Getting Pierced

Romney and Pierce Related

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

The Best Presidential Hair Ever
The Hair Apparent?
Let's face it, if you look hard enough, everybody is related to everybody else. Since there isn't much else interesting about Mitt Romney, I will relay the news announced by ancestry.com--that Mitt and Handsome Frank Pierce are sixth cousins four times removed. The big question is: which one has or had better hair?

POTUS Pumpkins

2011-11-01T17:21:00.000-07:00

If not for the Thompson family, this blog would be bereft of new material. The previous post "Franklin Pierce on 'Futurama'" sprang from the keen observation by Ryan Thompson of Franklin Pierce in a contemporary cartoon. Now his sister, Jenny Mais, has documented another appearance of Handsome Frank in popular culture. While on a visit to Pumpkin Fantasyland in Ligonier, Indiana, Jenny took these photographs of the the Presidents of the United States (POTUS) exhibit.

Presidential Pumpkins, replete with identical plastic top hats and seemingly superfluous jackets

Closeup of Young Hickory of the Granite Hills, AKA Franklin Pierce
A tip of the plastic hat to Ms. Mais for supplying these pictures!

Franklin Pierce on "Futurama"

2011-08-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Futurama fan Ryan Thompson for alerting me to the appearance of Franklin Pierce in Season 6, Episode 20 of the series Futurama. The episode is "All the Presidents' Heads." Handsome Frank makes a cameo appearance in a museum where the heads of U.S. Presidents are on display. The Futurama writers missed a golden opportunity to riff on Pierce's head being pickled in alcohol.

Pierceton, Indiana

2011-04-19T15:15:00.000-07:00

Image from Kosciusko Visitors Bureau

OMG (as the youngsters are so fond of texting these days), I grew up not far from a town named after Franklin Pierce, and didn't know it till today. I still subscribe to the Mail-Journal, the weekly newspaper which covers Milford, Syracuse, and North Webster in Kosciusko County, Indiana. Last week's edition included a supplement about the county and its towns. One of the factoids included about Pierceton was that it was named after the snakebit 14th President of the U.S.

Subsequently, I found this at the website yesteryear.clunette.com:

Pierceton, the second largest town in the county, was laid out Dec. 6, 1852, by Lewis Keith and John B. Chapman on the north part of the northwest quarter of Section 27, and christened Pierceton in honor of President Franklin Pierce.

John B. Chapman, one of its founders, inaugurated business enterprise by opening a general stock of merchandise in a small log house, on a farm outside the now corporate limits of the town.

In 1853, three frame buildings were erected and in the one that occupied the site of the building formerly owned by Lawrence Spayde & Co., a post office was established in 1854, with O.P. Smith as postmaster. Dr. William Hayes, one of the first medical men in the town, succeeded Smith as postmaster in 1855.

Note that the town was laid out shortly after the election in 1852 and before Pierce embarked on his tenure as one of the worst presidents in history after being sworn in on March 4, 1853.

Just in Time for the Holidays: Ham-some Frank

2010-11-13T15:54:00.000-08:00

For reasons not entirely clear to me, the artist Bijijoo has produced a series of prints featuring U.S. Presidents holding hams. Now you know what to get for Christmas for the person who has everything.

Coloring Pierce

2010-10-20T23:53:00.000-07:00

What youngster wouldn't want to download his own Franklin Pierce coloring page in pdf format at the Free Kids Coloring web site?

Pierce Coin and Medal Set

2010-06-28T13:48:00.000-07:00

On June 24, the U.S. Mint introduced the new Franklin and Jane Pierce Presidential Dollar Coin and First Spouse Medal Set. I just ordered mine.

Pierce a Loser Again

2010-05-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

Franklin Pierce Dollar
From Coin Update News:

Franklin Pierce Presidential Dollar Rolls went on sale at the US Mint on May 20, 2010. In the debut period, sales of 23,960 of the Philadelphia Mint rolls and 24,160 of the Denver Mint rolls were recorded. These amounts are 2,048 and 1,261 behind the debut figures for the previously released rolls featuring Millard Fillmore, suggesting that collector's attention may have faded.

Franklin Pierce Gallery

2010-05-17T05:24:00.000-07:00

Photo attribution:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cornelluniversitylibrary/ / CC BY 2.0

I've gone trolling at Flickr.com and found 18 pictures relating to Franklin Pierce, which I've put in a gallery.

Cut Fainting Frank Some Slack

2010-02-27T06:02:00.000-08:00

Poor old Franklin Pierce took a lot of flack for fainting in battle during the Mexican War. His detractors failed to mention that a painful injury preceded his loss of consciousness.

To dismiss Pierce as a coward is unfair, in my humble opinion. In his campaign biography of Pierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne excerpted the journal Pierce kept during the war. On July 21, 1847, General Pierce wrote:

Colonel Bonham's horse was shot near me, and I received an escopette ball through the rim of my hat, but without other damage than leaving my head, for a short time, without protection from the sun. The balls spattered like hailstones around us, at the moment the column advanced; and it seems truly wonderful that so few took effect. A large portion of them passed over our heads, and struck between the rear of Colonel Bonham's command and the main body of the brigade, two or three hundred yards behind, with the train; thus verifying what has so often been said by our gallant fellows, within the last forty days, that the nearer you get to these people in fight, the safer.

So we see that Pierce came perilously close to being shot in the head, but took it in stride without fainting or otherwise chickening out.

Happy Presidents' Day

2010-02-15T12:44:00.000-08:00

Drawing of Franklin Pierce from the book Original Acrostics on all the States and Presidents of the United States, and Various Other Subjects, Religious, Political, and Personal
© This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.

Well, I guess somewhere along the line, after we stopped celebrating Lincoln and Washington's birthdays separately, the melded holiday became a celebration of all US Presidents, good, bad, and indifferent.

So, Pierce fans, we find several references to the 14th President today:

1. Though not dedicated exclusively to the tonsorial splendor of Franklin Pierce, his famous hair appears in the illustrated New York Times opinion piece, "Heads of State".

2. The editors of the web site Nerve.com rank Franklin Pierce #5 in their list of "The Top 43 Sexiest US Presidents", stating "There's not much to say about this obscure president, except that he's gorgeous. He's like Johnny Depp, but without as much to show for himself." (Thanks to colleague and sometime reader Ed Yang for alerting me to this reference to Handsome Frank).

3. The New Hampshire Historical Society is releasing audio and text versions of a collection of essays titled "Revealing Relationships: The Family and Friends of Franklin Pierce" which appeared in Historical New Hampshire, Volume 59, No. 1, Spring 2005. These are available for free download in pdf or mp3 format at the NHHS web site.

4. And of course, there is the obligatory survey of presidential historians, wherein Pierce is cited as one of the least productive presidents.

That's it. Go forth and enjoy the holiday!

Handsome Frank Is Coming to a Pocket Near You

2010-01-25T12:10:00.001-08:00

In case you missed the announcement from the Federal Reserve Banks on the wildly popular web site, Fedflash, on December 15, 2009, the distribution schedule for the 2010 Franklin Pierce Dollar is:

Special order period: April 29, 2010 – June 3, 2010. Public release date: May 20, 2010

Can't you feel the anticipation building? I can--or maybe its the shredded wheat I had for breakfast.

Franklin Pierce in the Top Five!

2010-01-02T01:28:00.000-08:00

Let's face it--trying to find new or interesting information about someone as obscure as Franklin Pierce is a Herculean task. Therefore, the author takes some topical license, and publishes the occasional post about Handsome Frank's namesake university. While President Pierce's name perpetually dwells near the bottom of any ranking of U.S. presidents, the women's basketball team at FPU continues to enjoy unbridled success. Led by English standout Johannah Leedham, the Lady Ravens are now 10-0 this season and are ranked number two in the USA Today ESPN Division II Coaches' Poll, behind the Michigan Tech Huskies (an unfortunate moniker for a women's team, don't you think?). When I went to the Michigan Tech web site, I had a pretty good idea the campus was on the upper pennisula when I saw the title of the lead news story on the home page: "Can Snowmobiles Adapt in the Age of Ethanol?"

Seriously.

2010 Pierce Dollar Coin

2009-12-09T17:10:00.000-08:00

Franklin Pierce Dollar
Designer: Susan Gamble
Engraver: Charles Vickers
The US Mint has released the 2010 Presidential Dollar Coin designs. Three of the biggest losers in Presidential history--Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan--will be featured, along with perennial favorite, Abraham Lincoln.

Ain't Nothin' Funny 'Bout the Death of Franklin Pierce

2009-12-03T16:35:00.000-08:00

In a stunning turn of events, yet another song about Franklin Pierce has been unleashed on an unsuspecting public, complete with the lamest--and possibly the only--tenor guitar guitar solo ever performed. As evidence, ladies and gentlemen, I submit this video of The Two Man Gentlemen Band at the Brass Heart Inn in Chocorua, NH on November 21, 2009.

Pierce Biography

2009-11-03T12:45:00.000-08:00

Bob Timmermann has posted a good summary of the life of Franklin Pierce at his blog.

Another Ostend-tatious Musical Interlude

2009-10-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

Incredible as it may seem, 2009 may be remembered as the year when not one, but two songs concerning the Ostend Manifesto were written.

Although the document is not explicitly mentioned in "Why Franklin Pierce Sucked: The Song," by Eric Olson, the lyrics obviously refer to the notorious Ostend Manifesto, the scheme cooked up by Franklin Pierce's minions to take Cuba from Spain, by purchase or force.

