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

by Charles Lachman

  Meanwhile, Cleveland thought it was time for him to let his sister Mary Hoyt in on his wedding plans. He wrote,

  I expect to be married pretty early in June—very soon after Frank returns. I think the quicker it can be done the better and she seems to think so too. . . . I want my marriage to be a quiet one and am determined that the American Sovereigns [Cleveland’s acid expression for newspaper reporters] shall not interfere with a thing so purely personal to me. . . . I have thought of having no one but the family, hers and mine, present at the ceremony. Hers is not large. Her mother has two sisters and two brothers and her mother. Then I have thought that it might be well to have the Cabinet people at the ceremony. They have been so devoted to me and on all occasions that it seems almost as though they should be with me there.

  “I have my heart set on making Frank a sensible, domestic American wife,” Cleveland wrote Mary. His main concern was preserving Frances’s sweet nature, he said, and he would be very displeased to hear her referred to as First Lady because it might give her “notions.” “But I think she is pretty level-headed.”

  Cleveland ended his letter by asking Mary to “think of all these things and let me know how they strike you.” He may have been a control freak who stewed over the most inconsequential details of the wedding, but he was sensible enough to realize that he needed a woman’s perspective.

  Three weeks later, Cleveland settled on a wedding date, writing Mary, “It looks as if Frank would reach New York about the 28th of May, stay there a few days, and then come here and be married the next day or the day of her arrival—say the 2d or 3d of June. Have the ceremony at 7 o’clock, with no one present but the two families; have a dinner immediately after the ceremony.”

  As matrimonial rumors swept the nation, Cleveland grew incensed over how the newspapers were intimating that Frances had found a father figure in Grover Cleveland, a man to replace her father who had fallen. And the president must have squirmed when he read the analysis of a socialite quoted in the Washington Post who claimed to have inside knowledge of the romance:

  “To him she was nothing but a child; he watched her develop and . . . become the beautiful woman she is, and yet only in a dim, unconscious way realized that the little thing whom he had at one time carried in his arms was now a woman, with a woman’s heart and a woman’s love.”

  Once again, reporters were looking into his personal affairs, except now, his fiancée’s had become the target of relentless snooping. Nothing outrageous was uncovered—Frances was only twenty-one and had an unblemished history. But from Cleveland’s point of view, the reporting was unbearably intrusive—a repeat of the Maria Halpin scandal. One profile he found exceptionally impertinent claimed that during recess in high school, Frances enjoyed the company of boys more than girls. And at Wells College, Frances had to be “admonished” about the “perfidious” nature of young men who had only one thing on their minds. Her failed engagement to Charles Townsend also came under scrutiny. Cleveland referred to newsmen sniffing around Buffalo as a “dirty gang” and said he loathed them all.

  “I have changed my ideas entirely in regard to the wedding,” he informed Mary. “I am decidedly of the opinion now that the affair should be more quiet even than at first contemplated.” A grand wedding was not going to happen, Cleveland said, because he didn’t “care to gratify” the newspapers.

  “I am very indignant at the way Frank has been treated and mean to give the ‘gang’ as little chance at us hereafter as possible.”

  At around four o’clock, a cluster of correspondents were strolling up to the White House when President Cleveland’s low-hung Victorian coach came trotting by. There sat the president, wearing a black silk hat, with Lamont next to him, off on their regular afternoon jaunt around Washington. The correspondents doffed their hats, and Cleveland lifted his in acknowledgment. No newsman dared ask whether the reports of his engagement to Ms. Folsom were true. To do so would have risked banishment from the White House, where access meant everything. Reported the New York Times, “No one here seemed to think there was any ground of possibility for such a match.” Ms. Folsom, said the Times, was a “mere schoolgirl.” The Washington Post also expressed incredulity. It quoted a Buffalo gentleman as saying that Cleveland was “such a stickler for propriety,” there was not a chance in the world he would marry his former ward that he had helped raise from girlhood.

