On Wednesday October 7, 2020, Vice President Pence and Senator Harris will debate for the Vice Presidency of the United States. With two septuagenarians running for the top slot, we should naturally pay very close attention to what they have to say. The fact that the year 2020 ends in a zero, should only underscore our attention.
March 4th 1841 was cold and blustery. William Henry Harrison, a vague, recently minted Whig, was the eldest person ever elected president, and on this March the 4th, he was being be inaugurated into that very office at the age of 68 years and 23 days; a significant longevity for 1841 when most people died in their late 40s to mid 50s.
Although undoubtedly senior by the standards of the day, and suffering from a severe cold on top of it, the new president rambled through his speech from the Capitol steps, with neither hat nor coat, for over 90 minuets. To no one's surprise, this did not help the new president's cold and his condition rapidly worsened. One month later (on April 4th) he was dead from pneumonia; the first American president to die in office.
Now considering his age, the nature of 1841 medicine, and his imprudent behavior during the inaugural-- it's hard to imagine anyone assigning supernaturality as a cause of death. And no one did at that time. It was not until 1931, when Ripley's Believe It or Not! noted a strange pattern that they would revisit again in1948: presidents who were elected every 20 years (those elected in years ending with zero) died in office. For their part they termed it the"Curse of Tippecanoe".
As a theme on which to hang a curse,Tippecanoe was an attractive choice (especially if you wanted to sell papers). Harrison was clearly the curse's first victim and there were actual historic differences between the deceased president and Chief Tecumsah. Add to that, the colorful Chief Tecumsah and his brother Tenskwatawa made for good"noble savage" stock characters. And even in 1931, no one could question that the dirty real estate deal at the root of Tippecanoe, certainly provided more than ample motive for an Indian curse.
Whether supernaturality was a factor or not, twenty years later when Abraham Lincoln was first elected president, there were plenty of other issues to attract attention and concern. Seven states had left the union in rapid succession, and within months we were in the midst of a civil war. But even this stark reality did not eliminate the supernatural shading entirely. According to Lincoln's biographer, Carl Sandburg...
A queer dream or illusion had haunted Lincoln at times through the winter. On the evening of his election he had thrown himself on one of the haircloth sofas at home, just after the first telegrams of November 6 had told him he was elected President, and looking into a bureau mirror across the room he saw himself full length, but with two faces.
It bothered him; he got up; the illusion vanished; but when he lay down again there in the glass again were two faces, one paler than the other. He got up again, mixed in the election excitement, forgot about it; but it came back, and haunted him. He told his wife about it; she worried too.
A few days later he tried it once more and the illusion of the two faces again registered to his eyes. But that was the last; the ghost since then wouldn't come back, he told his wife, who said it was a sign he would be elected to a second term, and the death pallor of one face meant he wouldn't live through his second term.(1)
Of course we know Lincoln did not survive his second term; he barely started it in fact. It only lasted 42 days (11 days longer than Harrison's first term). We also know that he was publicly attacked in a theater by superstar actor John Wilkes Booth, who dramatically fled the scene with a flourish breaking his leg in the process. What is less known however, is that earlier that day, the president had invited his son, Robert Todd Lincoln, to attend the theater with he and his mother; an invitation that the younger Lincoln had declined. This leads us to the next bizarre sequence of supernaturality.
Robert Todd Lincoln, who most people said resembled his mentally unstable mother more than his historically sympathetic father, worked as an executive of the Pullman Palace Car Company from 1897 to 1911. However, before that job, he served as James Garfield's Secretary of War from 1881 to 1885. In a bizarre coincidence of fate, as a college student in 1863, the younger Lincoln was traveling to Washington from New York when he was nearly knocked from the train platform and crushed to death. The distinguished actor, Edwin Booth (estranged brother of John Wilkes Booth) who was traveling with his friend, John T. Ford (owner of Ford's Theater where the president was eventually shot) saved him; not knowing who he had saved for several months it seems.
Later, as Secretary of War, Mr. Lincoln was held back one day by President Garfield after a cabinet meeting. It seems that the president had recently had a dream of his demise and wanted to share it with Lincoln, who, it turns out, would offer neither comfort nor counsel to the distracted president. This not withstanding, at President Garfield's invitation, Lincoln was at the Train Station in Washington, D.C. when the president was shot by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881, and was an eyewitness to the event. James Garfield was now the third victim of the alleged 20 year curse. But wait, there's more... On September 6, 1901, although he was not an actual eyewitness, Lincoln was just outside the building at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, where the fourth victim, William McKinley, was assassinated. After that Mr. Lincoln declined all further presidential invitations and interactions. Thank God!
There appears to be no viable link between Harrison and the Lincolns, and since Robert Todd Lincoln forswore presidential interaction after McKinley's death, we can surmise the next victim, Warren G. Harding fell entirely to the efforts of Tecumseh and/or his brother alone; likewise Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.
Needless to say however, as the 1980 presidential campaign got underway, the topic got plenty of renewed ink. Parade magazine published an article by Lloyd Shearer in that year for example, which described the long observed phenomenon as, the"Curse of the Prophet". Also in 1980, as incumbent Jimmy Carter battled challenger Ronald Reagan, a voter asked him if he was concerned about the "Curse of Tecumsah" “I’m not afraid." Carter said. "If I knew it was going to happen, I would go ahead and be President and do the best I could (until) the last day I could”.
Prospective First Lady, Nancy Reagan however, was not quite so sanguine. If her rugged cowboy of a husband were elected (which he was), he would break the age record of Mr. Harrison (which he did) by almost two years. Fortunately for the Reagans (and us), her many years in California gave the incumbent First Lady a robust Rolodex full of shamans, astrologers and psychics to work with in breaking the curse; and there were many contemporary sources that claim she did just that. And perhaps it paid off. 69 days into his first term, the 70 year-old president was shot by John Hinckley Jr. in front of the Washington Hilton and survived. Likewise George W. Bush (another rancher) survived when an active grenade with its pin pulled did not explode when tossed at him on May 10, 2005, because it was wrapped in a red tartan handkerchief (red I should mention was First Lady, Nancy Reagan's favorite color) that prevented the safety lever from detaching.
So perhaps the Curse of Tecumseh is broken forever. Perhaps the curse resolves itself into the classic trope of cowboys and Indians, where the noble and virtuous cowboys (Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush) ride boldly into the sunset, and the sad dispossessed Indians suffer in silence over their lost land and power.
Perhaps. But with two septuagenarians running for the presidency this year, I am not taking any chances. I'm going to watch the Vice Presidential debate very carefully to be sure of what we have in the wings. Just in case. And perhaps burn a little sage as well.
As Shakespeare reminds us in Hamlet...
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Editor's Note:
1. (Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years. Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York, 1926. Volume 2, Chapter 165, pp.423-4)
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