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| Plate Bearing Garfield's Likeness (Courtesy of Long Branch Free Public Library) |
But
on the cusp of the 1880 Republican nomination, he was surprised to hear his
name announced as one of the candidates. Rep. Garfield had come to Exposition
Hall in Chicago as part of the Ohio Delegation, and he was to give a speech
nominating John Sherman, brother of Civil War hero Gen. William Tecumseh
Sherman. John Sherman was a Republican
“Half-Breed.” The Half-Breeds opposed
the political spoils system and favored reconciling the North with the
South. (The moniker, Half-Breed, was a
derisive term meaning that these people were not full Republicans, similar to
today’s RINO nickname — Republicans In Name Only.) The better-known Half-Breed was James G.
Blaine, another candidate.
The
Half-Breeds were opposed by the “Stalwarts,” that faction of the Republican Party
that supported the status quo patronage system of awarding coveted government
slots as favors, and opposed reconciliation with the Southern states. The Stalwarts were represented by former
President, Ulysses.S. Grant, who was taking another run at the Presidency.
Garfield’s
nominating speech had electrified some of the delegates on the first day of the
convention. But then the nominating process turned into a two-day slog with no
clear front runner. As support for Grant and then Blaine waned, Garfield’s name
was introduced on the 34th ballot.
Garfield was nominated on ballot number 36.
For
Garfield, it was a huge step up for someone who worked on a canal boat in Ohio
in his youth. Later, he worked his way through Williams College as a janitor,
but he was so intellectually gifted that he was made an assistant professor
teaching Greek, Latin, literature and math to the younger students. By the time
he was 26, he was named president of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute. He
left the Institute to serve in the Union Army, where he helped win the battle
of Middle Creek, Kentucky. And finally, Garfield was elected to Congress in
1862 where he was an advocate for improving the lives of blacks. (Fun
fact: Garfield would skip out on
Congress to watch baseball games.)
Following
Garfield’s nomination, the convention named Chester A. Arthur as the vice
presidential candidate, a move to placate the Stalwarts. Recall that Arthur, an
ardent Stalwart, had been ignominiously fired from his powerful post as the collector
at the New York Customhouse by Rutherford B. Hayes.
The
general election pitted Garfield against Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, a hero at
the Battle of Gettysburg. Like today, the country was quite polarized and was
still in recovery from the Civil War.
The Democrats were mostly in the South and the Republicans mostly in the
North. Although Garfield squeaked by on
the popular vote — 10,000 out of 9.2 million votes cast — he comfortably won
the electoral vote 214-155.
When
he entered office, Garfield continued Hayes’ policy of reforming government
service and pushed back against the Stalwarts who wanted political influence in
civil service. This pushback would indirectly cost him his life.
* * *
Because
he had given a small speech supporting Garfield’s candidacy, a 39-year-old nobody
named Charles Guiteau felt that he had contributed to Garfield’s victory — and
he wanted a cushy job in return. He went to Washington and hounded Garfield’s
staff for an ambassadorship, but they put him off as they did most other job
seekers. Eventually Guiteau gave up in disgust and decided to kill Garfield. He
bought a gun, a .442 caliber
Webley British
Bulldog revolver
with ivory grips, and began hanging out at Lafayette Park directly across the
street from the White House.
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| Garfield shot! (Source: Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper) |
* * *
Since Garfield was president for only four
months before he was shot, not many landmarks are devoted to him.
We thought we would visit the Washington train
station where he was shot, but then learned that it’s gone (it was on what is
now the National Mall), so instead we decided to head to Long Branch, N.J.
It was there that Garfield vacationed for many
summers and where he wanted to go to try to recuperate from the shooting with
some fresh ocean air, as well as escape the malaria that was plaguing
Washington.
His wife, Lucretia, had contracted malaria in
May and had escaped to the Jersey shore. But after he was shot, she came back
to Washington to try to nurse him back to health.
Before she got sick, she had hosted a reception
at the White House. Guiteau was one of the guests. He had planned to kill
Garfield at the train station when Lucretia was heading for New Jersey, but she
looked so sick that Guiteau postponed the assassination so she wouldn’t have to
witness her husband being killed.
