Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-03-04

dress of crimson velvet with a white
satin underskirt and train, and made
a gorgeous display of her diamonds.
The girls wore low-necked dresses.
There were shrieks of pain throughout
the evening as drops of hot tallow from
the composition candles in the chan
deliers fell on the bare necks Of the
dancers. Black coats of the gentlemen
were ruined with tallow streaks.
Mrs. Taylor remained in seclusion
at the White House. She was no hand
for society. Some say she smoked a
corn-cob pipe. She was filled with dire
forebodings.
When she entered her bedroom at the
White House for the first time dia-
mond- shaped object carved in the
mantel caught her eye.
THE first object to greet me is
cofiin," she said.
The next year old Rough-and- Ready
lay in his grave and Millard Fillmore,
the handsomeSt man who ever lived
In the White House, was President.
His wife, who had been country
school teacher, had some radical ideas
for her time and generation. There
wasn't book in the house. She fused
until Congress made an appropriation
to stock a small library. She insisted
on putting a new-fangled coal range
in the kitchen to replace the brick
fireplace oven. greatly to the disnay OF
the colored cook. She also bought a
piano and harp.
Mrs. Fillmore was interested in cul-
ture and higher things. During the
closing days OF her husbands admins
tration. william Makepeace Thackeray
came to town She invited him to the
White House and made quite stir
over him. Gen. Franklin Pierce OF
New Hampshire, the newly elected
President, was in town for his inaugu-
ration. The Pierces, the Fillmores,
Thackeray and washington lrV NY
made I'D party which went down the
river to Alexandria to see a new boat
| invented by John Ericsson. Mrs. FIJI
more thought the conversation OF the
| great British novelist might get MRS
| Pierce's mind off the great sorrow that
! had come into her life few days pc
| fore when her son, on his way 10
Washington to see his father take the
oath Of Office, had been killed in
railroad wreck in Connecticut:
The weather on March A. 1858. was
| in keeping with the gloom winch
shrouded the hearts of the new Presl-
dent and his wife. sickly sunrise
| lit the east. There was O. raw nortn,
west wind and the Avenue was covered
with slush.
There we're six military companies
and the Marine Band IN the parade
II was a colorless affair. The Vice
President. William r. King OF Ala
bama. was far from Washington. he
took the oath in Cuban plantat1oIl
house where he had gone Tor MS
health
| platform of New Hampshire pine
erected at the east portico, snow began
to fall and the storm was Almost .
blizzard before he had finished. There
were no dances that nignt.
The next Inauguration was a much
more coIorful affair James Buchanan
was escorted to the Capitol from the
house of w. w. Corcoran, whose guest
he had been, by more than so military
and uniformed civic organizations. the
retiring President and MS successor
rode in an open carriage drawn by tWc
gray horses. - ....
who administered the oath to Buchan-
/ an had a yeighty question on his mind
| few DAYS later he was to announce
his ruling that a colored man named
bred Scott, who had been taken NORTH
bv his owner. had no rights before
the law and that the Nation could DC
nothing to. save him and his family
from being sold South"
The great inaugural ball was held in
a Temporary annex to the City Hall
The President came at II, accompanied
bv his niece, Harriet Lane. Dancing
continued all night. North and South
danced together.
i X X
Out Of the dead grass on William
Henry Harrison's grave a blackbird
/ fluttered.
It was a dismal afternoon in late
February. There was an old prairie
superstition about blackbirds arising
from graves. A middle-aged woman in
the little family party which had stop
ped over at North Bend to pay tribute
10 the memory of Old Tippecanoe shud-
dered when the bird circled around her
husbands head. a..
/ Abraham Lincoln did not notice the