Pierce on Jeopardy Yet Again

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

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

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?

Fainting Frank and Loco Focos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Pierce and Guano in the LA Times

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!

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

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?

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

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?

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.

The Great Pierce Barbecue of 1852

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.