Instead, he waited until July 2, 1881 when she
was away.
* * *
After
he was shot, Garfield was taken to the White House bedroom. But his doctors did
not know how to treat him. His primary doctor, Willard Bliss, sought the
missing bullet by probing Garfield’s wound with unsterilized equipment
including actually digging into his wound with his unwashed fingers. (Although
Joseph Lister had proven that sterilization was effective in limiting
infections, the process was cumbersome and not yet widely practiced.)
America’s
inventors were called upon to help. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the
telephone, had invented a metal detector that he believed could locate the
missing bullet. But his machine was not successful. To cool the president,
several inventors proposed air conditioning machines. The best design was John Wesley Powell’s, but
it increased humidity and was noisy.
Garfield’s
heath declined over the next weeks. His weight plummeted from 180 to 135
pounds. Yet his good nature didn’t waver. He bore his suffering with good humor,
grace and gratitude to the people supporting him. He continually worried about
the well being of his caretakers and his family.
On
September 6, Garfield was delicately carried aboard a specially outfitted train
to travel to his favorite spot on the ocean: Long Branch, New Jersey. Trains
passing the president’s train were directed not to blow whistles lest they
disturb him. Thousands of people watched the passing train. It was almost like
a funeral procession, but Garfield lived.
Garfield’s doctors were concerned that once he
reached Long Branch, he would not be able to make the 0.6-mile trip from the
train station to the cottage on the beach. So the residents of Long Branch
built tracks from the station to the cottage so that the train could take him
directly there. They finished the tracks in less than 24 hours, just in time
for his arrival.
But Garfield
continued to weaken.
On the night of
September 19th, Garfield complained of chest pains and fell
unconscious. Within 15 minutes he was dead. As reported in the New York Times, “Mrs.
Garfield sat in a chair shaking convulsively, and with the tears pouring down
her cheeks, but uttering no sound. After awhile she arose, and taking hold of
her dead husband's arm, smoothed it up and down.”
* * *
After
Garfield’s body was taken back to Washington, the tracks were taken apart. A
local actor bought the ties and had a contractor build a “tea hut” with them.
The tea hut is why we drove three and a half
hours to Long Branch.
It was a gray and cloudy October day, with the
leaves brilliant hues of red and yellow. It was a chilly 56 degrees, especially
along the Atlantic Ocean, where the wind was blustery.
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| Elberon, NJ Train Station |
Across the parking lot was the Elberon branch
library, a cute, wood-shingled, one-story library. It was closing for the day, but not before
librarian Linda told us there was a plaque commemorating the location of where
Garfield died, about a half-mile from the library.
She gave us directions and pointed out that the
plaque was hard to find. We drove down Lincoln Avenue, across Ocean Avenue to
Garfield Road, which makes a horseshoe with Garfield Terrace. We drove around the two Garfield roads twice,
but could not find it. Finally, we saw a brick column that had cement on it,
but it was crumbling and there was no inscription on it. We figured it had
fallen apart from disrepair over the years, so we moved on.
 |
| The Tea Hut |
Originally red, white and blue, it is now purple
with a white roof. The Church of the Presidents web site says the tea hut’s
owner hosted tea parties in it, but it looks so small only kids would be able
to enter.
The hut was moved several times until its
present location on the church property, which is now a museum. It’s also
directly across from the Atlantic Ocean, although you can’t get to the ocean
there because the beach is lined with expensive, fenced homes and beach clubs.
 |
| Church of the Presidents |
The presidents were: Hayes, Grant, Garfield,
Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson, with
Grant the first president to visit, in 1869. Wilson stayed at a home called
Shadow Lawn, which was destroyed by fire in 1927. That house was replaced two
years later by what is now called Woodrow Wilson Hall, the main building at
Monmouth University. The building is reminiscent of the Breakers, the
Vanderbilts’ historic cottage (a mansion, really) in Newport. Wilson announced
his candidacy for president at the house, according to Long Branch historian
Janice Grant. But we get ahead of ourselves.
 |
| Lunch! |
But first, lunch. We were starving. (Yes, Dad, another description of a lunch.)