For information on the other song, see my previous post "Franklin Pierce's Miserable Legacy Celebrated in Song."

Pierce on TV

2009-10-10T00:06:00.000-07:00

Franklin Pierce will be the subject of a television program, or at least a segment of a television program, and this time he will not appear as the question to a Jeopardy answer.

From the Campus News section of the Bowdoin College web site:

Prof. Patrick Rael, Scott Ogden '10 to Discuss Franklin Pierce on WCSH Saturday, Oct 17

Story posted October 09, 2009

Franklin Pierce, fourteenth President of the United States (1853-1857) and a member of the Class of 1824, is to be the focus of a segment on the WCSH program Bill Green's Maine Saturday, October 17, 2009.

Host Bill Green interviewed Associate Professor of History Patrick Rael and Scott Ogden '10, who is working on an honors project about Pierce's life.

The crew also photographed some of the Pierce-related materials held in the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives.

Bill Green's Maine airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on WCSH (Channel 6).

Franklin Pierce's Miserable Legacy Celebrated in Song

2009-09-12T18:47:00.000-07:00

Fellow Franklin Pierce aficionado David Holzel has shared with the editorial staff of this blog (me, myself, and I) the breaking news that Handsome Frank is prominently featured in a song slated for release in November of 2009. That's right, Handsome Frank fans--singer-songwriter Christine Lavin has penned a paean to the current White House occupants titled "Attractive Stupid People." Lest stunned supporters of the 44th President start running their Priuses (or is that Prii?) into bridge abutments when they hear this news, let me hasten to add that the song mentions the Obamas only briefly as pretty people with brains, as opposed to the likes of the 14th President, who skated into office on good looks and charm. The song, not surprisingly, was composed after the writer heard Sarah Palin speak.

I never thought I would hear the phrase "Ostend Manifesto" in a contemporary song, or a song of any kind, for that matter. Yet there it is in Ms. Lavin's catchy little ditty, which is available for preview at her web site. She is to be congratulated for historical accuracy. Not only did she avoid the pitfall of believing that Franklin Pierce ran over a woman during his presidency, she went so far as to go beyond the internet for fact-checking. Writing in the Sunday Washington Post, Gene Weingarten explains how Ms. Lavin asked him whether Pierce had actually signed the Ostend Manifesto (a scheme cooked up for taking over Cuba put together by Pierce's subordinates), and how Mr. Weingarten earned credit for co-writing "Attractive Stupid People" when he suggested the final verse to Ms. Lavin. The complete article, "Lyrical Miracle," is quite entertaining and is available online.

Pierce on Jeopardy Yet Again

2009-08-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

God bless you, Alex Trebek, for keeping alive the memory of the star-crossed 14th President of the U.S. Unfortunately, I was out walking the dog when the $1600 answer in the Double Jeopardy round appeared last night, so I wasn't able to get a picture of the TV screen to post here. I had to learn from my wife after the fact that the answer, under the category "All About Authors," was:

Nathaniel Hawthorne died while traveling with this N.H.-born U.S. president, his close friend.

There could be little doubt of the correct question, even if you didn't know that this particular U.S. president struck up what was to become a lifelong friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne when both were students at Bowdoin College. After all, there has been only one New Hampshire-born president--Franklin Pierce.

Contestant Larissa Kelly, who went on to win the game, proferred the correct question. By the way, in case you haven't found enough ways to fritter away your time on the internet, an extensive archive of Jeopardy answers and questions, dating back to Alex Trebek's pilot episodes in 1983 and 1984, is available online.

Related posts:

Franklin Pierce on Jeopardy!

Pierce on Jeopardy Again

Franklin Pierce on ESPN

The Dick Kemp Auction

2009-07-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

The trucks, tractors, and other machines collected by Dick Kemp over the decades have been dispersed. His collection, which occupied the land along the Contoocook River once used for the Great Pierce Barbecue of 1852, was auctioned off on Saturday, July 25, 2009. The vehicle fetching the highest price was the 1947 Mack single axle dump truck above, which went for $29,000. When questioned by a reporter from the Concord Monitor, Kelly D'Errico, whose mother was Kemp's life partner, said of Kemp, "He's probably looking around and saying, what a bunch of idiots, paying this much."

While it's sad to see the Kemp Truck Museum go away, it is comforting to know the old stone oven used for the 1852 Pierce Barbecue remains, and a park will grow up around it, if the plans of the Hillsborough city fathers come to fruition.

Links:

A Collection Disperses: Vintage Trucks Auctioned Off by Maddie Hanna
The Great Pierce Barbecue of 1852
RIP Dick Kemp

The W. Threat

2009-07-20T04:07:00.000-07:00

Jack Colwell, a local columnist and an astute observer of the political scene, wrote a piece titled "Say What You Will, But Bush Was Prudent" in the South Bend Tribune of July 19, 2009. He expresses a sympathetic view of former President George Herbert Walker Bush, and states, "Bush 41, though not winning a second term, won't go down in history as our worst president. Not when Bush 43 is on the list." Mr. Colwell goes on to say:

Bush 41 won't be ranked as a great president, but he won't end up in the bottom tier either. Not with James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Millard Fillmore, James Polk and Franklin Pierce. George W., though winning re-election over a hapless opposition, could end up in a close contest with ... well, maybe Millard. Possibly in a tie with Andrew Johnson in terms of impact on the nation.

Could Franklin Pierce's position in the bottom five be at risk?

William Rufus DeVane King

2009-07-14T02:07:00.000-07:00

Franklin Pierce is widely recognized--well, he's not widely recognized for anything, but among those who care about such things, he is recognized as one of the most obscure, if not the most obscure President of the United States. It should come as no surprise that his vice-president has been called "the least remembered man in American history" by historian Sol Barzman.

William Rufus DeVane King
King was ill with tuberculosis when he was nominated as Pierce's running mate in 1852, and had gone to Cuba for his health at the time of the inauguration in March of 1853. King had served several terms in the Senate and was the President pro tempore when his illness forced him to resign on December 20, 1852. King was allowed to take the oath of the office of vice-president in Cuba on March 24, 1853 by an act of Congress, giving him the distinction of being the only nationally-elected official to take the oath of office on foreign soil. He never made it to Washington, dying within two days of his return to his native Alabama, on April 18, 1853.

Much has been made of the fact that King lived with James Buchanan for 15 years in Washington, D.C. There is no clear documentary evidence that they had a homosexual relationship, but the nieces of the two men destroyed all correspondence between the two, fueling speculation. Andrew Jackson is said to have called King "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy." Aaron Venable Brown, who served as Governor of Tennessee from 1845-1847 and was a delegate to the Democratic Convention of 1852, is said to have referred to the housemates as "Buchanan and his wife." Apparently, Buchanan never heard Brown's characterization or was the forgiving type, because Brown was appointed Postmaster General during Buchanan's presidency.

A peculiar spinoff of the ambigous relationship of Buchanan and King can be found in a collection of oil paintings called All the Presidents' Girls by British artist Annie Kevans, wherein William King is the only male among the thirty portraits of Presidential mistresses.

Grant on Pierce

2009-06-30T18:24:00.000-07:00

His successors to the office of President of the U.S. tended to be hard on the hapless Franklin Pierce. Teddy Roosevelt called him a "servile tool of men worse than himself." Harry Truman called him a nincompoop. Ulysses S. Grant was kinder in his assessment of Pierce. Grant wrote in his memoirs:

General Franklin Pierce had joined the army in Mexico, at Puebla, a short time before the advance upon the capital commenced. He had consequently not been in any of the engagements of the war up to the battle of Contreras. By an unfortunate fall of his horse on the afternoon of the 19th he was painfully injured. The next day, when his brigade, with the other troops engaged on the same field, was ordered against the flank and rear of the enemy guarding the different points of the road from San Augustin Tlalpam to the city, General Pierce attempted to accompany them. He was not sufficiently recovered to do so, and fainted. This circumstance gave rise to exceedingly unfair and unjust criticisms of him when he became a candidate for the Presidency. Whatever General Pierce’s qualifications may have been for the Presidency, he was a gentleman and a man of courage. I was not a supporter of him politically, but I knew him more intimately than I did any other of the volunteer generals.

Maybe Grant was more sympathetic because he shared Pierce's weakness for alcohol.

Fainting Frank and Loco Focos

2009-06-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

Franklin Pierce acquired a few nicknames during his career, such as Young Hickory of the Granite Hills and Handsome Frank. Another one, not heretofore discussed in this blog or in its parent blog Lugubrious Drollery, is based on an episode from Pierce's time in the military during the Mexican War.

Pierce entered the army in 1846 as a private and quickly rose to the rank of colonel, and then brigadier general. At the Battle of Contreras on August 19, 1847, his horse reared, causing Pierce to sustain a groin injury on the pommel of the saddle. He passed out and fell from his horse, sustaining a serious knee injury in the process. His horse also fell. Pierce came to, mounted another horse, and returned to battle. The next day, while leading his troops into the Battle of Churubusco, Pierce reinjured his knee and passed out again. Although both episodes of Pierce's loss of consciousness were associated with painful injuries, his political opponents made much of these events in later years, implying that he fainted out of cowardice, and dubbing him "Fainting Frank."

Pierce was a dark horse candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1852, finally winning on the 49th ballot. The political cartoon below makes light of his relative obscurity, and brings up the fainting accusations, with Pierce stating from his perch in the tree, "Gentlemen don't fire! if you please I can't stand the smell of Powder! it makes me feel faint even to think of it!!"

