A Secret Life: The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland

by Charles Lachman

  Grover Cleveland’s announcement naming his sister his official White House hostess came on January 17, 1885.

  Washington was eager to hear all about this interesting intellectual who had been anointed First Lady of the land. A thirty-eight-year-old spinster, with coiled hair already slightly tinged with grey, she, like her brother, possessed genuine brainpower and an extraordinary capacity for total recall. It was said that she never forgot a name, or the face that went with it. She also had a one-of-a-kind talent illustrative of her capacity to lose herself into another world: She could conjugate ancient Greek verbs in her head. Moreover, it was a skill she made use of on public occasions whenever she was flustered or found herself getting bored.

  The inauguration of the new president was set for March 4, 1885, as prescribed by the Constitution. (The Twentieth Amendment, changing Inauguration Day to the twentieth of January, would not go into effect until 1933.) Rose, Mary Hoyt, their sister Louisa Bacon, their brother the Reverend William Cleveland, his wife and three nieces, all accompanied Grover Cleveland on the journey to Washington. Joining them were Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Manning—the incoming secretary of the treasury—and Mr. and Mrs. Dan Lamont. Lamont was going as Cleveland’s private secretary, having initially resisted Cleveland’s many efforts to persuade him to take the position. Cleveland had finally won him over by saying, “Well, Dan, if you won’t go, I won’t, that’s all.”

  Everyone boarded a modest little train with an engine car, one baggage car, and two sleepers, and it quietly slipped out of the Albany station at 6:45 a.m. sharp, without so much as a toot or whistle. The only people to see them off were Cleveland’s personal physician, Dr. Ward, a military adjutant, a police officer, and several inquisitive youngsters from town who had come to observe this moment of history. There were no stops scheduled between the state capital and Washington except to take on water.

  The entire trip took exactly twenty-four hours. When the train pulled into the Baltimore & Potomac Depot at 6th and B Street NW in Washington, six newspaper reporters were standing on the platform to witness the arrival of the president-elect. Security consisted of a police inspector and a squadron of soldiers under the command of an army colonel who wore a flashy scarlet bandana around his neck. What followed was anything but a formal ceremony. No one seemed to know the proper protocol. It was an awkward scene, with Rose and the other ladies on board the train seen staring out the windows as porters scrambled to unload the Clevelands’ trunks and boxes. Finally, President-elect Cleveland stepped off the train. In his beaver overcoat and high hat, carrying a small leather satchel, more bookkeeper than president, he failed to make much of an impression. His face was homely and he had a double chin and he was not as tall as everyone had expected. The general consensus of those who witnessed the event was that the Cleveland campaign posters that had been plastered across the land during the election were “considerably flattering” when compared to what he looked like in the flesh. Cleveland was shown to the B Street exit where he found a team of carriages waiting for his party, and when everyone was comfortably seated, the convoy trotted off on a fifteen-minute drive to the Arlington Hotel on H Street.

  A doorman held the door for Cleveland and said, “How d’ye do, Mr. President?”

  Cleveland was shown to his rooms on the second floor of the Pomeroy House, which was connected to the Arlington Hotel by private corridor. The suite faced Lafayette Square, with the White House looming in plain view. President Arthur made the thoughtful gesture of sending over the chief White House doorkeeper, Sergeant E. S. Dinsmore of the Washington city police. Dinsmore knew every important personage in the capital by sight, and Dan Lamont, quickly assessing the sergeant’s value, positioned him at the H Street entrance to control the stream of distinguished visitors who came to call on Cleveland. Senator Gorman of Maryland, Horatio King, and a score of other politicians all showed up to pay their respects.

  The next day, Grover Cleveland was inaugurated twenty-second president of the United States. He wore his Prince Albert coat, a high old-fashioned standing collar, and a black tie and bore the honor with becoming dignity. Cleveland had committed his entire speech to memory, only occasionally consulting notes he held in his right hand. His only regret on this great day was the absence of Frances Folsom whose midterm exams at Wells College unfortunately coincided with the inauguration. Lady Principal Helen Fairchild Smith had refused to grant Frances special leave, even to attend this never-to-be-repeated historic spectacle. Surely Frances found it a challenge to focus on her exams while the man who was romancing her with flowers was being sworn in as commander in chief, but the strict disciplinarian of Wells College could not be swayed.

