during a smallpox outbreak in Boston in 1721. Adams campaign against the Spanish at Cartagena (now Colombia)
was a second cousin to Samuel Adams. on the Caribbean near Panama.
Braintree at this time was basically rural but much closer to October 23: The family baby, Mildred, died.
(cid:89)(cid:90)
a growing commercial settlement than was Washington’s
home. JOHN ADAMS was age 5 and living in Braintree.
1736 1741
GEORGE WASHINGTON was 4 years old and lived on the GEORGE WASHINGTON, age 9, lived in rural Virginia.
(cid:89)(cid:90)
Potomac in colonial Virginia.
January 13: George’s brother John Augustine was born. JOHN ADAMS, age 6, started his formal education at Mrs.
(cid:89)(cid:90)
Belcher’s school on Penn Hill near Braintree, Massachusetts.
JOHN ADAMS was a baby in Braintree in colonial Massachu- May 29: John’s second brother, Elihu, was born.
setts.
1737
GEORGE WASHINGTON, age 5, lived in Virginia on a hill above
the Potomac with a fine view of the river.
(cid:89)(cid:90)
JOHN ADAMS became 2 years old in October and continued
living in Braintree.
1738
GEORGE WASHINGTON turned 6 in February. A fire at the Wash-
ington plantation home on the Potomac sent the family south 40
miles to a new home at Brunswick Parish, Ferry Farm, in King
George County not far from Fredericksburg, Virginia.
May 2: George’s brother Charles was born. A portrait of George Washington’s mother, Mary
(cid:89)(cid:90)
Ball Washington. (Library of Congress)
2
Year by Year 1742 – 1746
1742 Shadwell was a plantation community a few miles east of
Charlottesville, close to the Blue Ridge Mountains and more
GEORGE WASHINGTON received schooling at home as he than 150 miles west of the Atlantic on the frontier
turned 10. Life at his Virginia home during the year was high- Peter Jefferson married Jane Randolph in 1739. He had clear
lighted by the return of Major Lawrence Washington with title to about 6,000 acres in Albemarle County. Jane had come
stories of the fighting and defeat in South America. Admiral to the colonies as a child. Nothing is known of her influence
Edward Vernon and his fleet successfully won the battle of on her son. The Jeffersons were descendants through Isham
Portobello in 1739 but was defeated at Cartagena in 1740. Randolph, the maternal grandfather of King David I of Scot-
The campaign against the Spanish was part of the War of land (1084–1153).
Austrian Succession (1740–1748). Jefferson later said his people came to the colonies from
(cid:89)(cid:90)
the Mount Snowden area of northern Wales.
JOHN ADAMS turned 7 in October, and he learned reading and
1744
arithmetic from Mrs. Belcher in Braintree.
1743
GEORGE WASHINGTON, in Virginia, was 12 years old when his
mother decided not to send him to the Appleby School in
GEORGE WASHINGTON was 11 years old when his father, Au- England where half-brothers Lawrence and Augustine had
gustine, died at age 49 on April 12 at the new family home in gone earlier.
(cid:89)(cid:90)
Brunswick Parish, Virginia. Thus George became a ward of
half-brother Lawrence but inherited a share of the large Wash- JOHN ADAMS, as he turned 9 in Massachusetts, did chores
ington estate along with Lawrence and John Augustine. around the small farm and learned simple farming techniques
Lawrence had married Anne Fairfax, the daughter of Colonel from his father.
(cid:89)(cid:90)
William F. Fairfax.
Lawrence’s inheritance was Little Hunting Creek; John THOMAS JEFFERSON was a baby in Virginia.
Augustine received Wakefield, George’s birthplace; and November 4: Thomas’s sister, Elizabeth, was born.
George received Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, where
1745
the family was living. He shared other lands with his broth-
ers.
Mary Ball Washington was reluctant to part with Ferry GEORGE WASHINGTON was 13 years old and lived in rural
Farm, however, and it was 30 years before Washington gained Virginia. He was interested in billiards and whist.
(cid:89)(cid:90)
possession.
The home at Little Hunting Creek was known as JOHN ADAMS, age 10, liked to stand on a hill near his Massa-
Epsewasson before Lawrence named it Mount Vernon after chusetts home and watch ships move in and out of Boston
Admiral Edward Vernon, who had played a major role in the Harbor to the north.
(cid:89)(cid:90)
Cartagena campaign.
George was particularly close to John Augustine, whom THOMAS JEFFERSON was 2 when his family moved from
he called Jack. Shadwell to Tuckahoe on the James River and closer to Rich-
(cid:89)(cid:90)
mond. His father, Peter, became a leader of the county militia.
JOHN ADAMS, age 8, changed schools from Mrs. Belcher’s
school to the Latin School, located a mile from his home in 1746
Braintree, Massachusetts. John Hancock was a classmate.
(cid:89)(cid:90)
GEORGE WASHINGTON, age 14 in February, studied mathemat-
THOMAS JEFFERSON was born on April 13 at Shadwell, colo- ics, astronomy, and geography in Virginia. During this year,
nial Virginia, in Goochland County (later Albemarle). His par- Lord Thomas Fairfax, a rich bachelor, arrived in Virginia
ents were Peter Jefferson, age 36, and Jane Randolph from England. He was the father of Anne Fairfax Washing-
Jefferson, age 23. She was born in London. The family was of ton. The lord came to live with his cousin George Fairfax,
Welsh ancestry. Anne’s uncle.
Peter, a man of some wealth, was a professor, surveyor, Soon Lord Fairfax owned 5 million acres of property in
landowner, land developer, sheriff, magistrate, justice of the northern Virginia and the Shenandoah.
(cid:89)(cid:90)
peace, and judge. He later was also a member of the House of
Burgesses in Williamsburg. JOHN ADAMS, only 11 years old in October, may have had his
Thomas Jefferson was the third child and first son; his first political worry when he heard his parents and neighbors
older sisters were Jane, age 3, and Mary, age 2. discuss the possibility of an attack on Boston by the French
3
