NOVEMBER 19 -- 1834 Happy Anniversary Franklin and Jane Pierce; 1966 HARP shoots 400 lb. projectile 112 miles up; 1863 Lincoln delivers Gettysburg Address

NOVEMBER 19 -- 1834 Happy Anniversary Franklin and Jane Pierce; 1966 HARP shoots 400 lb. projectile 112 miles up; 1863 Lincoln delivers Gettysburg Address

1834 – Happy anniversary Franklin and Jane Pierce.

Jane Means Appleton was born March 12 1806 in Hampton, New Hampshire to Jesse Appleton and Elizabeth Means. Jesse was the president of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, which is where Jane met Franklin when he was a young lawyer. But Jane was morbidly religious, often depressed and wasn’t a big believer in happiness. Though it was clear that Handsome Frank, who was already a congressman, was destined for a career in politics, Jane detested Washington DC., was mostly critical of him in general, and Mama Elizabeth was hoping she’d marry someone who was a bit more successful in life.

Nonetheless it would be on this day in 1834 that Frank and Jane would tie the knot. Upon returning from fighting in the Mexican War in 1847, Frank setup a law practice and life all seemed to be well, despite losing their children early on – Franklin Pierce Jr who died as an infant in 1836, Frank Robert who died of typhus at age 4 in 1843. In 1841, Benjamin, or Bennie, as he was nicknamed, was born. This was Jane’s boy, and she smothered and mothered him to exhaustion. Then the Democratic National Convention named handsome Frank their choice to run for President in 1852, which I cover in detail on my Jun 5th ep, seemingly from out of nowhere.

He was a dark horse, and his nomination was shocking to the family. Jane did not handle the news well. Young Bennie wrote to his mom “I hope he won't be elected for I should not like to be at Washington and I know you would not either.” And then the unthinkable happened: he became America’s next president. Upon hearing the news, Jane fainted. Then the worst tragedy of all struck. Just a few weeks before his inauguration, he, Jane and Bennie were travelling by train from Andover, Mass to Concord, New Hampshire for a friend’s funeral, their passenger car came undone and rolled down the track into a ridge. Bennie was the only fatality on the car.

Grief stricken, Jane was convinced that God was punishing her for her husband’s new role in government. She could not even bear to attend her husband’s inauguration. She was rarely seen in the White House, with the one exception of coming out of her bubble briefly at a New Year’s Day party in 1855, leaving social duties to her aunt, and friend Varian Davis, the wife of Secretary of War and future Confederate President Jefferson Davis. After four years in the White House, Pierce’s time was up. He attempted to take Mrs. P on a vacation, to the Caribbean, then to Europe. It was a noble attempt to raise her spirits, but did not succeed at all. At this point, good friend Nathaniel Hawthorne is noted in describing Jane, “She really wasn’t of this world.”

They retired to Andover Mass, where she died of tuberculosis on December 2 1863, buried next to her children. Her husband would follow her in 1869.

Happy anniversary, Frank and Jane!

1831 – Happy Birthday James “Boat Man Jim” Garfield, #20. ...Garfield was born on a poor farm near Cleveland Ohio. His father died when he was only two. Quite possibly the poorest man who would become president in US History, he had many jobs growing up, including a part-time teacher, carpenter and janitor. He couldn’t swim and worked on a canal boat, almost drowning once when he fell out of it. He studied at Williams College in Massachusetts and graduated in 1856, then went on to teach Greek and Latin. In fact Boatman Jim was ambidextrous, he could write Latin in one hand and Greek in another at the same time. I did not make that up, true story. In 1858 he married Lucretia Rudolph. They were have seven children together. A year later he was elected senator of Ohio as a Republican.

He fought several battles as a Unionist during the Civil War, was promoted to major general of voluneteers. He reluctantly left the military during the war after President Abraham Lincoln persuaded him to return home to run for the House of Representatives, where he was elected. Garfield, like many politicians, was not without scandal as he was accused but acquitted for bribery charges during the Credit Mobile scandal of 1872. He supported the heavily debated gold standard, the Compromise of 1877, which ended military occupation in the South after the Civil War, and successfully reached a compromise between Stalwart political boss Roscoe Conkling and the Half Breeds. And then came the election of 1880; the closest election America has ever seen. Running under John Sherman, Garfield first defeated Ulysses Grant and and James Blaine.

But Sherman would not win the Republican nomination, however Garfield, as a dark horse, did, and would go on to defeat Democrat William Hancock in the presidential election. As president, Boat Man Jim Garfield appointed members of both the Stalwarts and Half Breeds to his cabinet. Conkling was furious Garfield appointed his enemy William Robertson to manage the Customs House. Conkling tried to persuade the Senate to block the appointment but was unsuccessful. So Conkling countered the move by trying to persuade the Senate to only confirm the Stalwarts, but Garfield wouldn’t budge and withdrew all the nominations except Robertson. Conkling finally resigned in protest, hoping to get re-elected, but that didn’t happen either and Robertson’s election was confirmed. This move quite possibly would eventually get Garfield killed, I’ll get to that in a moment.

Inside the White House, then called the Executive Mansion, Garfield had a dog named Veto, V-E-T-O. Hilarious right? I hope you didn’t think I was going to say Garfield had a dog named Odie because Odie is the dog in the Garfield comic strips you see in the paper. Different Garfield altogether. President Garfield was determined to continue President Hays vision to run a corrupt-free government and move towards civil service reform. However after only four months in office he faced the revenge of the stalwarts.

On July 2, 1881, at a train station in Washington on his way to a Williams College reunion, President Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau, the self-proclaimed Stalwart of Stalwarts who shouted as Garfield fell to the ground that now Chester Arthur would be president. Guiteau would be executed by hanging in 1882. It’s likely that Garfield died from blood poisoning as opposed to the bullet in his back; which doctors never found. Instead, they used dirty bare hands and unsterilized instruments to poke and prod through Garfield’s body looking for the bullet. Alexander Graham Bell tried to help find the bullet by using a metal detector he designed, but that didn’t work either. Garfield finally succumbed to his wounds a painful eleven weeks later on September 19, 1881, and in fact, Arthur would be president following him. James Garfield once said, “I would rather believe in something and suffer for it, than to slide along in to success without opinions.” Another great quote from Garfield, “Justice and goodwill will outlast passion.” Good stuff. Happy birthday James!

1966 – HARP shoots 400 lbs. projectile to an altitude of 112 miles.

Project HARP, or High Altitude Research Project, was collaboration between the US Department of Defense   and Canada’s Dept. of National Defense. With the purpose of studying ballistics of re-entry vehicles at low cost.  The reason low cost was highlighted here is because many similar types of testing was used with expensive and faulty rockets. With HARP, rockets weren’t needed, just a cannon. Gerald Bull; the brains behind the, initially built HARP from a 50-caliber navy cannon from a battleship, and expanded it to 100 cal. Now too big for practical military applications, HARP was actually perfect for shooting stuff into space. In 1966, Yuma Arizona, HARP fired 400 lbs. into space, setting an altitude record 110 miles that stands to this day.

1863 – Four score and seven years ago, or sometime around there, Lincoln delivers Gettysburg Address. It was a dedication for the thousands dead in the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. It was also a reminder about equal rights as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, and how the Civil War was being fought for human equality.