The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1884-08-15
THE WHITE HOUSE QUEENS.
WOMEN WHO HAVE RE1eNED IN THE
EXECUTIVE MANSION.
Their LaboriOus Dutics-The Growth
aud Development of social 1n-
DucnCe in the dsOVernucnt.


White House are quite laborious, and it
is probable that society feels as anxious
to know who it shall be as the individual
herself to assume those duties, writes II
Washington correspondent. The long
hours of reception in which she must
stand and shake by the hand the rows
of nameless and unknown visitors again,
those occasions on which she must sit at
state dinners and say pleasant nothings;
the weary worn appeals for Office which
are made not alone to the President, but
to her by privileged friends as well; the
annoyanccs which her public station in
wolves, and the self-asserted privileges of
the press, all tend to make the position
an uncomfortable one.
OF course there are many pleasant fea
lures and many which crafty person
ally, and it is hardly possible that any
who know the details of its duties and
pleasures would eject it or seek to do so
if it were offered. Yet there have been
those among Presidents wives who re-
GREETED that their duties took them within
the White House.
Arthur is the fourth President who has
entered the White House widowcr.
His sister, Mrs. McElroy, has been the
acknowledged mistress of the White
House during his term, and is quite accom-
plished in a social way. Very retiring in
her WAYS, and without ambition for pub
lie recognition, however, she has been
seen little by Washington generally and
has only been known personally to Il cir
Gle extremely limited. The women of
the White House, tracing back to the be-
ginning, form an interesting chapter or
series of chapters in the history of, not
alone Washington society, but of the
nation.
Under Garfeld's administration the So
cial features had scarcely developed.
Under Hayes the White House was
open to all society, thousands attending
the receptions, and lunch-tablcs were
spread at the evening entertainments Tor
many hundreds.
Under General Grant the White House
was gay, but there was not that democrat
ic freedom which marked the regime of
Mrs. Grants successor as mistress of the
White House.
Another term back. Mrs. johnson. wife
of Andrew johnson, was mistress of the
White House. She was an invalid, and
her visitors in her chair. Her daughter,
Martha Patterson, wife of Senator Pat
terson, entertained in her stead rcnovat-
ing the way stained, tattered habilimcntS
of the mansion with rare taste upon the
small allowance of $50, 900 which Con
gress made for that purpose.
Mrs. Lincoln, who preceded, was mis-
tress of the White House in time of
great turbulence and national tribulation,
and there is small wonder that the recol-
lections of her time there are not agree
able ones to those who were there during
that period. An ambitious woman, with
little experience outside of a country
town when called there, deprived of the
counsel of her husband by the constant
attention to public affairs which his du-
ties required, stricken with grief during
the years of her stay by the loss of her
favorite son, Willie, the painful eXpc-
rences of her time in the White House
eliminated with the assassin's shot,
which was heard around the world.
Preceding Mrs. Lincoln, Harriet Lane,
the adopted daughter of James Buchanan,
who was the only bachelor President,
gave to Washington society one of the
most brilliant social administrations it
has ever had.
Mrs. Pierce, her predecessor, was a
sensitive, shrinking women, who had
seen her son killed by railroad acct
dent but short time before her arrival
at the White House, and who, during her
stay there, attended to the social duties
only because they were duties.
The next in order, tracing back, is
Mrs. Fillmore, who was more strongly
marked as literary woman than any
since Abigail Adams. 1t was her taste
for books which established the library
now in the White House, her husband
having, through her solicitation, asked
of Congress and obtained an appropria-
ton of $50, 900 for White House Ii
brary.
No sadder woman ever reigned mistress
of the White House than the wife of Presi-
dent Taylor. She had accompanied her
husband in all his war experience, car
ing for him in camp and counseling
with him upon the field. During the
presidential contest she prayed daily for
Clay's election. 1T is plot" she said,
''to deprive me of the comforts of Il
home, which ! had expected to enjoy
now that the war is ended = She came
to the White House only as matter of
duty her daughter, Betty Bliss, being
pushed to the front to bear the burden
as mistress of the establishment. When
her husband died within the walls of
the White House she was heart broken
and during the two remaining years of
her life never mentioned the White
House unless necessity compelled.
Mrs. Polk, who preceded Mrs. Taylor,
still lives in the city of Nashville She
is the only woman who has ever held the
position of private secretary to the Presi-
dent, she having filled that position
through choice during her husband
term. She was woman of great ability,
quite as familiar with the affairs of State
as her husband, and even more so as to
details. Sarah knows where it is, "
was President Folks customary remark
when any document or book was wanted
She did not ever neglect her social duties,
and was spoken of by an English lady as
not being surpassed in beauty, style or
1iunitV NV onV Of tbran plnanS whom