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

by Charles Lachman

  Dinner was always served at seven, followed by a mild cigar, usually his favorite brand, Reina Victoria, sometimes a Maduro. In those early days, Cleveland found the food indigestible and came to detest the French-born chef, Alexander Fortin, who had run the kitchen since the Garfield administration. Cleveland scornfully referred to Fortin as “that man who cooks,” and longing for those unfussy meals in Buffalo—“pickled herring, Swiss cheese and a chop”—he finally fired him. He then brought in Eliza, his cook from the governor’s mansion in Albany, and she was able to keep the husky president content with her basic steak-and-potatoes fare.

  By 8:00 p.m., Cleveland could be found back at his desk in the library, reading through mounds of paperwork that would keep him occupied until midnight, when he retired. A single telephone number serviced the entire mansion, and after hours, when all the clerks had gone home, it was not unusual for President Cleveland to answer the phone himself.

  Frances’s presence in the White House seemed to be softening Cleveland’s hard-edged personality; for the first time in his political life, he came to enjoy the ceremonial functions of office—to a point. He was working in the library one Monday morning when he looked out his window and saw hundreds of children, accompanied by their mothers and nurses, gathered on the White House lawn for the traditional Easter egg roll. The spectacle lifted his spirits, and he instructed the ushers to collect all the children who were interested in meeting the president and bring them to the East Room. When Cleveland strode in, accompanied by Frances, Emma, and Rose, his attention was drawn to the littlest boy there, whose outstretched hand held a brilliantly colored egg that he was offering to the president. He wanted Mr. Cleveland to have it, he said, because he had “plenty more in the box,” and Cleveland patted the boy on the head.

  Alas, Frances’s Washington fairy tale was coming to an end. Cleveland tried to talk her into extending her stay, but she had the good sense to insist that she had to return to Wells College and complete her senior year. Frances and Emma had stayed at the White House for eleven days, and on April 8, they stretched out their final hours—neither wanting to leave this fantasy-land—until they bid their farewells to President Cleveland and, in a driving rainstorm, boarded the last train back to New York.

  Rose had cancelled all her appointments for that day and refused to receive any callers so that she could spend the Folsoms’ last day in Washington with them. Her brother had let her in on a state secret—that he had made an “arrangement” with Frances and would ask for her hand in marriage. Rose had seen it coming for at least a year, and having found Frances to be a promising young lady, “capable of great development,” she approved of the match despite the twenty-seven-year disparity in age. No one, Rose came to realize, should underestimate Frances. Underneath that veil of 19th-century femininity, she was a “much-stronger character” than people supposed. She was, in Rose’s opinion, a “superior person.” So Rose was encouraging, though she had to have understood that in grooming her successor as First Lady, she herself would inevitably be shown the door.

  Annie Van Vechten finally departed the White House in mid-April and returned to her home in Albany where she lived with her mother. Rose missed her very much and apparently sank into a state of melancholia. She started scaling back her social duties and let it be known that she was canceling all White House receptions for the rest of the social season. Washington’s elite found the entire situation exceedingly disquieting. It seemed that after a mere two months as First Lady, Rose had had enough. She had once contemptuously equated upper-crust society to a salivating and servile dog, specifically a spaniel. Like the spaniel, fashionable people obediently tagged along, drooling at the mouth. Some of the formalities required of her position as First Lady were, in Rose’s estimation, nonsensical; conversely, some of the women who came into contact with Rose regarded her as “rather terrifying.” Was she really conjugating Greek verbs while they were trying to engage her in chitchat?

  On April 29, Rose left Washington bound for New York to “recuperate and rest.” The White House would only say that she was taking some time off. The truth was that Rose and her brother had had a major blowout of an argument. To her shame, Rose had told the president that his administration was appointing too many Catholics to high-level government posts. The nation, she said, was facing a “Romanist peril.” It was anti-immigration bigotry straight out of the Know-Nothing party handbook. Cleveland found it “annoying.”