Note the title of the cartoon: "Loco Foco Hunters Treeing a Candidate." What the heck is a Loco Foco?

From the Encyclopedia Brittanica article, Loco Foco:

In U.S. history, radical wing of the Democratic Party, organized in New York City in 1835. Made up primarily of workingmen and reformers, the Locofocos were opposed to state banks, monopolies, paper money, tariffs, and generally any financial policies that seemed to them antidemocratic and conducive to special privilege. The Locofocos received their name (which was later derisively applied by political opponents to all Democrats) when party regulars in New York turned off the gas lights to oust the radicals from a Tammany Hall nominating meeting. The radicals responded by lighting candles with the new self-igniting friction matches known as locofocos, and proceeded to nominate their own slate.

From Dictionary of Americanisms, by John Russell Bartlett, 2nd ed. (1859):

In 1834, John Marck opened a store in Park Row, New York, and drew public attention to two novelties. One was champagne-wine drawn like soda water from a "fountain"; the other was a self-lighting cigar, with a match composition on the end. These he called "Loco-foco" cigars. The mode of getting at the name is obvious. The word "loco-motive" was then rather new as applied to an engine on a railroad, and the common notion was that it meant "self-moving;" hence, as these cigars were self-firing, this queer name was coined. His patent for "self-igniting cigars" bears the date of April 16, 1834. The term "loco-foco" does not occur in the notice of his patent in the "Journal of the Franklin Institute," but was used in his advertisements; the term was also applied to matches of that day.

But why foco? The Online Etymology Dictionary has this to say about loco foco:

"self-igniting cigar or match," 1839 (but presumably older), Amer.Eng., of unknown origin, perhaps from a misapprehension of the meaning of the first element of locomotive as "self-" + Sp. fuego "fire." During one heated political meeting in N.Y., the lights went out and the delegates used such matches to relight them, thence the name loco-foco entered U.S. political jargon (1837), usually applied to a radical faction of the Democratic Party, but by the Whigs applied to all Democrats.

Use of the term loco foco wasn't limited to detractors of the Democratic Party. One song written to promote the candidacy of Pierce and his running mate Rufus King included the refrain:

Hi, locos!
Ho, locos!
Listen while I sing
A song to you
Both good and true
About our Pierce and King.

The song also contains a couple instances of a racial slur, the quoting of which here would only serve to further sully the already tarnished reputation of Franklin Pierce. I'm sure there was no requirement in 1852 for the candidate to state his approval of campaign advertising, so we can only speculate as to whether Pierce consented to the use of this song. I will refer the interested reader to the album Presidential Songs: 1789-1996 by Oscar Brand, available on CD or at the iTunes Store.

While we're on the topic of music, I have just learned of a band called The Fainting Generals in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They bill themselves as the World's Best Franklin Pierce Tribute Band.

Are there any challengers out there?

Links:

"The Politics of Martial Manhood," by Amy S. Greenberg

The Fainting Generals' Myspace page

Another Pierce Biographer

2009-06-01T16:10:00.001-07:00

Brian Matthew Jordan

In response to my post of December 28, 2008, Who Is Shannon Berry and How Does She Know So Much About Franklin Pierce?, fellow Franklin Pierce enthusiast David Holzel made the observation, "Someday, everyone will have written a biography of Franklin Pierce." It seems we are one step closer to fulfilling David's chilling prophecy. Today, I discovered a Pierce biography hitherto unknown to me, and doubtless unknown to most of America. The author, Brian Matthew Jordan, wrote his book, Triumphant Mourner: The Tragic Dimension of Franklin Pierce while in high school. I have learned via the internet that he is in the class of '09 at Gettysburg College, majoring in Civil War era studies, and is now off to Yale for graduate work.

In the preface of his book, the precocious Mr. Jordan stated,

Ask Americans today the question "Who was Franklin Pierce?" and they are most likely to respond to your question with a puzzled expression or a shrug. If any president in our history, in particular, has suffered from oblivion in American memory, it is Franklin Pierce. . . Franklin Pierce was our most obscure president.

As Scrooge said in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, "An intelligent boy! A remarkable boy!"

American Presidents Blog

2009-05-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

I have just discovered another blog devoting significant space to none other than our 14th President, Franklin Pierce--the American Presidents Blog. The article about the false story of Pierce becoming a baker back in New Hampshire after his single term in the White House is especially interesting.

RIP Dick Kemp

2009-04-23T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late in eulogizing Dick Kemp, who died Sept. 7, 2007. I never met the man, and in fact had never heard of him until I started to research the history of a political rally for presidential candidate Franklin Pierce in 1852. I mean the rally was held in 1852, not that I started researching in 1852. Why, I wasn't even born until several years later.

Mr. Kemp began collecting trucks in the early 1950s. He bought a 1930 Mack Bulldog for $50. He continued for decades to buy old trucks, restore them to working order, and make them look presentable, without trying to hammer out all the dents. In the 1970s, he began to display them on his property in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, and thus was born Kemp's Truck Museum. When he died at age 76, his collection included over a hundred vehicles. He didn't charge admission, didn't attempt flawless museum-quality restorations, and encouraged visitors to touch and sit in his vehicles.

I learned of Kemp's Truck Museum because it is located on the Contoocook River next to the old stone oven built to cook an ox for the Great Pierce Barbecue of 1852. See link at the end of this post for further details of that event and my efforts to locate the oven with the help of Hillsboro resident, Steve Davidson.

Old Oven with Kemp Vehicles in the Background
Photo by Steve Davidson

Dick Kemp was interviewed for a special Thanksgiving edition of CNN Newsnight with Aaron Brown which aired November 25, 2004. He concluded the interview by saying,

But everybody asks me, you know, What's going to happen to this collection when you go? I don't know. That's somebody else's problem.

Now we know what will happen. Most of the collection will be auctioned off this year. Some of the proceeds will go toward the care and support of Kemp’s 101-year-old mother, but most will provide financial aid for students at nearby Hillsborough-Deering High School to attend vocational and trade schools on full scholarships.

As a further tribute, the City of Hillsborough will keep two trucks on the property, which will be called Kemp Park. A side benefit may be that the old Pierce stone oven may receive more attention than it has in recent years.

Links:

The Great Pierce Barbecue of 1852

"Tears for a bulldog: Kemp’s Truck Museum faces an uncertain future after the passing of its owner" by Chuck Miller

Franklin Pierce on ESPN

2009-03-27T19:26:00.001-07:00

These days, it seems the only place to hear about Franklin Pierce on TV is on "Jeopardy." A notable exception occurred during the 2009 NCAA Division II women's basketball championship game on ESPN2. Does anyone really care that Barbara Bush is a distant cousin? Oh well, at least they didn't bring up the urban legend about him running over a woman.

Alas, the Ravens of Franklin Pierce were run over by the Mavericks of Minnesota State-Mankato, 103-94 in the highest scoring championship game in the history of NCAA DII women's basketball.

Franklin Pierce, Statespersons, Fighting Okra, and Mavericks

2009-03-26T09:02:00.001-07:00

You gotta love a school that is named after one of the most obscure U.S. Presidents, who is mostly remembered for being an alcoholic, southern sympathizer in the years leading up to the Civil War. The school eschewed such obvious nicknames as the Doughfaces or the Lushes, and its athletic teams are known as the Ravens. Despite dragging the anchor of its namesake's reputation, Franklin Pierce University can bask in the glory of its women's basketball team, which is on its way to the NCAA Division II championship game, after trouncing Delta State 58-39 in the semifinals. The Delta State athletic teams are officially known as the Statesmen, a politically correct, if somewhat boring nickname. Are the women's teams then the Lady Statesmen? Stateswomen? Statespersons? Perhaps life would be easier if they just went by the unofficial nickname, The Fighting Okra. Consider the following from The St. Petersburg Times Online:

In nickname realm, Fighting Okra snappiest
By HUBERT MIZELL
Published May 23, 2004
------------------------------------------------------

College sports nicknames become powerful identities. Passions are massive around Florida for Seminoles, Hurricanes, Gators and Bulls.

Nationally, dozens are familiar, each with marketing magic, including Fighting Irish, Tar Heels, Wolverines, Ducks, Horned Frogs and scads of Bulldogs, Tigers and Wildcats.

Some universities double dip, like Georgia Tech with its Engineers and Yellow Jackets, also at Virginia Tech where Gobblers were replaced in a screaming landslide by Hokies.

Here's my favorite ...

Delta State, a Division II school with consistently strong athletics, has forever been Statesmen. But, in an inventive generation, the identity now sold on T-shirts, hats, mugs, key chains, banners and even a Beanie Baby is ... Fighting Okra.

Sixteen years ago, Delta State baseball players rooted in a rowdy group at basketball games on the Cleveland, Miss., campus. Creative youngsters found Statesmen a bit boring. They wanted change.

Uniforms are predominantly green, so the hardball suggestion was to become Fighting Algae. "Somebody with common sense suggested that, to rivals, our players would be more grossly labeled Pond Scum," said Delta State sports information director Paul Smith.

Baseball boys kept searching for something "green, Southern and ugly." Soon, the gang began to chant, "Fighting Okra!" Baseballers were so enthused they crashed the locker room at halftime, where stunned basketball chaps were serenaded with bellows of "Okra! Okra!"