  As the powers of the executive branch of government were transferred to a new administration, Rose Cleveland began to acclimate herself to her role as First Lady.

  A relation rather than a wife serving as First Lady was not without precedent in Washington. Rose’s predecessor, Mary Arthur McElroy, was President Arthur’s sister. (Arthur’s wife, Ellen, had died of pneumonia at age forty-two, twenty months before Arthur became president.) Andrew Johnson’s shy and sickly wife, Eliza, had made only two official appearances as First Lady and had delegated all hostess duties to their daughter Martha. And Harriet Lane had served as hostess for the only other bachelor in American history to be elected president, her uncle James Buchanan. Rose was in distinguished company.

  Rose moved into a bedroom on the second floor of the White House, facing south, with a commanding view of the Virginia hills. She could also see the tallest structure in the city, the Washington Monument. The White House living quarters had undergone a complete renovation during the Arthur Administration, so Rose found her rooms in perfect condition and comfortable in every way.

  Washington got its first real look at Rose and the rest of the family at the inaugural ball that night. As First Lady, she should have been the center of attention, but it was Vice President Hendricks’s stylish wife, Eliza, a veteran of the Washington social scene, who assumed that status. With her white brocaded satin gown with beaded pearl front, Mrs. Hendricks won the evening’s accolades from the Washington Post, followed by the wife of the commanding general of the United States Army, then President Cleveland’s three nieces, Mary Hoyt, and finally, the First Lady. Rose’s low-waisted gown of white silk, edged with plaited ruffles, was depicted without editorial comment. Some may have seen this as exceedingly insulting.

  Four days later, Rose held her first reception at the White House. She must have been anxious because she asked her sisters Mary and Louisa, and her sister-in-law, for assistance. They stood in the East Room greeting a throng of high-society ladies who were there to observe the First Family firsthand. It was an uncomfortable occasion for the four Cleveland ladies because even the most inconsequential social gaffe could potentially be blown up into an embarrassing situation by the hostile press. Rose wore her hair in stylish little curls to enhance the framing of her intelligent face. This time her outfit—a plain green velvet dress—received favorable notices. It was remarked that she was “in every way fit to preside over the social ceremonies at the famous mansion.”

  Then the rumor mill started churning. The Washington Post pointed out how Rose was so like Anna Dickinson in the way she wore her hair short and sensible. Anna Dickinson was a well-known suffragette and lecturer who, in 1864, became the first woman to speak before the House of Representatives. In those days, she was known as a fierce abolitionist—the Joan of Arc of the Civil War—but as the years went on, she struggled with mental health, and her sister would one day have her committed into a state hospital for the insane. There was also the scuttlebutt that Anna was a lesbian. Having made the comparison, and its inescapable insinuations, the Post was quick to point out “there is nothing mannish” about Rose Cleveland.

  The capital’s leading socialites treated Rose cordially, but some snarky comments hinted at something amiss. One had to read between the lines to get the message. The Boston H
erald praised Rose for bringing to Washington much needed “earnestness” and applauded her “clean-cut” face. Then came this dig: “If she has the courage of her convictions she will lead in her natural bent [italics added] rather than be led by the stereotyped ways of so-called fashion.”

  When Rose invited a delegation from the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union to tea at the White House, she showed that she had a mind of her own. This was bold of her: The Prohibition Party had fielded a candidate against her brother in the election of 1884, winning 150,000 votes. When the ladies arrived wearing white ribbons denoting their devotion to the cause of prohibition, there was quite a scene. To Rose, wine was “poison,” and drinking a national curse. When an article Rose had written for a temperance magazine back in 1882, when she was an unknown academic, found its way back into print now that she was First Lady, it’s easy to imagine President Cleveland’s irritation at her words: “It is only a strong man who can keep his wine glass upside down.” Rose also let it be known that she had great admiration for Rutherford B. Hayes’s wife, Lucy, known by the sobriquet “Lemonade Lucy” after she banned alcohol at all White House functions. Rose did not go that far—wine continued to be served at dinner in the Cleveland White House—but whenever a toast was made, the only drink Rose hoisted was water.