  With Rose gone, Dan Lamont’s wife, Juliet, moved into the White House temporarily to run things. Cleveland, writing to his sister Mary, tried to downplay the situation, saying that Libbie, as he called Rose, had gone to New York for “a little rest.”

  “She’d had a pretty hard time here,” Cleveland admitted. Reverend Byron Sunderland, pastor of the Presbyterian church where Rose and the president worshipped, offered himself as peacemaker and tried to patch things up, without success. The White House worked overtime to keep a lid on the family turmoil. The stories two newspapermen had written about it may have been accurate, but all the same, the men were banned from covering the administration for having had the nerve to report accounts of the falling out between the Clevelands. Charles A. Hamilton, a reporter for the Buffalo Express, and later the dean of White House correspondents for the Washington Post, found his access to the White House jeopardized when he was accused of spreading the tale that Rose and the president were at each other’s throats. Hamilton became so concerned that he went to Lamont and informed him that he had no intention of writing a word about this “scurrilous” story. Once he had Hamilton’s pledge, Lamont did a good turn and told the reporter he would be “always welcome at the White House.”

  The family drama was an authentic crisis for Cleveland, coming as it did on the heels of the Maria Halpin scandal the year before and the misgivings it had raised about Cleveland’s fitness for office. Cleveland had to wonder whether he had blundered in naming his maiden sister First Lady. Perhaps Mary Hoyt would have made the more prudent pick. Like her brother, Mary held to the old-fashioned conviction that “a good wife is a woman who loves her husband and her country with no desire to run either.” The president called on his most trusted aide, Lamont, dispatching him to New York to talk things over with Rose. It was a delicate mission. Obviously, Rose was on the edge, but whatever words and assurances Lamont used, he was persuasive enough to bring Rose back with him to Washington. Once again, Lamont had come through in a pinch.

  16

  THE BRIDE

  GRADUATION FOR WELLS College, class of 1885, took place in June. It was a small ceremony—only six girls were receiving their diplomas. Frances Folsom wore a white dress, the one she had purchased during her stay at the White House. The commencement program listed her as Frank Folsom. Cleveland could not attend; common sense and the duties of office were keeping him tied to his desk in the White House. Instead, he sent Frances a huge hamper of roses. He also arranged for the class ivy to be delivered to Wells College in his name. Frances and her classmates planted the ivy against the wall at Morgan Hall during a gentle June shower, and in the generations to come, the ground-creeping plant would make its sturdy climb up the brickwork.

  Her family gave Frances an amazing graduation gift: a trip to Europe. Some have suggested there was an ulterior motive behind Emma Folsom’s generosity. After all, for a disapproving mother who frowns on her daughter’s beau, putting an ocean between the couple can do wonders. Before Frances departed, she spent a lazy summer at the family farm in Folsomville, New York. Then she journeyed to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to spend some time with her college chum, Grace Storrs. Grace had black hair and cobalt eyes, and a serious expression set on a very pretty face. Her father was the general superintendent of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, so the Storrs family stood at the apex of Scranton’s social pecking order, and Frances had a grand time mingling with the other young swells in town. During her stay in Scranton, Frances received a letter that changed everything
. It came from the president of the United States. Wrote Cleveland, “Would you put your life in my hands?”

  It was a formal proposal of marriage.

  “Yes,” Frances wrote back.

  Everyone was sworn to secrecy. She told only her mother, grandfather, and cousin, the Buffalo lawyer Ben Folsom. None of her kin raised any objection about the propriety of the match, even though Cleveland had known her from babyhood. By now, despite her misgivings, Emma was coming to the realization that nothing could keep Frances and the president apart.

  “Frank made a hero out of him before she was out of short dresses,” Emma would later explain. Her daughter, she ruefully remarked, “looks at him through the glamour of love’s young dream.”