  Other publications were still speculating on a matchup with Annie Van Vechten or Emma Folsom (“a handsome matron with a gentle, amiable countenance”). Congressman John Weber, who had lost the race for sheriff when he ran against Cleveland in 1870, had this to say: “I have no reason to believe that Mr. Cleveland is about to be married, but if it should happen, then I say, God bless them both!”

  Cleveland could have done without the public support of Frances’s uncle, H. F. Harmon, a Boston flour dealer, who said Cleveland’s “acquaintance with the lady began when she was hardly knee high. She used to climb up on his knee and call him ‘Uncle Cleve.’ Mr. Cleveland was very fond of her as a child.”

  When one reporter had the temerity to corner Lamont and straight-out ask him about Frances Folsom, the president’s secretary responded with a voice that oozed disdain, “What is the matter with that story? Isn’t that sensation good enough for a week’s run at least? I’d keep it going for a while.” Was it a denial or sarcasm or confirmation? No one could tell. Lamont bristled when another reporter wondered how President Cleveland could consider marrying Frances Folsom. Wasn’t she just a schoolgirl?

  “Ms. Folsom is considerably more than a schoolgirl, I can assure you,” he growled.

  In Paris, Frances carried on with her shopping spree. She had to be fitted for outfits for travel, balls, dinners, walking excursions, and of course the most important event of all, her wedding. For this, she settled on a simple ivory satin gown with a long train and a bridal veil nearly seven yards in length that was to be worn high on the head and fall gracefully over the train. Frances was also getting a taste of what was awaiting her back home. Reporters from America and the European newspapers were staking out her hotel and following her everywhere, and Ben Folsom found himself running interference. Before he became a lawyer, Ben had worked as a cub reporter for the New York World, but nothing in his experience as a journalist had prepared him for this blitz of attention. It galled him to read that President Cleveland had paid for the Folsoms’ European tour, and he called these reports “rubbish and nonsense.”

  The time came to commence the long voyage home. The itinerary called for Frances, Emma, and Ben to sail the English Channel and make their way across England to the port city of Liverpool where they had booked passage on the transatlantic ship Servia. But at the last minute they rerouted to Belgium and booked passage on the Red Star Line’s SS Noordland out of Antwerp. Six Saratoga trunks went with them while eleven more, filled with Frances’s trousseau, continued on to the Servia.

  The Noordland was set to sail at 11:00 a.m. on May 15, a raw and rainy day. Just before the clock struck ten, two carriages swung around the crooked streets of Antwerp and came to a stop in front of the great steamship. Out stepped a statuesque beauty wearing a straw hat. It was the American princess Frances Folsom. She strode up the gangplank followed by her mother, her cousin Ben, and a dachshund named Miss Vollopoo that Ben had purchased from a kennel in Brussels. A team of porters and stewards trailed the party, bearing their luggage. The local manager of the Red Star Line was there to make certain that all the needs of the First Lady-in-waiting were taken care of. Precisely at eleven, Frances and her companions stood on deck as the lines were cast off and the Noordland moved away from the dock and steamed up the Scheldt River to the North Sea and homeward.

  The Noordland was a four-mast vessel with one funnel and accommodations for sixty-three passengers in first class, fifty-six passengers in second, and five hundred in steerage. Frances and Emma were assigned cabin no. 20, the bridal chamber. Mother and daughter suffered seasickness du
ring the first day of the crossing, but when the waves settled, Frances was finally able to enjoy the passage. All eyes were fixed on her when she strode into the dining hall, and she and her party were seated at the captain’s table. How the food flowed! Eight courses at breakfast and twelve at dinner. Frances passed the days taking pleasurable turns on the deck, sometimes walking the dachshund, or on the lounge chair wrapped in layers of rugs to keep warm. Wearing either a feathered bonnet or a merry polo cap, “She possesses no airs; she is remarkably humble,” a fellow passenger later reported.