Smith says the coach thought intruders were yelling, "Oprah! Oprah!" Being more into X's and O's than promos for a TV host, he ejected the cheerers. It didn't subside. Other patrons soon picked up the arena cry. Local newspaper writers began calling the hoops facility "Okradome."

Even as Delta State traditionalists lobbied to diminish the Fighting Okra movement, demand kept escalating for a veggie known more scientifically as Abelmoschus esculentus. Okra has become a cash cow.

Today's symbol is a sneering, grubby piece of okra that wears boxing gloves and perches proudly on paraphernalia sold at the campus bookstore. What a tasty matchup if the Fighting Okra meets Rice.

You can find Hardrockers at the South Dakota School of Mines, Vixens at Sweet Briar (Va.) and, just for baseball, the Cal State Long Beach Dirtbags. Nothing more yummy than Fighting Okra.

The FP Ravens will be going up against Minnesota State-Mankato in the final game on Friday, March 27, 2009.

Go Ravens! Beat Mavericks!

Pierce and Pumpkins

2009-03-17T12:38:00.001-07:00

It's not too early to plan for Halloween. You too can have a Franklin Pierce Jack-o-lantern.

By the way, the Pumpkin Island Lighthouse off the coast of Maine was constructed in 1855, during the Pierce administration.

Pumpkin Island, Penobscot Bay, photo by Peter Stackpole, 1954. From the Life Magazine archives.

Another Presidential Ranking

2009-02-16T05:40:00.001-08:00

It's Presidents day and time for another spurious ranking of U.S. Presidents by C-SPAN. Has it only been 9 years since the last one? The C-SPAN 2009 Historians Presidential Leadership Survey, which asked 64 "historians or professional observers of the Presidency" to evaluate the Presidents, came up with the usual suspects at the top: Lincoln, Washington, FDR, etc., etc.

The bottom five:

38. Warren G. Harding
39. William Henry Harrison
40. Franklin D. Pierce
41. Andrew Johnson
42. James Buchanan

Serving as President before (Pierce, Buchanan) or after (Johnson) Lincoln seems to destine one to be ranked near the bottom. It also seems that dying after a short term in office is a risk factor for being perceived as a poor President. William Henry Harrison died after 31 days in office, and Warren G. Harding after two years.

As expected, Franklin Pierce maintains his position among the bottom-dwellers.

Link to the 2009 C-SPAN survey

Handsome Frank and Honest Abe

2009-02-12T10:28:00.001-08:00

Today is the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. As the nation honors a President famous for his honesty and wisdom, let us reflect on the life of an earlier President renowned for having good hair.

From the web site, American President: An Online Reference Resource:

Pierce settled in New Hampshire after his presidency. When the Civil War erupted, Pierce voiced support for the northern cause, as did many doughfaces—that is, northern men with southern principles. A loyal Democrat, Pierce did not support the new president, Abraham Lincoln. In fact, Pierce publicly blamed Lincoln for the war. This outspoken criticism cost the former President a number of longtime friendships.

By the end of the war, Franklin Pierce was all but forgotten, as reclusive as his wife had been in the White House. Always fond of liquor, he had returned to it. When Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, an angry mob surrounded Pierce's home. Only a final display of the old lawyer's once-famed oratorical skills kept his house in one piece: he gave a speech urging the crowd to disperse peacefully, and they did. When Franklin Pierce died in the fall of 1869, little was written about him.

At least the hapless Pierce was able to talk his way out of the tight spot he had gotten himself into.

While I'm on the topic of people who didn't like Abraham Lincoln, here's a photo of me at the tombstone of Edgar Lee Masters in Petersburg, Illinois in 2005, and a closeup of the plaque on the tombstone.

The curmudgeonly Masters, author of Spoon River River Anthology, was a one-time friend and later a rival of Carl Sandburg, who had placed Lincoln on a pedestal in his biography, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years. Masters tried his best to knock Abe off that pedestal in his own 1931 Lincoln biography, Lincoln The Man. I have a copy of the book but I haven't read it yet.

According to John Aloysius Farrell, writing in his U.S. News and World Report blog, Masters depicted Abe Lincoln as "... cold, and cunning, and devious, and a sexual misfit, and a blundering politician who helped bring on the Civil War, trampled on civil liberties, and was ever-beholden to Eastern financial and manufacturing interests."

Link to American Presidents: An Online Reference Resource

Link to Farrell's article, "Abraham Lincoln Myth Had Its Doubters, Like Edgar Lee Masters"

Link to more information about Franklin Pierce's hair

Pierce On Jeopardy Again

2009-02-11T17:19:00.001-08:00

The excitement was palpable on the set of Jeopardy tonight as the Double Jeopardy categories were revealed.

Not really, but I got interested when one of the categories was "The Gadsden Purchase."

Sure enough, the $800 answer was:

Deepak rang in, and gamely offered the question, "Who was Buchanan?"

Close, Deepak, but no cigar. You were one administration late. Neither of the other contestants tried.

The answer, of course, is none other than our obscure 14th POTUS, Franklin Pierce!

The Gadsden Purchase

The story of the Gadsden Purchase is pretty interesting. It was driven by the desire for a transcontinental railroad via a southern route. The story involves war, diplomacy, Indian raids, the slavery debate, the gold rush, etc. I'd love to recount it here, but it would be too much work, so I'll just refer the reader to a thorough Wikipedia article about the Gadsden Purchase.

An Early Example of the Dissing of Franklin Pierce

2009-02-02T12:52:00.001-08:00

From the January 16, 2009 Chicago Tribune article, "10 Things You Might Not Know About Inaugurations:"

The outgoing president often gets little attention, but rarely has it been as obvious as in 1857, when James Buchanan succeeded Franklin Pierce. The swearing-in ceremony had to be delayed for 20 minutes because officials forgot to pick up Pierce at his hotel and had to go fetch him.

Pierce and Guano in the LA Times

2009-01-20T15:15:00.001-08:00

The Sunday LA Times included a feature with a little different twist on usual top or bottom Presidential lists. Historians who have written about great Presidents were asked about the failings of those Presidents, and historians who have written about "failed" Presidents were asked about good things those Presidents did:

Franklin Pierce

1853-1857

Pierce enabled the expansion of slavery in the West. He also secretly plotted to acquire Cuba from Spain. A drinker of some renown, he was referred to derisively as "hero of many a well-fought bottle."

The best thing Pierce did as president had to do with excrement. Specifically, guano, or bird droppings, which were so essential to U.S. agriculture in the mid-1800s that the era is sometimes referred to as the Golden Age of Guano. In 1856, Pierce signed the Guano Island Act, which allowed U.S. citizens to mine guano on any unclaimed island in the world. It was a time of expansion, and what the guano law did was enable the U.S. to claim rights to whatever land it wanted, as long as somebody else didn't already own it. It was a very smart move -- if you like empires.

-- Larry Gara

Author, "The Presidency of Franklin Pierce"

Franklin Pierce on Jeopardy!

2009-01-13T17:09:00.001-08:00

Tonight, one of the categories on the TV game show Jeopardy was Jefferson Davis. The last and most valuable answer in the category was:

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! I know, Alex! I know!

Unfortunately, I was not on the set. My hat is off to Shawn, who knew the correct question: "Who is Pierce?" Shawn, you are the man!

Too bad Shawn lost out in final Jeopardy to Samantha. C'est la vie.

TR on Pierce

2009-01-13T10:54:00.001-08:00

Another assessment of Franklin Pierce from one of his successors:

Theodore Roosevelt later wrote of Pierce that he was "a servile tool of men worse than himself ... ever ready to do any work the slavery leaders set him."

from a post by Jay Tolson at US News and World Report, 2/16/07.

Handsome Frank Elevated by Dubya?

2009-01-03T19:20:00.001-08:00

Thanks to The Commander Guy's Lair for pointing out Daniel Barrick's article, "The future of Pierce's legacy looks bright: Some historians say Bush will trump him as worst president," in the December 30, 2008 Concord Monitor. Barrick writes:

Michael Holt, a history professor at the University of Virginia who's writing a new Pierce biography, warned Pierce fans against hopes of historical redemption. Bush's slide in the presidential rankings "may move Pierce up a notch, but I'm not sure it will move him out of the bottom five," he said.

Holy cow! Maybe David H. was right when he commented on a previous post, "Someday, everyone will have written a biography of Franklin Pierce."

Who Is Shannon Berry, and How Does She Know So Much About Franklin Pierce

2008-12-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

I have had way too much time on my hands today, as this record-setting fourth post in one day proves. While looking for new information on Franklin Pierce, I found this History Channel video on YouTube. The speaker, Shannon Berry, is identified as a Franklin Pierce biographer. She knows her subject, but I can find no evidence that she has authored a biography of our obscure 14th President.

Franklin's Fir a First--Fact or Fallacy?

2008-12-22T11:14:00.001-08:00

With a great deal of trepidation, I bring up an aspect of the Presidency of Franklin Pierce heretofore not explored on this blog. Lugubrious Drollery (where this post originally appeared) is dedicated to stamping out misinformation wherever it rears its ugly head. With this in mind, the author has tirelessly posted righteously indignant comments at as many as three or four other blogs guilty of repeating the story of President Franklin Pierce running over an old woman (see also LD's previous post "Franklin Pierce Runs Over Woman--Not!").

I know I am risking my reputation as a champion of truth, justice, and the American Way by posting an unsubstantiated bit of Presidential trivia here. In this Christmas season, I feel I must point out that they say (ah, the omniscient, omnipresent they!) that Franklin Pierce was the first President to decorate the White House with a Christmas tree. There! I've said it! Let the Devil take the hindmost and Bob's your uncle!