We found Brennan’s Delicatessen, away from the
ocean. Tom noticed it as we drove by, looking for cute and inviting spots. We
were not disappointed. It was crowded for mid-afternoon and had a
delicious-sounding selection of sandwiches, wraps and soups. The deli counter
had a bunch of tasty-looking salads, and a separate coffee area offered freshly
baked cookies and brownies and other confections. Tom chose the turkey sandwich
with cranberry sauce on a multi-grain sub roll, while Cathy went with the
chicken pot pie, more fitting for a gray day that was getting colder by the
hour. Both were delicious — and huge.
After wrapping up our leftovers, we hunted down Long
Branch Free Public Library (http://www.longbranchlib.org), where we interrupted
Janice Grant in the local history room eating her lunch. However, once she knew
what we were doing, she was very helpful and told us all types of fun things.
 |
| Cottage Where President Garfield Spent His Last Days (Courtesy of Long Branch Free Public Library) |
The shelves also have a row devoted to rock ’n’
roll, specifically Bruce Springsteen, who was born there.
Janice has a fairly large desk on the opposite
side of the room, a tall bookshelf behind her is full of projects that she is
working on.
 |
| Janice Grant was extremely helpful. |
We headed down Broadway, across Ocean Avenue, to
the Ocean Plaza hotel, where we parked on a side street and walked to the
boardwalk. The boardwalk there is relatively new and withstood Hurricane Sandy
in 2012, unlike a more southern section, which was wiped out and finally
rebuilt this summer.
 |
| Garfield gazing upon the New Jersey shore. |
We didn’t stay long since the wind along the
shore was quite blustery and cold. Cathy quickly nixed her original plan to
walk along the beach a bit, maybe even dip her toes in the water. She had even
brought flip-flops for the occasion. The beach looked uninviting, with lots of
whitecaps and gray skies. The palm trees
lining the sand didn’t even look happy. “Poor palm trees,” Tom said.
We hurried back to the car, out of the wind, and
back down Ocean Avenue to the Garfield roads, once again in search of the
elusive plaque.
 |
| How did we miss this? |
 |
| Commemorative Plaque |
James A. Garfield
Twentieth president of
the United States
Born Nov. 19, 1831 at Orange, Ohio
Died on this site, Sept. 19, 1891
“It’s like a treasure hunt,” Tom said. “We talk
to people, we get more clues, we learn more.”
Epilogue
After
he read our blog, Tom’s father asked: “But what happened with Guiteau? Did they
punish him, or just gave him an ambassadorship?”
So
here’s the story.
Guiteau
was tried for Garfield’s murder. His
main defense was that he had indeed shot Garfield but that the doctors had
killed him by probing Garfield’s wounds without sterilization. Guiteau was found guilty and hanged on June
30, 1882. He recited a poem just before
he was hanged. The consensus in later
years was that Guiteau was insane and should have been committed. A portion of his brain is at the Mütter
Museum in Philadelphia.
Directions
Long
Branch, NJ is at the end of Highway 36 on the New Jersey shore between Monmouth
Beach to the north and Asbury Park to the south.
References
Current,
R.N., T.H. Williams, and F. Freidel.
1975. American History: A Survey. Fourth Edition. Volume II:
Since 1865. Alfred A. Knopf. New York, NY.
Karabell,
Z. 2004. Chester Alan Arthur. The American Presidents Series. Times Books. New York, NY.
Millard,
C. 2011.
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of
a President. Anchor Books. New York, NY.
New York Times. 1883.
The President Dead. September 19,
1883.
Riccards,
M. P. 1995. The
Ferocious Engine of Democracy: A History
of the American Presidency. Volume
1. Madison Books. Lanham, Maryland.
Seale,
W. 1986.
The President’s House: A History. Vol. 1. White House Historical Organization,
Washington, DC.
Videos
History
Channel. 2005. The
Presidents: The Lives and Legacies of
the 43 Leaders of the United States.
Websites
http://www.u-s-history.com/
http://history.house.gov/People/Other-Office/President/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_J._Guiteau
Thank you for posting. I have wondered if any monuments have been built in Elberon to mark where President Garfield died.
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