  On Monday, May 24, Frances and the other passengers awoke to a frigid day, and she asked Captain Nickels how it could be so cold that time of year. The Noordland, Nickels explained, was in northern waters, off the coast of Newfoundland, and he in fact had to be alert for icebergs that were too close for comfort. On Tuesday, the weather was warmed by the Gulf Stream, and Frances occupied herself writing a short story for the ship’s newspaper, the North Atlantic Spray. When the story, “Little Moll,” was read to the passengers, she tried to keep a straight face, but everyone knew that she had written the yarn, which had as its main characters Moll, a well-behaved waif, and Bartley, a redheaded and “very ugly” newspaper reporter for a New York daily.

  The Noordland was 280 miles from New York harbor, and Frances was on the bridge, having been invited by Captain Nickels, when the Red Star Line’s pilot boat no. 22 pulled along the port side with news from America. Following the captain’s directive, Frances signaled the engine room to come to a full stop, and when the ship came to a standstill, a crewman from the pilot boat climbed on board with a bundle of newspapers. Then Frances, with a gentle nod from Nickels, gave the signal for the engineer to fire up the engines.

  When the captain got a chance to read the papers, he called Ben Folsom to his cabin to tell him some distressing news: Colonel John Folsom was dead. According to the accounts, Frances’s grandfather had passed away on May 20 at the age of seventy-three on his two-hundred-acre farm in Folsomdale, the hamlet in Wyoming County, New York, that had been named for him. Folsom had been a colonel in the New York State militia and had died a wealthy man, with a reputed net worth of nearly half a million dollars from interests in milling, trading, farming, and the mining of potash. He also owned real estate in Omaha. Everyone in the family was aware that Frances had been the colonel’s favorite of his five grandchildren. Ben decided to keep Colonel Folsom’s death from Frances and Emma for the time being, and the next day, when the Noordland dropped anchor off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, Ben finally informed the Folsom ladies of Colonel Folsom’s death. Predictably, they took it hard, but after the immediate shock wore off, there were practical matters to think through. One plan under consideration had been for the wedding to take place on Colonel Folsom’s farm, but obviously that was now out of the question.

  Now that the ship had reached port, as Frances wondered what would happen next, the United States revenue cutter William E. Chandler came alongside, with Dan Lamont on board.

  Ben seized Lamont’s hand. “Why, old man, how are you?” Then he led the president’s emissary to the stateroom occupied by Frances and Emma. The Folsoms were given the full VIP treatment. Frances bid a quick farewell to all her Noordland friends and hurried down the gangplank. Miss Vollopoo, the dachshund, was left behind with the ship’s butcher, who promised to take care of her and keep her well fed until arrangements could be made to reunite her with the Folsoms.

  As hundreds of Frances’s fellow passengers watched from the deck, the cutter, after some puffing and blowing, pushed off from the Noordland with Frances and her party on board and steamed to the U.S. Custom House on the tip of Manhattan for processing. They were stunned when an inspector named J. B. Haynes insisted that all their bags and trunks be subjected to routine examination. He dug his hands through everything, looking for dutiable items, and only then did he permit the Folsoms to pass through. When the Custom House superintendent learned of the episode, he was so embarrassed that he fired Haynes two weeks later on grounds of “offensive partisanship.” Apparently, the inspector was a die-hard Republican.

  Under cloak of darkness, at two in the morning, Lamont spirited Frances, Emma, and Ben to the Gilsey House hotel at 29th and Broadway where they checked into a four-bedroom suite. Lamont could not let them rest without first resolving the issue of the time and location of the wedding. Frances said she believed her grandfather would not want his death to stand in the way of her happiness. Lamont communicated to her the president’s reluctance to be married in a hotel, and his objection to a church wedding. That left the White House. Frances concurred that the wedding should take place “as soon as possible,” and the following Wednesday was deemed the earliest practical date. It would be in the Blue Room, the most intimate parlor in the White House. So it was settled. Lamont telegraphed an anxious President Cleveland:

  ARRIVED SAFE. ALL IN GOOD HANDS.