I have searched high and low for contemporaneous documentation of this momentous event in holiday decorating, but so far this effort has come a cropper. Sometimes they say the tree was erected in 1853, but others say the date was 1856. Some accounts throw in a visit from a Sunday school class from a Washington Presbyterian Church for good measure.

Well, until someone can show me a shred of evidence, I remain skeptical that Handsome Frank decked the halls of the White House.

Merry Christmas, Mr. President

2008-12-10T12:58:00.001-08:00

I just got a new macro lens and was playing around with it today. Here are a couple pictures of the official White House Christmas ornament for 1997, commemorating Franklin Pierce.

The Great Pierce Barbecue of 1852

2008-11-30T06:56:00.001-08:00

The occasion of Franklin Pierce's 204th birthday on November 23, 2008 prompted me to take to the Misinformation Superhighway, otherwise known as the internet, to see what new facts or fallacies I might learn about our obscure yet intriguing fourteenth President. A search on his name led me to the Voir Dire Blog, which regularly features "This Day in Presidential History" articles. The entry for the 23rd included the following about the "Pierce Barbecue Pit" in Hillborough, NH, Pierce's hometown:

Located just beyond the famed Kemps Truck “museums” (open exhibit, and can be found on River Street, the first right). The remains of this stone pit were used for Benjamin Pierce’s annual barbecue, and to stage a huge celebration to send Franklin off to Washington.

Clicking a link to the source of the quote, I found that these words were from a pdf file, "The Franklin Pierce Highway: NH 9," published by the Franklin Pierce Bicentennial Web Site. This brief, ambiguous, poorly-written paragraph left me with more questions than answers. What is the meaning of "open exhibit, and can be found on River Street, the first right?" Did Franklin's father Benjamin really have an annual barbecue? Or did some other Benjamin Pierce have an annual barbecue in the remains of the stone pit? Was there really a huge celebration to send Franklin off to Washington? Which time--when he went to Washington as a Congressman, a Senator, or President? He left New Hampshire for Washington in Febuary 1853 to prepare for his March inauguration, and it seems unlikely that a barbecue would be a popular event in the dead of a New England Winter.

My first task was to find out about the Kemp Truck Museum. I had the great good fortune, via Google, of finding Steve Davidson's blog, Crotchety Old Fan. The main focus of Steve's blog is science fiction, but he happened to write about a collection of antique radios and televisions in his hometown of Hillborough, NH, and at the end of the article he also mentioned a Linn van parked at the Kemp Truck Museum, which, Steve stated, was about two blocks from his house. Incredible!

I promptly emailed Steve to see if he would take a picture of the barbecue site for me. He was very accommodating and agreed to take pictures, although he had never seen the remains of the barbecue. More Googling on my part ensued. I was able to find a panoramic map of Hillsborough in 1884. The final item (circled in red below) in a list of 28 local features on the map was "Old Oven Built for Pierce Barbecue 1852." Bingo!

I was also able to locate, at Google Books, a digital copy of The History of Hillsborough, New Hampshire, 1735-1921, Vol. 1, by George Waldo Browne. There I found not only a description of the barbecue, but a picture of the oven, which at some point between the 1852 event and the publication of the book in 1921 had been restored by the local chapter of the DAR.

Further investigation revealed that the barbecue was not held to celebrate Franklin Pierce's departure for Washington, but was a campaign rally held on August 19, 1852. As many as 25,000 people attended the event, although opposition newspapers estimated the crowd at 10 to 12 thousand. A stage 60 by 120 feet and five feet high was built for the numerous speakers who appeared, a large tent was erected, and arrangements were made to provide the attendees with plenty of food and drink. Three thousand pounds of bread were ordered to feed the crowd. At least one, and possibly more, cattle were slaughtered to be cooked in the oven, which, according to the panoramic map description, was specially constructed for the event, and according to one biography of Pierce, was not used again. I could find no documentation that Benjamin Pierce had anything to do with the construction or use of the oven.

As promised, armed with the map, Steve was able to locate the Old Oven, on the banks of the Contoocook River, right next to the Kemp Truck Museum.

Photo Credit: Steve Davidson

The moral of our story: The internet is an uncontrolled mishmash of misinformation, but also a tool for discovery of the truth. Use it wisely, and you will be rewarded.

Hair Force One, Part 3 or Hair to the Chief

2008-11-30T00:14:00.001-08:00

Statue of Franklin Pierce, prior to installation on the statehouse lawn at Concord, NH

In previous posts, I have discussed Franklin Pierce's hair, a topic which has fascinated historians and sparked spirited debate among cosmetologists for decades. I can't take full credit for the title of the current post. An occasional reader of this blog, Daniel P. Cory JD (an abbreviation which once may have stood for juvenile delinquent, but now indicates he is a full-fledged lawyer), suggested the title "Hair to the Chief" when commenting on one of the said previous posts. I was conflicted as to whether to use that as the title of the current missive, or to use "Hair Force One, Part 3," since two previous posts were "Hair Force One" and "Hair Force One, Part 2." I have gotten some hits to the blog via Google from people searching for Hair Force One. I assume most of them are looking for a heavy metal band by that name. Unfortunately, I just made a disturbing discovery by Googling "Hair Force One 3" myself. Topping the list of links is a site selling a series of adult movies entitled "Hair Force One." So maybe some of those people who land here via Google are looking for something other than loud music. Whatever. If it means more page views, I'll continue to use the phrase.

But, as usual, I digress.

I decided to follow the shining example of the writers of the 1960s cartoon, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and use both titles, as they frequently did. Examples include:

Axe Me Another or Heads You Lose!
Avalanche is Better Than None or Snows Your Old Man
The Deep Six or The Old Moose and the Sea

And on and on. Brilliant!

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, the hair of Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the USA. While researching another Pierce topic, soon to be revealed in a separate post, I found an article in the May 19, 1900 Fitchburg (Mass) Daily Sentinel in which F.C. Currier writes about meeting Franklin Pierce during the Presidential campaign of 1852. Currier described Pierce as follows:

He was tall and of slender build, with erect, military bearing, black hair, standing up somewhat in curls.

So there you have it. Another foray into the obscure. Hair today and gone tomorrow! Hey wait a minute! It's another title. . .

Happy Birthday, Franklin Pierce

2008-11-23T20:00:00.001-08:00

Almost let the day get by without mentioning Franklin Pierce was born November 23, 1804 in a log cabin in New Hampshire. The house above is the one in Hillsborough where the family moved shortly after Franklin's birth.

Franklin Pierce in Another Top Ten List!

2008-08-19T04:27:00.001-07:00

Franklin Pierce is No. 5 in the Top Ten Heads of Presidential Hair at the blog Receiving Me?.

Franklin Pierce in a Top Ten List!

2008-08-13T17:53:00.001-07:00

Franklin Pierce appears in the top ten of a Presidential list! He is the sixth youngest man, at age 48 years, 101 days, to assume the office of U.S. President.

We can thank the mother of NPR's Farai Chideya for this list.

More on Hannah Duston

2008-08-11T10:38:00.001-07:00

In yesterday's post, I gave a brief overview of the the new bobbleheads from the New Hampshire Historical Society--Hannah Duston, vengeful mother, and Passaconaway, Penacook Indian chief. I was grateful for the fact that the NHHS chose to model their bobblehead of Hannah after a statue which holds only the hatchet she used to kill her Indian captors (including six or seven children), and not the scalps she took from them. The distillers of Jim Beam whiskey were not so genteel when they turned Hannah into a bottle in 1973. Note that her left hand holds a few scalps, as does the monument to Hannah in Penacook, NH.

For a detailed review of numerous accounts of Hannah Duston's capture and escape, beginning with Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), see Kathryn Whitford's "Hannah Dustin: The Judgement of History." Essex Institute Historical Collections. Vol. CVIII, No. 4 (October 1972), 304-325, reproduced at the Hawthorne in Salem web site. Hawthorne was among the authors who wrote about Hannah and her family. Whitford's article captures the moral, legal, and religious ambiguities of Hannah's actions.

A Bobblehead Brouhaha

2008-08-10T15:22:00.001-07:00

As I wrote in an earlier post, I am the proud owner of a Franklin Pierce bobblehead purchased from the New Hampshite Historical Society.

Young Hickory of the Granite Hills, as Pierce was known, was New Hampshire's only favorite son to attain the office of President of the United States (1853-1857). Last month, the NHHS added two politically incorrect bobbleheads of 17th century historical characters to its museum store inventory. An assistant administrator of the society has resigned, and another employee refuses to work in the store as a consequence of these new offerings. Either of the new bobbleheads individually would be found objectionable by certain segments of the population, but the simultaneous release of the two seems particularly ill-advised.

The first new bobblehead is Hannah Duston. Here is a brief synopsis of her claim to fame from the blog of Fiona Broome:

One of the most horrific attacks occurred on March 15, 1697, when Indians burned six homes and killed or captured at least 39 people. Many of the victims were buried in Pentucket Burial Ground on Water Street, almost across the street from Buttonwoods. . . . (The Pentucket cemetery was established in 1668, and has many old and unmarked graves.) That was the same attack in which Hannah Dustin (or Duston) was captured, along with her newborn daughter, Martha, and Mary Neff, Hannah’s midwife. For 15 days, they were marched in freezing March weather. After Hannah’s six-day-old baby was brutally killed by Abenaki Indians, Hannah Dustin and Mary Neff were joined by another captive, 14-year-old Samuel Lennardson. Hannah avenged her daughter’s murder by organizing a revolt one night. With a hatchet, Hannah killed and scalped nine of the 10 or 12 Indians they ambushed. Among Hannah’s Native captors, only one woman and a young man escaped the attack. Hannah, Mary and Samuel seized a canoe and reached the nearest colonial settlement where they presented the scalps to the British authorities, for a reward of 50 pounds. Hannah’s story has been the subject of controversy. Some describe her as a hero while others are less flattering. Nevertheless, a Haverhill statue commemorates her history, and —though the story is disputed — she may be buried in an unmarked grave in the Pentucket Burial Ground.