  Mary Hoyt remained in Washington until the end of March, when she returned to her family in Fayetteville, New York. Louisa Bacon, who was married to an architect, also went home to Toledo. Rose was on her own, but she was not without companionship. A woman she knew from Albany, Miss Annie Van Vechten, arrived at the White House on March 19 for an extended stay.

  Annie came from a distinguished Dutch family that had settled in America in the 1600s. She was a statuesque forty-year-old brunette with queenly shoulders and a commanding physical presence—a finished woman of the world, and just the right antidote to Rose’s taciturnity. At least she wasn’t conjugating Greek verbs in her head to pass the time on the tedious reception line, as was said of Rose. A few days after Annie moved into the White House, she assisted Rose in hosting an afternoon tea. Two days later, she attended Sunday services at Rose’s side at the First Presbyterian Church on Fourth Street—the house of worship where President Cleveland had just purchased a pew. No one knew what to make of Annie. Was she Rose’s companion? Or was this a cover and was President Cleveland courting her?

  The following week, Annie Van Vechten had to take a backseat to another fetching visitor: Frances Folsom had been invited by President Cleveland to stay at the White House for her Easter break from Wells College. Frances may have missed the inauguration, but she was finally able to savor her first sweet taste of life in the Washington limelight. She was given a room in the family quarters on the second floor, overlooking the North Portico entrance. She could not believe she was actually here. It was like a storybook. Schoolgirl that she was, she opened her heart to her diary.

  “I can’t realize it is Washington. I can’t realize it is the White House—or if it all is, I think I can’t be I, but must be some other body.”

  That first night, dinner was served with all of President Cleveland’s favorite ladies at the table: Frances, her mother Emma, and Rose. Somehow he managed to lose the mother and his sister and invited Frances to accompany him on a private tour of the White House, where they could be alone. The time had come to take his courtship to the next level. Cleveland showed his former ward all the points of interest until they found themselves in the East Room, the site of most formal state dinners and other presidential ceremonies, and to this day, the largest room in the presidential mansion. Surely, Cleveland showed Frances a most treasured work of art—the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington that, according to legend, had been saved by Dolly Madison when the British burned the White House to the ground in 1814. Romance was definitely in the air as Cleveland and Frances made tender small talk. He told her that he tried to come to the East Room every night and walk its length for exercise, and they playfully calculated how many times they had to walk from one end to the other to make a mile. It came to forty-eight. The president escorted Frances to the south window, and as lovers have always done, they gazed at the moon. Words danced from his lips, and they were “very romantic.” Cleveland had now crossed the line, and he had probably never felt more vulnerable.

  The new few days were a whirlwind of activity for Frances. She was officially presented to Washington society on March 28 at an afternoon reception at the White House. Emma Folsom and Annie Van Vechten were also there, but it was Frances, her lush chestnut hair and charming sincerity free of affectation, who became a sensation—a “decided favorite,” according to the Washington Post, by far the “prettiest girl that Washington society has seen this winter.” Frances wore a simple short skirt of white silk and cascades of lace. Her tight-fitting collar covered her neck so entirely it seemed to bellow the essence of virginity. Her corsage of Jacqueminot roses matched the blush that graced her cheeks. Among the guests were an exceptional number of the capital’s most alluring debutantes, but the Wells College senior was “the belle of the assemblage.” When Cleveland sneaked a peak at the reception and saw Frances’s sparkling debut, he was said to have exclaimed, “She’ll do! She’ll do!” Also keeping a watchful eye was that “handsome matron,” her mother Emma Folsom. Emma hovered over Frances, whispering words of encouragement in her daughter’s ear, and Rose also made a special fuss, referring to Frances as “my little schoolgirl.”

