As our country celebrates the semiquincentennial of its founding, we can observe that July Fourth has significance in other respects as well. On the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1826, both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died at their homes at the ages of 83 and 91 respectively. Five years later, James Monroe died in New York on July 4th, thus three presidents shared the date as to their deaths, and one, Calvin Coolidge, claimed it as his birthday. Coolidge was born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont on July 4, 1872.
As the B.E.s were coming along, my Good Wife and I tried to infuse appreciation of American history in their upbringing. We endeavored to take them to presidential birthplaces and museums, which they enjoyed at the time, and they still do. In that regard, the Coolidge complex is one of the most extensively preserved of presidential sites.
When word arrived that President Warren G. Harding had died while on a trip to California, Calvin Coolidge was sworn into office by his father, who was a local Justice of the Peace in Vermont. The father was also a storekeeper and the owner of a cheese factory. All of the buildings associated with the Coolidge family have been maintained in pristine condition, allowing visitors to see the town setting in its original condition.
As we were touring the birthplace, our docent told us that the president’s son, John Coolidge, still lived locally. She warned us to be careful walking around, as he drove an old station wagon, and at the age of 93, he had not surrendered his driver’s license. As we left the building and were walking over to the Coolidge family store, along came the ancient station wagon, being driven as we had been alerted by John Coolidge.
He stopped and engaged us in a great conversation, particularly focusing on the B.E.s, whom he greeted and told he was pleased to see young people interested in history. He treated us not as tourists, but rather as guests, and he told the B.E.s to keep up their study of history, then he drove off with alacrity, and we continued exploring his town by foot. The Coolidge family graves are in Plymouth Notch Cemetery on a slight embankment, easily accessible to behold.
The Coolidge Family had two sons, John and Calvin. When their father was president, on a hot summer day, the boys were playing tennis on the White House lawn. Calvin was not wearing socks and he developed a blister on one of his toes. It was not treated and turned to sepsis, taking his life at the age of 14.
Calvin Coolidge’s nickname was Silent Cal. Allegedly, while in the White House, a reporter said to him, “Mr. President, a friend bet me that I could not get you to say more than two words, to which the president replied, “You lose.” The Coolidge family was from the traditional New England Congregational church, and while in Washington, the First Family attended the First Congregational Church at Tenth and G Streets in Northwest Washington, one of the city’s greatest Victorian structures that was built in 1865. Regrettably, it was demolished in the 1960s to be replaced by a nondescript modern structure, that now has been replaced itself by an office building towering above it, the first two floors of which comprise the church.
The four presidents whose lives are associated with Independence Day, either by dying or being born on it, encapsulate American history over the past two centuries.
To all of our readers, Happy Semiquincentennial!