  So it was done. Frances wanted a quickie wedding, but Cleveland told her she should take the time to think things through. Did she really want to be Mrs. Grover Cleveland? He even expressed remorse for their infatuation to have reached this stage and said, from the bottom of his heart, how he wished that he were not president of the United States and thus not subjecting his “darling” to the harsh glare of life in the public arena. “Poor girl,” Cleveland would remark some time later, “you never had any courting like other girls.”

  Women in that era rarely traveled abroad without a male escort, hence Ben Folsom wrote Cleveland a letter, assuring the president that he would accompany Frances and Emma Folsom to Europe and serve as their guardian. It would be Ben’s third tour of the Old World. A thirty-eight-year-old bachelor, Ben was fairly tall for those times, about five foot eight, with narrow shoulders, and a pleasant face marked by a trimmed brown beard that gave him the look of an English prince. His reputation in Buffalo was that of a bon vivant.

  Frances’s grandfather, Colonel John Folsom, paid all the expenses for the European voyage and told Frances that when she found herself in Paris, she had to shop for a trousseau befitting the bride of the American president. She was under instructions from her grandfather to buy “as fine a costume as possible” for her wedding. Family honor required nothing less.

  President Cleveland heartily approved of Frances’s adventure. He saw the experience as an invaluable education for the future First Lady. The nine-month separation would also give her a stretch of time to ponder whether she truly wanted to be his wife. In the meantime, the president kept a photograph of her in his bedroom. Just before she boarded the transatlantic ship, Cleveland sent Frances a telegram, wishing her a bon voyage. It was addressed to “Miss Folsom” and sprinkled with expressions of adoration and undying love. A Western Union operator slipped the telegram to a reporter who made the erroneous assumption that the Miss Folsom in question had to be the mother, Emma. Once again, there was a flurry of newspaper stories about the bachelor president, this time predicting a White House wedding on the horizon—but to the widow Emma Folsom. Speculation about Emma cut Cleveland where it hurt—his ego. “I don’t see why the papers keep marrying me to old ladies. I wonder why they don’t say I am engaged to marry her daughter,” he grumbled to an aide.

  In November, President Cleveland made a trip to Buffalo, still his legal residence, to cast his vote in the New York State gubernatorial race. He was in his old law offices, chatting with Wilson Bissell and several other cronies when Ed Butler of the Buffalo Evening News came in with some unsettling information. None other than George Beniski, the illiterate Polish-born sailor who had served as Cleveland’s substitute in the Civil War, had approached the publisher to see if a meeting with the president could be arranged. Beniski was in fact just outside the office, waiting for Butler’s answer.

  Cleveland agreed to meet with the man, and when he saw the army veteran ushered in, it was quite a shock. Beniski was now fifty-four, and it was a struggle for him to walk. Cleveland greeted him effusively.

  “This is the man who went to war for me,” he declared.

  Cleveland showed Beniski to a chair in the corner and pressed him to be seated. Then the president asked everyone else to leave. When he was alone with Beniski, Cleveland asked him what it was he wanted. Beniski said he was “unwell and destitute,” and he was embarrassed to say that his current place of residence was the Erie County Poorhouse. He needed a helping hand, he told Cleveland.

  Beniski didn’t get much sympathy from the president. For some reason, Cleveland found his story of absolute destitution far-fetched. “That is not true,” he responded gruffly. Then he reached in his pocket and handed him five dollars. With that, Beniski was dismissed.

  Cleveland could only hope that this would be the last time he would hear from the inconvenient George Beniski.

  Frances Folsom’s tour took her to England, France, Belgium, Italy, and Germany. In Berlin, Frances met up with her college roommate, Kate Willard, who joined Frances, her mother, and Ben on an excursion to Italy where they explored the streets of Pompeii and stared into the “boiling seething lava of Vesuvius.” Frances was so moved, she let her guard down and found herself telling Kate that she was secretly engaged to President Cleveland. Kate must have recalled the portrait of Grover Cleveland that had hung in their dorm room, the regular delivery of fresh roses, and the playful, almost flirtatious way they talked with each other when he came to visit Frank on campus. Yet it hadn’t registered then—and even now, Kate could not quite believe it. He was old and unattractive and Frank was young and beautiful. Kate tried to talk Frank out of the engagement, but she just shook her head. She loved the man, she told Kate. She had found true happiness with Cleveland and her “mission” in life was to be his wife.