  Dan Lamont’s wife, Juliet, who was also at the party, found herself standing next to a gossipy Washington socialite to whom she said of Frances, “Isn’t she the loveliest, the sweetest little beauty you ever saw?”

  “Charming, charming,” the socialite agreed. Then she said something she would one day come to regret. “How perfectly ridiculous it is to talk of the president marrying that child. The mother is even a trifle young for a man of his years and seriousness, and he will never marry while he lives in this house, I know. That sort of thing is not in his line and not in his mind, now that he has the duties of this great office on his shoulders.” It was this woman’s opinion that that other fetching White House visitor, Annie Van Vechten, would make a far more appropriate bride for the president.

  There was genuine curiosity about President Cleveland’s romantic life. Already there were rumors afloat that the forty-eight-year-old president was thinking about taking a bride, an as-yet unidentified “Buffalo belle.” Scuttlebutt settled on four contenders, first among them Emma Folsom, although it seemed to many that Cleveland was smitten with Emma’s daughter. Another prospective bride was said to be Maria Maltby Love, heiress of a prominent Buffalo family. Annie Van Vechten also found herself on the short list. Meanwhile, Cleveland’s friends were quick to shoot down the reports, assuring everyone that the president was a confirmed bachelor. Those in the know, however, were putting their money on the winsome Frances Folsom.

  Everyone wanted to get to know Frances. She and her mother were invited to a dinner party at the home of Senator George Pendleton of Ohio where she was introduced to the ambassadors of Great Britain, France, and Germany. Frances also saw all the sights and went shopping with her mother for a formal white gown for her college graduation. For this purchase, she wrote a letter to her grandfather asking for eighty dollars, assuring the flinty old man that it was a “fine gown,” which she would get plenty of use out of—“if I shall receive another invitation to Washington, as Miss Cleveland intimates I shall.” Even so, she was a little embarrassed about asking her grandfather for the cash. “Have you come to think that your oldest grandchild never writes you very much without tacking on a request for money—I believe that is almost so. But you know when that grandchild is going to the White House, money is rather inevitable, for one must have clothes. . . . Do you want any messages delivered to our good president?”

  Cleveland took Frances on drives around Washington in his Victorian carriage, drawn by two seal-brown bays, with veteran White House coachman Al
Bird at the reins, and it was, Frances wrote in her diary, a thrill to be sitting next to the president. After

  Cleveland pulled a few strings, Frances got to be taken to the top of the Washington Monument which—though it had been completed in 1884 following thirty-six years of on and off construction—had not yet been opened to the public. Emma tagged along.

  It was finally dawning on the widow Folsom that Cleveland had no interest in taking her as his wife. How Emma learned that it was her daughter who was the object of the president’s romantic desire and not herself has been a closely guarded family secret for more than a century, but it was said that when she was given the bracing news, Emma was “not pleased.” At some point, she came to an accommodation and, finally, gave her blessing to the union. Perhaps she was able to appreciate the fact that, though she could not be First Lady, she could at least be the mother of the First Lady.

  After six weeks in office, President Cleveland had settled into a daily routine. He awoke at eight, had breakfast at nine, and by ten was starting his workday in the library. In the morning, the first order of business in the president’s office was sorting the mail. This was the duty of Dan Lamont, Cleveland’s indispensable private secretary, who usually selected eight or ten letters worthy of the president’s personal attention. The rest of the correspondence was distributed to the various branches of government. Letters from cranks and strange characters were placed in a file informally marked “eccentric.” Once the morning mail was dealt with, Cleveland was ready to receive callers. In those days, formal appointments to see the president were not necessary. A distinguished gentleman with the right pedigree could present his card to the White House doorkeeper, who would take it to Lamont. No one got to see the president without Lamont’s say-so. Almost every day, Cleveland made sure to check in with Rose to see how she was doing. Weather permitting, at 5:00 p.m., Cleveland would climb aboard the White House coupe, almost always with Lamont at his side, for a drive around Washington to get to know the capital. Sometimes the tour would last ninety minutes.