  17

  DEATH OF A NEWSPAPER

  THERE WAS NOT a moment to lose. At 3:00 a.m., Lamont boarded a train for the nation’s capital, and when he arrived in Washington, he went directly to the White House where he briefed the president on his mission. Only then did Cleveland learn the particulars of his own wedding. A White House announcement that President Cleveland would marry Frances Folsom was issued at 8:00 p.m. At last it was official. If Cleveland feared he’d come under attack for robbing the cradle, he needn’t have worried. Not a single member of Congress raised his voice in public opposition to the marriage; as one after another rose to offer congratulations, Speaker of the House John G. Carlisle declared the discussion closed with the words: “The chair hears no objection.” Even the Republican opposition took pleasure at the prospect of a White House wedding. There had been nine previous weddings within the walls of the White House, but never before of a president. (John Tyler, the tenth president, was a widower when he married Julia Gardiner in New York City, in 1844.)

  After getting a few hours’ sleep that first night at the Gilsey House, Frances and Emma awoke and went to pay a courtesy call on Rose Cleveland, who was in New York, doing what she could to help out. When they returned to Gilsey House, New York City Mayor William Grace came to pay his respects. So did three friends from Wells College whom Frances hadn’t seen in a year since graduation. Ben had to admit that his cousin wasn’t “quite herself yet.” The ocean voyage, her grandfather’s death, the rushed wedding, and all the attending “racket” had understandably left her “a little nervous.” Later, a huge bouquet from the White House conservatory, delivered by night train, cheered her up.

  On May 30, 1886, President Cleveland left Washington on the 4:15 p.m. train bound for New York and the Decoration Day parades. This year, Decoration Day had taken on special meaning because in the intervening year, three great Union generals had died—Grant, McClellan, and Hancock. The holiday was also fraught with political complications. It was supposed to be a day of remembrance for those who had fallen during the Civil War, but Southerners did not recognize Decoration Day; they honored their dead in other ways, on other dates.

  Cleveland spent the night in New York at the mansion of his secretary of the navy, William C. Whitney, and the next morning, after a 7:00 a.m. breakfast, he stepped out in his frock coat, buttoned up to the chin, and a glossy silk hat to the hurrahs of an enormous crowd that had gathered at 5th Avenue and 57th Street to congratulate the groom-to-be. There was a healthy color to his cheeks and a merry twinkle in his eyes when, seeming surprised at the hearty reception, he lifted his hat and bowed before the cheering multitude. Then the president boarded a handsome carriage that had come to convey him to the Decoration Day parade route. At the same time, another carriage was picking up Frances at the Gilsey House to take her to the same location—the Fifth Avenue Hotel on 23rd Street. She was shown to a second-floor room where she joined the wives of several of Cleveland’s cabinet officers who had come to New York to observe the parade. Frances wore a becoming grey suit tailored very high to the neck. In he
r hands, she held the bouquet of flowers Cleveland had sent her. The wives made way for her, and she positioned herself on the window ledge that afforded the best view of the marching soldiers. As she looked down at a sea of high hats and waving handkerchiefs, right below her she could make out the portly figure of President Cleveland. Next to him on the grandstand were the men he held in the highest esteem: Dan Lamont, Secretary Whitney, the secretary of the interior, the postmaster general—and Horatio King, his political ally whose defamation of Maria Halpin during the presidential campaign of 1884 had done so much to sully her good name and rescue the Cleveland candidacy from defeat. A coincidence that did not escape Cleveland’s attention was that the Fifth Avenue Hotel where he now stood was the scene of the infamous “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” misstep that had wrecked Blaine’s candidacy in its final days and helped ensure Cleveland’s victory.

  As the veterans of the Civil War marched by, the president doffed his hat when each regiment passed before him, dipping its colors. Cleveland kept his right hand in the breast of his coat as Frances heartily applauded with gloved hands. Everyone seemed to be watching her. It was quite a spectacle—commemoration of the fallen giving way to admiration of the fine figure of Frances Folsom, perched on that second-floor window ledge.

  “Long live President Cleveland and his bride!” toasted the crowd. Three loud hip-hip hoorays were offered to “our bridegroom president.” When the Twenty-second Regiment passed, the band ceased their marching music and broke into Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March.” Cleveland glowed with a “warmth” he had never felt before in public. In all, with the various parades, on this day alone the president would be seen by a half million people.