The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1877-11-29
PRESIDENTIAL POISONING.
The Terrible TRAGEDY of Buchannn's In
augurRtiou Day-Thirty or More Deat
Victims of Poison.

The Terrible TRAGEDY of Buchannn's In-
auguration Day-Thirty or More Dead
Victims of Po!sun.
A Washington correspondent writes
Among the most prominent of the
Nationals late arrivals are Senator Ben
Hill and wife, of Georgia. They occupy
the suite of rooms known as the Presi-
dental parlors. If the walls had tongues
they might discourse of people promi-
nent in the past, and, perchance, tell
tales of private life never suspicioned.
But the tall mantel looks blank under
its modern ornaments, the brass mount.
ings of the fender reflects new faces, the
heavy curtains shut in the secrets never
voiced, and in the room sits a little,
dark-eyed, prim woman and blue-eyed
man, "flom away down south in Geor-
gia. These rooms where Senator Hill
now lives, on that fatal fourth of March
which witnessed Buchanans Inaugural
ton, were occupied by the new president.
Twelve hundred guests were crowded in
the house. In the evening nearly all
were seized by similar symptoms of
poisoning, and thirty or more died. The
dead bodies lay in rows in the parlors,
the sick and dying were moaning in the
halls; gloom hung over the city, and
extended to distant homes, from whence
had come guests to witness the inaugural
ton. The house had Just previous to
this been entirely refurnished. 1t was
the grand hotel of the capital, and built
III style of magnificence rare in those
times. The National hotel poisoning is
remembered with horror by old people,
but many of the younger ones have
never heard of it. The affair was in
vestigated and the house examined. No
positive clue has ever been found. Some
said defective drainage, some poisoned
rats i'll the well, some that the sugar was
poisoned to ruin the business of the
hotel. 1t is generally, I think,
believed now that the poison was
mineral poison, and was in the sugar
for the reason that persons not stopping
at the house, who took fancy drinks at
the bar, were also seized by cramps.
Mr. Buchanan never touched sugar, nor
ate it in anything, so that he almost
alone escaped the peril. Some of those
beside his excellency, who escaped,
have been interrogated, and all those
whose address could be found after the
lapse of years, replied that they did not
/ POI u ouSoi, CNCll III COllCC. l. h'
house was closed, the splendid furniture
was sold at auction. For years the hote
was uninhabited. People looked at the
barred windows something as visitor,
now pause before Ford's theatre, where
President Lincoln was assassinated
Strangers stood in front of it and related
to each other sad incidents of the mex
plicable death which had overtakel
thirty persons in anight. Twenty year
ago a gentleman from New Hampshire
visiting in Washington, asked to g
through the house. People had beel
afraid to enter the walls after the panic
The gentleman, upon examination, i'm
mediately leased the building, threv
open the windows, had the hous
cleansed, one hundred and fifty loads o
dirt taken from the cellar, put one hun
dred thousand dollars worth of furnitur
in the hotel. and was called crazy by hi
friends. In December every corner wa
filed by guests, and the quaint, lov
rooms. where had danced the bellies @
a quarter of century before, we've agai
filled with life and beauty.