The sun., 1884-12-25
THE LOVES OF THE PRESIDENTS:

lhE WvEN vi 1nE fkENlDkNlN:
How rhey Courtsd ana whom Thsy Mar
rted-0ossip About All Of the 41rss1-
dents Wives Prom wsshington to Ar
thur.
Letter to the Cleveland Leader. ..
The gossips o. Washington still dis
cuss the probability Of President Arthur
marrying Miss Tillie Frelinghuysen.
They say the denial Of the. report by the
interested parties is only the customary
action in love matters and assert that
the match will be both eminent and
proper. President Arthur, they say,
is in his physical prime. He is just the
age of President Tyler OF the time Of
his second marriage to Miss Julia Gard
ner during the last year of Tyler's
Presidential term, and Mr.. Arthur's
marriage to Miss Frelinghuysen will be
more in accordance with the fitness of
things than Tyler's by reason that the
difference in their ages is not so great.
President Tyler at the time of his second
marriage was fifty. four years old and
Miss Gardner was under twenty. Pres
ident Arthur is now fifty four, just the
age of Mark Antony when he was most
enamored of Cleopatra, who, strange To
say, was, when she killed herself, just
the age of Miss Frelinghuysen. In
January next President Arthi'rs first
wife will have been buried five years.
Tylers first wife was not yet two years
dead when he took his second. Presi-
dent Arthur's wife was the daughter of
a Captain Herndon. He married her,
I am told, in Washington, in st. Johns
Church, where he now goes every Sun
day, and in which he has placed mem
orial window to her memory. The pew
he sits in, it is said, is the same her fam
lily used in the latter days of the fiftles,
and l have newspaper paragraph stat
ing that he keeps her room in his New
York mansion in the same condition as
it was when she left it for her long Jour-
ney of 1880.
Mrs. Arthur is by no means the first
presidents wife who has died before her
husband has reached the White House.
Martha Shelton, the beautiful wife of
the red-headed and freckled Jefferson,
mad been dead nineteen years before her
husband was elected. Rachel Donelson,
the wife Of the hot headed but courtly
jackson, had her dresses all made to
take her place as mistress of the Execu-
tive Mansion, but died three months
before Old Hickory was inaugurated.
Hannah Hoes, the consort of the foxy
Miss Nancy Van Buren, lay in her grave
seventeen years before Jackson made
him his successor, and President Har-
tison died in Office before his wife had
coma to Washington.
The Presidents wives now living are
Mrs Polk at Nashville, Mrs. John Ty-
ler at Richmond, Mrs. Grant in New
Jersey, Mrs. Hayes in Fremont, and
Mrs. Garfield in Cleveland. Of these
the widows, Mrs. Polk, Mrs. Tyler and
Mrs. Garfield, draw from the govern
ment pensions of five thousand dollars
year.
Mrs. Zack Taylor died in Louisiana
during the same administration for
which her husband was elected. She
opposed her husbands being a candi-
date, and would have nothing to do
with the ungodly social life of the Capt.
tai. Abigail Fillmore died at Willards
Hotel here about one month after her
husband finished his term. The
hard work of the White House fastened
her decease. Mrs. Lincoln lay i'll at
the White House for long time after
her husbands death, and Andrew
johnson did much of his first executive
business at the Treasury Department.
Mrs. Lititia Christian Tyler is the only
Presidents wife who has died in the
White House. Martha Washington
died two years after the death of her
husband, at Mt. Vernon, where Wash
| ington died in 1799 She shut herself
up in an attic chamber, and cut hole
IN the door for her cat. She saw DO
one and lived without fire, and had
she lived to-day she would have been
deemed slightly crazy. Abigail Adams
health failed her after she had
lived four months in the White House.
She left it and went back to Massachu-
setts and died there aged seventy four.
Dolly Madison was driven from Wash
ington when the British burnt the cap
itol in 1914, but the shock did not kill
her. She returned here to live after
her husbands death, and she died at
seventy y-seven, in 1849.
Mrs. John Quincy Adams also lived
to be seventy seven years of age She
was married at twenty-five and was
born, educated, and married in Lon
don. John Quincy Adams was en-
gagged to her three years before he mar
ried her, and her first tour after her
wedding was to Berlin, where Mr.. Ad-
ans went to serve as Minister.
It is o curious fact that the first three
presidents married widows. The stories
of their courtships abound in romance.
George Washington was a colonel on
his way to Williamsburg, the old Cap
ital OF Virginia, when he was stopped
by an old planter friend and asked to
stay over night He replied his busi-
ness was urgent, and a stoppage
of any kind was impossible. His
friend then cited the virtues and beau
ties of beautiful widow of twenty six
years who was stopping with him, in
such glowing terms that Colonel Wash
ington decided to take dinner and see
The paragon. He was so delighted that
he stayed all night, and on the way
back became engaged to her. This was
Madame Custis, whose maiden name was
Martha cambridge.
Jefferson's wife had been a widow