Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1884-12-25
THE LOVES OF THE PRESIDENTS.

" IV'ho vi ihL THENlpLNIN.
now They courtsd and Whom rh.v Ma
Laoosstp About AL OF thu Fre1i.
thur. AT
letter TO the Cleveland Leader.
The sossips of Washington still dis.
| cnss the probability OF President Arthur
marrying Miss Title 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 saw,
is IN his physical prime. lie Is Just the
age OF President Tyler nj The time Of
his second marriage to Miss Julia Gard.
ner during the last wear of Tyler,s
Presidential term, and Mr.. Arthur's
marriage to Hiss Frelinghuysen will be
more IN accordance with the fitness OF
things Than fyler's by reason that the
d fer ice 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, lust
the age of Miss Frelinghuysen: In
January next President Arthur's first
wife will have been buried five years.
Iyler's first wife was not yet two wears
dead when he took his second. Presi-
dent Arthur's wife was the daughter OF
a Captain HerndOn. He married her,
| am told, in Washington, in st. Johns
Shurch, where he now every Sun.
day, and in which ho has placed a 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 fftles.
and have a newspaper paragraph stat
ing that he keeps her room in his New
York mansion in the same condition as
1t 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 rCd-headed and frecklcd Jefferson,
mad been dead nineteen years before her
husband was elected. Rachel Donelson
the wife Of the ot-headcd 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 wears befcyo Jaohauu made
him his successor, and President Hnr-
rison died in Office before his wife had
coma to Washington.
The Presidents wives now living are
Mrs. Polk at Nashville, Mrs. John ~.
Ter 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
a year.
Mrs. Jack 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 ungodIy social life of the Capt.
tai. Abigail Fillmore died at WIZARDS
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 a long time after
her husbands death, and Andrew
Johnson did much o.. 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, whore Wash
ington died in 1899. She shat herself
up in an attic chamber, and cut a hole
IN the door for Ter cat. She saw no
one and lived without Il fire, and had
she lived to-day she would have been
. deemed slightly crazy. Abigail Adams
I health failed her after she had
: lived four months in the White HOUSE,
| She left it and went back to Massachu.
sets and died there aged seventv-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
I seyenty-seven, in lS49.
Mrs. John Quincy Adams also lived
to be seyenty-seven wears 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.
II is q curious fact that the first three
! presidents married widows. The stories
of their courtships abound in romance.
George Washington was Il colonel on
his way TO Williamsburg, the old Cap
ital OF Virginia, when he was stopped
hy an old planter friend and asked to
stay over night. He replied his bust
ness was urgent, and a stopPage
Of any kind was impossible. His
friend then cited the virtues and beau
ties of n beautiful widow of twenty-six
years who WAS stopping with him, in.
such glowing ,erms that Colonel Wash
ingtun decided TO take dinner and see
the paragon. He Wa so delighted that
he STAYED all night, and on the way
back became engaged to her. This was
Madame Gusts, whose maiden name was
Martha cambridge.
Jefferson's wife had been q widow
four years when she married him and
she was only thirty seYen Years old at