  In April, they went their separate ways, Kate returning to Berlin while Frances, her mother, and her cousin Ben continued their tour of Italy. But in Rome, Emma contracted malaria, and by the time they got to Genoa, she could barely function. The fever and debilitating chills confined her to bed for the next six weeks, convalescing in Naples while Frances and Ben walked the city’s ancient cobbled streets and visited its landmarks. They were joined by another young American socialite, Jennie Davis, the daughter of Henry Gassaway Davis, a self-made railroad tycoon recently retired after twelve years as the United States senator from West Virginia. Naturally, Jennie was completely plugged into Washington society, and when she and Frances had really gotten to know each other, she boldly asked Frances whether it was true that she and President Cleveland were thinking about an engagement. Frances shrugged it off, saying “Those foolish newspaper stories.” But Jennie didn’t buy it. “Well, then,” she said, “will you answer this question: If you do marry the president, will you promise to honeymoon near me at Deer Park?” Deer Park was a resort town in Western Maryland where Jenny’s father had built a beautiful summer cottage near the worldfamous boiling springs. Frances skirted the cunning trap. “Yes, if anything of that kind ever occurs, I will go to Deer Park.”

  Jenny returned to America while the Folsom women, Emma having recovered from her bout with malaria, and Ben moved on to Paris. Frances planned to shop for her trousseau there, and Dan Lamont had arranged to have the American consul from Antwerp and his wife meet up with the Folsoms to lend a hand. John Steuart made the perfect guide; he was not only an experienced public servant but also a well-regarded antiquarian with excellent taste.

  Back in Berlin, Kate Willard reflected on the Grover Cleveland situation and put her thoughts in a letter, which reached Frances at her Paris hotel.

  “I should have begged you wildly never, never to marry Mr. Cleveland,” Kate told her friend. Frances deserved “another life and love”—anyone but Grover Cleveland. Kate was so sure of her ground, she put their friendship on the line: “I don’t know what, only not this.”

  Frances then made another blunder. In Buffalo, New York, Cora Townsend, the mother of Frances’s former fiancé Charles Townsend, was having breakfast with her family, including young Charles, now an ordained Presbyterian minister and married, when Cora announced that she had received a letter from Frances Folsom. Charles bore Frances no hard feelings, and Frances adored the Townsends, especia
lly Mrs. Townsend. As it was a family custom so that one and all could enjoy the latest news from the people they knew, everyone urged Cora Townsend to read the letter out loud. The last time Charles had had a letter from Frances, the ring he had placed on her finger asking for her hand in marriage had fallen out of the envelope.

  Mrs. Townsend read from Frances’s latest that she was in Paris with her mother on the final leg of their European adventure and having a grand time, although these last few weeks had been a little rough because Emma Folsom had malarial fever, and now Frances was afflicted with a case of shingles and in a state of complete “misery.” She would be coming home in late May. And by the way, she was getting married to President Cleveland, but Mrs. Townsend had to promise not to breathe a word to anyone. All this had flooded out before Cora had grasped the fact that she was being let in on a fabulous secret. Now the secret was out, and everyone at the table sat dumbfounded as Mrs. Townsend finished reading: “I wish all you dear girls could have such a devoted sweetheart as I have. Grover Cleveland is the finest man in the world.”

  Not long thereafter, Cora Townsend was in Troy, New York, visiting her daughter, who was married to George Wellington, an up-and-coming assistant United States attorney. She showed her daughter and son-in-law Frances’s letter, and in no time, the news spread through Troy. Pretty soon, a reporter from the New York Sun came knocking on their door, and George Wellington confirmed that he had read Frances’s letter, and “there was not the slightest doubt but that it was genuine.” From what he had gathered, Wellington said, the wedding “would be of the most quiet character possible.”