The statue above, upon which the bobblehead is based, stands in Haverhill, Massachusetts,and is said to be the first statue in America memorializing a woman. Hannah holds a hatchet in her right hand.

Fortunately, the NHHS did not choose as a model an even more graphic statue which stands at the site of Hannah's grisly escape at Penacook, NH. Here she holds not just the hatchet in her right hand, but bloody scalps in her left.

Photo: Lorianne DiSabato

The other new bobblehead is Chief Passaconaway, of the Penacook Tribe, a peaceful and powerful leader of his tribe in the 17th century. Some people have pointed out that the style and color of his hat are reminiscent of a smurf.

In defense of the NHHS, the hat looks a lot like the one worn by chief in this engraving.
.
The choice of color could be debated, but the director of the NHHS has stated he thinks Indians of that time period may have worn a similar color. Besides, Smurfs' hats are white; their skin is blue.

Although the appearance of the bobblehead is objectionable to some people, even more disturbing is its release at the same time as the bobblehead of a crazed Indian scalper.

One of the interesting things I discovered while researching Passaconaway is that fact that William James Sidis, one of the most intelligent Americans ever, wrote a book about the chief under the pseudonym of Charles Edward Beals, Jr. I hope to devote a separate post to Sidis (1898-1944) in the near future.

Truman on Pierce

2008-08-05T05:48:00.001-07:00

I found the following quote from Harry Truman at Manus Hand's interesting web page, Dead Presidents on Dead Presidents:

Pierce was a nincompoop.... It was Pierce's foolish notion that he could cool down the slavery question and make people forget about it by doing two things: filling his cabinet with people of different viewpoints, and concentrating almost entirely on foreign policy and territorial expansion instead of slavery problems. But the net result was that his cabinet members kept bickering with each other and didn't accomplish much, and Pierce's moves in other directions didn't distract people's attention from the slavery problems for a minute.... Pierce was one of the best-looking men ever in the White House. He was also one of the most vain, which I guess was on account of the fact that he was so good-looking. But though he looked the way people who make movies think a president should look, he didn't pay any more attention to business as president of the United States than the man in the moon, and he really made a mess of things.... Pierce was the best looking President the White House ever had -- but as President he ranks with Buchanan and Calvin Coolidge.

Harry sure gave 'im hell.

Franklin Pierce Misses the Hit Parade Again

2008-07-31T06:47:00.001-07:00

In a new book, The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn’t), Alvin S. Felzenberg enters the Presidential rating game. Not surprisingly, Franklin Pierce once again ranks among the worst Presidents. Felzenberg scored the Presidents on five qualities: character, vision, competence, economic policy, human rights, and foreign policy. Unfortunately, he didn't grade the Presidents' hair. Perhaps then Pierce would have fared better. Being the thorough and conscientious social critic that I am, I have no intention of actually reading the book, so I don't know exactly what Pierce's score is. However, when asked "Who didn't we deserve?" in an interview with the National Review Online, Felzenberg had this to say:

We could have done without Andrew Johnson, Pierce, Buchanan, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and quite a few others.

When asked about his least favorite President, Felzenberg named James Buchanan, because the nation drifted further toward Civil War during his watch. So I guess Franklin Pierce wasn't at the absolute bottom of the list.

Guano Diplomacy, Part II

2008-07-22T07:30:00.001-07:00

Guano Diplomacy, Part I looked at the confict between the U.S. and Peru over the Lobos Islands, mentioned in Millard Fillmore's 1852 State of the Union speech. In Part II, we look at the events referenced in Franklin Pierce's State of the Union speech delivered on December 5, 1853:

Unfortunately, there has been a serious collision between our citizens who have resorted to the Chincha Islands for [guano] and the Peruvian authorities stationed there. Redress for the outrages committed by the latter was promptly demanded by our minister at Lima. This subject is now under consideration, and there is reason to believe that Peru is disposed to offer adequate indemnity to the aggrieved parties.

The outrages referred started with the killing of a pelican.

No kidding.

The American ship Defiance, commanded by Captain Robert McCerren, was laden with guano and almost ready to sail from the Cinchas Islands of Peru in 1853, when at least one of the ship's crew was arrested by the Peruvians for shooting a pelican, a crime which carried a fine of one dollar. The book American Clipper Ships by Octavius T. Howe puts the date of the arrest on August 14, 1853. I say at least one sailor was arrested, because Edmund Beatty, a friend of McCerren's who claimed to be an eyewitness to the events, in a letter published in the New York Times published June 23, 1854, stated that four of the ship's crew were held by the Peruvians. In any case, Capt. McCerren went to the Peruvian authorities, offered to pay the one dollar fine, and requested the release of his crewman (or men). This request was denied, and, according to Beatty, Capt. McCerren was escorted back to the Defiance under armed guard.

Guano Diplomacy

2008-07-19T08:04:00.001-07:00

Millard Fillmore

Whenever one nation possesses a commodity coveted by another nation, conflict ensues. Thus it was with guano during the nineteenth century. In his 1852 State of the Union address, Millard Fillmore said:

The correspondence of the late Secretary of State with the Peruvian charge d'affaires relative to the Lobos Islands was communicated to Congress toward the close of the last session. Since that time, on further investigation of the subject, the doubts which had been entertained of the title of Peru to those islands have been removed, and I have deemed it just that the temporary wrong which had been unintentionally done her from want of information should be repaired by an unreserved acknowledgment of her sovereignty.

I have the satisfaction to inform you that the course pursued by Peru has been creditable to the liberality of her Government. Before it was known by her that her title would be acknowledged at Washington, her minister of foreign affairs had authorized our chargé d'affaires at Lima to announce to the American vessels which had gone to the Lobos for guano that the Peruvian Government was willing to freight them on its own account. This intention has been carried into effect by the Peruvian minister here by an arrangement which is believed to be advantageous to the parties in interest.

Daniel Webster

The "late Secretary of State" was none other than Daniel Webster. On June 2, 1852, a Captain John C. Jewett sent a letter to Webster asking whether American citizens could take guano from the Lobos Islands in the Pacific. Webster replied in a letter dated June 5, 1852, that it was the position of the Department of State that neither Peru nor any other country had legal claim to the Lobos Islands and the guano thereon, and on the same day, Webster sent a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, suggesting the Navy protect anyone obtaining guano from the Lobos. As events unfolded, much hue and cry arose over Webster's first letter to Jewett, authorizing Americans to harvest guano from the Lobos Islands, and whether President Fillmore had approved the letter. A draft of the letter initialled by Fillmore was subsequently found, although he denied any recollection of approving it. The controversy was taken up by the press in the U.S., as well as in Peru, as shown in this excerpt from a letter from the American Chargéd'Affaires in Lima.

Reports of Committees 30th Congress, 1st Session - 48th Congress, 2nd Session By United States Congress. Senate

Extensive correspondence between Peru and the U.S. convinced the U.S. government that Peru in fact owned the Lobos, and Webster reneged on his promise of Naval protection for Jewett, much to the chagrin of Capt. Jewett and his partner Mr. A.G. Bensen, who chartered several vessels to go to the Lobos under the protection implied by Webster's promise to Jewett. When Bensen's ships arrived at Peru, they were not allowed to take guano from the Lobos Islands, but a deal was struck whereby they could load guano at the Cinchas Islands, and Bensen was to be paid 20 dollars a ton by the Peruvians for hauling the guano. The deal did not go smoothly, and Bensen evetually filed claims against the U.S. government and Peru. The claims were considered by the Committee of Claims of the Senate in 1856 and 1857, but I haven't yet been able to find the ultimate outcome.

Marx and Pierce

2008-07-14T19:47:00.000-07:00

Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) were contemporaries, but to my knowledge, they never met. The title of this post instead refers to Louis Marx, the toy magnate, whose company produced the semi-educational Presidents of the United States series of plastic figures beginning in the 1950's. Those interested can find more information at Disneykins.com. The series was produced in various sizes, some in white plastic that the owner could paint if so desired, and some pre-painted. I bought a painted version on eBay. It doesn't look all that much like Franklin Pierce, except for the wayward lock of hair on his forehead, and the Napoleanesque pose he affected in some of his portraits.

Franklin Pierce and the Golden Age of Guano

2008-07-13T08:58:00.001-07:00

Among historians, Franklin Pierce consistently ranks among the worst Presidents of the United States. Part of his infamy arises from a crucial piece of legislation he signed--the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The act established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and allowed each territory to decide whether to allow slavery, effectively negating the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which outlawed slavery north of latitude 36 degress, 30 minutes. Violence erupted between advocates of slavery and freesoilers in the Kansas territory, leading Horace Greeley to coin the phrase "Bleeding Kansas." The violence in Kansas was a prelude to the Civil War.

Politicians forcing slavery on a freesoiler (L to R): Steven A. Douglas, Franklin Pierce (pulling the beard), James Buchanan, Lewis Cass

The historical impact of the Kansas-Nebraska Act overshadows another significant law enacted during the administration of Pierce--The Guano Islands Act of 1856. Yes, this is a law that deals with bird droppings, but which also had a lot to do with American expansion.

As a fertilizer, guano was essential to the agricultural economy of the U.S. during the period from 1840-1880, sometimes called, with a completely straight face, The Golden Age of Guano. Pierce's predecessor, Millard Fillmore, had this to say on the topic in his State of the Union Speech in 1850:

Peruvian guano has become so desirable an article to the agricultural interest of the United States that it is the duty of the Government to employ all the means properly in its power for the purpose of causing that article to be imported into the country at a reasonable price. Nothing will be omitted on my part toward accomplishing this desirable end. I am persuaded that in removing any restraints on this traffic the Peruvian Government will promote its own best interests, while it will afford a proof of a friendly disposition toward this country, which will be duly appreciated.

Franklin Pierce also brought up the topic in his 1853 State of the Union speech:

A new branch of commerce, important to the agricultural interests of the United States, has within a few years past been opened with Peru. Notwithstanding the inexhaustible deposits of guano upon the islands of that country, considerable difficulties are experienced in obtaining the requisite supply. Measures have been taken to remove these difficulties and to secure a more abundant importation of the article. Unfortunately, there has been a serious collision between our citizens who have resorted to the Chincha Islands for it and the Peruvian authorities stationed there. Redress for the outrages committed by the latter was promptly demanded by our minister at Lima. This subject is now under consideration, and there is reason to believe that Peru is disposed to offer adequate indemnity to the aggrieved parties.

Peruvian guano was desirable because the seafood diets of seabirds such as the Peruvian booby and the Guanay cormorant are rich in plant nutrients, and the dry climate along the coast of Peru results in the guano drying quickly, making it relatively odorless, and preventing nitrates from evaporating away.

While the finest kind of guano came from Peru's Chincha Islands, other small islands were potential sources. I grew up on a duck farm, and I can testify to the prodigious amounts of manure produced by large numbers of birds confined to a small area. Several small islands frequented by seabirds in the Pacific and Caribbean were collectively known as the Guano Islands.

Peruvian Booby

So, in 1856, to promote the agriculture necessary for westward expansion, Congress passed, and Franklin Pierce signed, the Guano Island Act, which allowed U.S. citizens to mine guano (deposits which had been accumulating for thousands of years could be up to 150 feet deep) from any island, rock, or key not under the jurisdiction of another government. The U.S. would annex the island and protect the rights of the discoverer to occupy the island and mine the guano. The Act also stated the U.S. could give up possession of a guano island it at any time. Although not explicitly stated, Congress was making sure that the U.S. could dump any guano island when its resources were all used up.

Franklin Pierce was, or course, incorrect when he referred to "inexhaustible deposits of guano," and the disruption of the ecology of guano islands resulted in dwindling supplies. That, plus the industrial production of fertilizer, brought the Golden Age of Guano to an end around 1880.

Peruvian guano is in the news again today, as prices of synthetic fertilizers skyrocket. Peruvians are collecting what little guano is found on offshore islands as fish populations and the populations of seabirds which feed on them have dwindled. See the New York Times article "Peru Guards Its Guano As Demand Soars Again".

Googling Hair Force One

2008-07-06T04:56:00.001-07:00

I chose to use the term Hair Force One in two previous posts about President Franklin Pierce's hair. I chose this phrase because it is a word play on the name of the Presidential airplane. The only time I had heard it previously was on CNBC, in reference to commentator Joe Kernan on the show "Squawkbox." He is endowed with a full head of hair, and host Mark Haines sometimes refers to Kernan's desk as "Hair Force One." Anyway, monitoring hits on this blog via Feedjit, I noticed one reader arrived from a Google search "watch hair force one 3 online." Hmmm, I thought, I wonder what that's about. I ran a search for Hair Force One myself, and found out that there is a heavy metal/hair band by that name. Many of the search results had to do with a video of somebody named Edguy performing a cover of the band's romantic ballad "F***ing with Fire!" I also learned that Hair Force One is an online game at the National Pediculosis Association web site, where the player uses a Lice Meister comb to remove lice from a child's head (see also my previous post "How to Avoid Writing"). Finally, the search yielded a site with a rather disturbing video which "defends hairy women around the planet." A good portion of the video consists of a woman applying some sort of gel to the ample hair on her bare midrift. As if that weren't bad enough, a good portion of the rest focuses on unshaved female armpits. The moral of the story is that shaving of female body hair is the result of a greedy plot launched in 1915 by the Wilkinson Sword Razor Blade Co. and Harpers Bazaar Magazine. Wow! I won't supply a link to the video. If you're that interested, you can google it yourself.

I apologize to anyone who might have landed here looking for a heavy metal rock band, a louse-killing game, or hirsute females.

Updike on "Bad" Presidents

2008-07-06T03:47:00.001-07:00

I don't often reread books. I have such a huge backlog of partially read and unread books that I feel I'm just getting further behind by going back to a book I've read before. However, my recently acquired interest in the life of Franklin Pierce has inspired me to reread John Updike's Memories of the Ford Administration. The novel's protagonist, like Updike, writes about James Buchanan. Franklin Pierce beat out James Buchanan, among others, for the Democratic nomination for President in 1852 (on the 49th ballot). Buchanan was the Democratic candidate and went on to win the election when Pierce was not offered the nomination in 1856. Another interesting connection between Pierce and Buchanan is that Buchanan's long-time room mate, William Rufus deVane King, was elected Pierce's vice-President. He and his alleged homosexual relationship with Buchanan will be the subject of another post.

Updike, through his protagonist, Alfred L. Clayton, wrote the following about Buchanan and the other "bad" Presidents leading up to the Civil War:

The challenge is, for the historian, to love the unlovable. . .He (Buchanan) tried to keep peace. That whole decade of Presidents did, Fillmore and Pierce and Buchanan--try, I mean--and they succeeded, they did keep the South placated, and in the Union, which was important, since if war had come in 1850 instead of 1860, the outcome might have been very different; the South had all its assets in place--the military tradition, the great officers, the down-home patriotism, King Cotton--and the North still needed to grow. And precious little thanks they've got from history for it--the doughface Presidents.

The term doughface was applied to northerners sympathizing with the south. Pierce has been accused of being pro-slavery, which is probably unfair. He was a Jacksonian Democrat and strict constructionist who believed the Constitution allowed slavery, but stated he personally was opposed to it.

Perhaps, as Updike's character suggests, we should love the unlovable and thank Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan for delaying war until the North was in a position to win. Interestingly, it was Jefferson Davis, Pierce's Secretary of War, who did much to build up the U.S. military before secession, when he became president of the Confedrate States of America.

Franklin Pierce Runs Over Woman - Not!

2008-07-05T01:35:00.001-07:00

One bit of probably false Franklin Pierce trivia promulgated around the internet is the story of him running over an old woman while driving a horse and carriage. One version says this occurred while he was President and that he was arrested.

OK, the guy's the President of the United States. I realize it's the 1850s, but do you think he's going to be driving himself around the streets of Washington? Don't you think it would be pretty big news if he did run over somebody?

David Holzel, in his "Five Amazing Facts About Franklin Pierce (In Honor of His 203rd Birthday)", quotes no less an authority than Peter Wallner, who wrote not one, but two Pierce biographies. Wallner said, "The fact that there are no newspaper stories about the accident and it wasn’t mentioned in any correspondence convinced me that it probably didn’t happen.”

That's good enough for me.

Hair Force One, Part Two

2008-07-03T08:17:00.000-07:00

It seems that Presidential hair was a hot topic around February 15, 2008. As I explained in an earlier post, that's when the New Hampshire Historical Society unveiled what they felt was the secret of Franklin Pierce's hair. That very Presidents Day weekend, the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia put on an exhibition of Presidential hair--really! The hair samples came from the Peter Browne Collection of Pile--again I say, really! Peter Browne (1762-1860) was a lawyer and amateur naturalist who was interested in sheep (in a nice way, I mean). He started out collecting wool, otherwise known as pile, and studied what types of wool would be suited to different uses. He then branched out into collecting samples of human hair, including the hair of famous people. Included in the collection are the locks of several Presidents, including none other than Franklin Pierce. Thus occurred another opportunity for the media to take potshots at the 14th President. Writing in the article "Presidential Hair on Display" at Philly.com, Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Alfred Lubrano pointed out that the hair samples do not include the follicles, and therefore would not be a source of DNA for "cloning the brilliant redhead Thomas Jefferson or, for sheer laughs, good ol' Franklin Pierce, the very distant relative of President Bush's mother, and a Confederacy-supporting alcoholic with a thick, brown mop."

Bashing of Handsome Frank aside, it's an interesting article with an accompanying video and a slideshow that includes a photo of the page from Browne's scrapbook with Pierce's hair sample. It's much more attractively displayed than the one at the New Hampshire Historical Society web site shown in my previous post, "Hair Force One."

Franklin Pierce - Whipping Boy of Pundits and Naysayers

2008-07-02T11:11:00.001-07:00

Once again, the name of Franklin Pierce comes up in the political blogosphere this election year. In her article, "Wes Clark and the Military Credential," in the TIME/CNN blog Swampland, Karen Tumulty discusses the men who had military experience as generals before being elected U.S. President. General Wes Clark recently said that John McCain's military service didn't necessarily mean he would be a good Commander-in-Chief, which set off a firestorm of chatter in the media. Ms. Tumulty, taking the same exhaustive, thorough approach to journalism that I do, used Google to find out how many U.S. Presidents had been generals, and how those Presidents ranked in a survey of historians, political scientists and legal scholars that the Wall Street Journal and the Federalist Society did in 2000. Please note that John McCain was not a general, the world changed quite a bit between the time of George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and I personally believe this whole discussion is irrelevant.

In any event, Ms. Tumulty notes that of the twelve former generals who became President, "...two were flat-out 'failures': Franklin Pierce (Mexican War) and Andrew Johnson (Civil War)." Poor Franklin Pierce--Rodney Dangerfield got more respect than this guy.

Franklin Pierce Bobblehead

2008-07-01T21:10:00.001-07:00

I ordered mine yesterday from the New Hampshire Historical Society. Don't miss out! It's a limited edition!

Hair Force One

2008-07-01T00:49:00.001-07:00

Currier Print of Franklin Pierce

The hair of Abraham Lincoln is so desirable to collectors that a 1/16-inch-long piece of a single hair, allegedly cut from the Great Emancipator's head on his deathbed, is listed on eBay at $1900. One-sixteenth of an inch!

Consider then, the value of this lock of Franklin Pierce's hair from the New Hampshire Historical Society collection.

To me, it looks like something a cat coughed up. That, plus Pierce's sullied reputation as an ineffective President, tells me that his tresses probably wouldn't fetch a high price in the booming deceased celebrity hair market. But I may be wrong. Maybe there are enough Pierce aficianados out there to bid up the price.

Apparently, Pierce's tonsorial splendor was one reason behind his nickname, Handsome Frank. Today, there is some question among Pierce commentators (don't look for them on CNN or MSNBC) about whether Franklin Pierce's hairdo was a result of careless indifference, or thoughtfully planned coiffure. The experts seem to come down on the side of thoughtful planning. Writing in the blog Mental Floss, David Holzel lists as number five of his "Five Amazing Facts About Franklin Pierce (In Honor of His 203rd Birthday)" the tantalizing possibility that Franklin Pierce perfected the combover. He cites as evidence a photo from 1862 which supposedly shows Pierce's hair on two levels--"above, the hair combed on a deep slant, and below, a small patch at the front and center of his wide forehead." Alas, the photo is not included in the article so that astute readers might judge for themselves. I haven't been able to locate the said photo, even in an extensive gallery of Pierce's hairstyles at the website of the New Hampshire Historical Society. The NHHS e-newsletter of February 15, 2008 focuses on a bit of evidence in the great hair, or should I say big hair, debate. The Society purchased a letter written by Franklin's wife, Jane, at auction. The letter, written to her sister in 1857, contains the passage, “Today, Mr. Pierce has met the citizens of Norfolk and after the fatigue is quietly lying on the sofa by a bright fire with Miriam brushing his hair soporifically.” Miriam was Mrs. Pierce's maid. I'm not sure if the phrase means that Mr. Pierce found the hair-brushing so relaxing he was falling asleep, or the maid found the task so boring that she was nodding off. In any case, one might conclude from this little vignette that Pierce was interested in the appearance of his hair. In the newsletter, Peter Wallner, director of the NHHS library and author of two volumes of Franklin Pierce biograpy, states, “While the evidence is not conclusive, the letter leads one to suspect that the vanity Pierce showed for his appearance extended to his hair as well.”

The other mention of President Pierce's hair I have found in my exhaustive research comes from the newspaper description of his lying in state at the New Hampshire State House in Concord, where mourners commented on “his mass of curly black hair, somewhat tinged by age, but which was still combed on a deep slant over his wide forehead.” [New Hampshire Daily Patriot, October 11, 1869]. Deep slant or combover? You be the judge. As David Holzel says at the conclusion of his Mental Floss article, "Pierce’s hair unquestionably is a subject for future historians to wrestle with." Let's just hope they don't have to wrestle with that hairball at the NHHS Museum.

Peculiar Pierce Memorabilia

2008-06-30T07:05:00.001-07:00

Doing a search of blogs at Wordpress.com has turned up a few interesting Franklin Pierce related posts. First I learned that Amazon.com sells apparel such as T-shirts, bibs and onesies displaying the handsome visage of our 14th President. Next, I found a (mercifully) short-lived attempt at a Franklin Pierce comic strip. And finally, one blogger owns a piano from the Francestown (NH) Academy, where Franklin Pierce was a student. Whether he actually played the piano is unknown to me, but it makes for a nice Washington-slept-here type story.

Franklin Pierce Praised

2008-06-27T13:48:00.001-07:00

New Hampshire man Elting E. Morison wrote a piece entitled "In Praise of Pierce" in the August/Sept. 1985 issue of American Heritage Magazine.

Franklin Pierce Dissed Again

2008-06-27T12:51:00.001-07:00

On Feb. 6, 2007, US News and World Report posted an article on the ten worst Presidents in U.S. history. Franklin Pierce came in #4.

Franklin Pierce Rising

2008-06-17T02:22:00.001-07:00

Perhaps Franklin Pierce will rise from obscurity this election season. He is getting some publicity now. In the June 13, 2008 edition of the Christian Science Monitor, Ruth Walker writes in an article about the "historic" campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton entitled "Not Quite the End of 'History',"

It is a moment to savor in the life of the nation. But is history the facts, the deeds themselves; or the telling of them? Of course they made history, one wants to say; the US presidency is always "historic." Consider Franklin Pierce, the obscure 14th president. Amazon lists a dozen biographies of him, including a new one due out in August, plus two compilations of his papers.

After checking on Amazon.com, it looks to me like the book being published in August is a recycling of a biography for children written by Steven Ferry in 2001, but at least the publisher is optimistic enough to think that children still read books and that they might be interested in history.

Blogger billysumday in his diary had me going for a minute with his parody of a recent John McCain remark. McCain responded to Barack Obama's comment that McCain was running for George W. Bush's third term by saying that Obama was running for Jimmy Carter's second term. Billysumday changed the response to make it Franklin Pierce's second term. The implication is that McCain is old and making outdated references. It may be the case that many young voters are equally unfamiliar with Carter and Pierce.

Finally, in an article about ex-Presidents, Jeremy Lott wrote of Bill Clinton in the blog Politico on May 20, 2008,

He may also be in the same strata as Franklin Pierce, who, though from New Hampshire, was a slavery enthusiast and denounced the Civil War effort to keep the nation united. Pierce died a reclusive alcoholic, a former president scorned even by local schoolchildren, who often threw pebbles at him on the rare occasions he ventured outside.

Little old lady English teacher note: If there are indeed different levels of bad ex-Presidents, then Clinton would be in the same stratum, not the same strata as Pierce, unless it is possible to be so bad as to occupy multiple levels in the hierarchy of former leaders of the free world.

For a nice concise video about Franklin Pierce, check out History.com.

Franklin Pierce the Obscure

2008-06-07T18:33:00.001-07:00

It probably has something to do with the fact that I am in my fourteenth hour of reading X-rays, CTs and ultrasounds on call today. I don't know how else to explain this post. I would do almost anything, read almost anything, Google almost anything to get away from the images of the huddled masses in the ERs and ICUs, yearning to have their brain hemorrhages, belly abscesses, and clotted veins diagnosed by yours truly. Actually, the afflicted have no idea who I am, nor will they ever, until they see my name on their bill, for radiologists labor for the most part in obscurity in front of computer monitors. So, for respite between cases, I have been surfing the web for material on the Marx brothers. They are cited as an area of interest in my Blogger profile, but I have not written about them yet. My search took me to David Holzel's zine The Jewish Angle, where he talks about being inspired by Groucho, and his plaster statue of Groucho, like the one I have.
In fact, I have plaster statues of Harpo and Chico as well. Harpo was a wedding present almost thirty-five years ago, and the other brothers were added soon after. From Holzel's site, I linked to The Franklin Pierce Pages, authored by Holzel, Benjamin Bratman, and Todd Leopold. Here, an unusual convergence of items from my recent posts occurred in Bratman's article "Wrested From the Jaws of Triviality." To wit:

Pierce had the peculiar distinction of having as vice president the only nationally elected American official ever to be sworn in on foreign soil. Pierce also had the peculiar distinction of having as vice president a man who never worked one day in the job. William Rufus de Vane King was terminally ill with tuberculosis when he was nominated and subsequently elected as vice president. (This begs the question, why was he selected?). He was sworn in in Cuba where he was seeking medical treatment. Less than a month later, he died, never having assumed his duties.

Ah ha! An example of the modern usage of "begs the question," which I had condemned in recent posts.

Also from Bratman's article:

Pierce’s salad days were clearly in college at Bowdoin College in Maine. There, he was a classmate of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who later became a writer and author of The Scarlet Letter, as well as one of Pierce’s closest friends and advisors.

Wow! Another of my newfound obsessions--Nathaniel Hawthorne! Bratman doesn't mention that Hawthorne wrote a campaign biography of his friend Franklin Pierce, and was rewarded with the American consulship to Liverpool after Pierce was elected. Hawthorne stayed at the post from 1853-57. Also of note, Hawthorne died on a trip to the White Mountains with Pierce in 1864.

Who knows, I may now become obsessed with Franklin Pierce. After all, writing about an obscure president (James Buchanan) paid off for John Updike in his play Buchanan Dying and his novel Memories of the Ford Administration.