President Roosevelt’s Bar Fight and More Quirky and Creepy Presidential Facts

1. The Ickiest Presidential Scandal

To make things creepier yet, Thomas Jefferson’s child concubine was also his dead wife’s sister and lookalike. Sally Hemings was the daughter of a slave woman and John Wayles, Jefferson’s father-in-law. That made her the biological half-sister of Jefferson’s wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson (1748 – 1782). Sally, who was nine years old when her half-sister died, looked a lot like the deceased Martha, and the resemblance only increased as she grew up. Jefferson missed his dead wife, so when her lookalike sister was thirteen or fourteen, he began to sleep with her.

Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings would make for an epic scandal if it had happened today, as it hits just about every icky button there is. Pedophilia? Check. Incest? Check. Violence, coercion, and assault? Check, check, and check. To add yet another dark layer to it all, Jefferson fathered six children upon Sally and kept them as his slaves. He eventually got around to freeing his children, but he never freed his concubine: Hemings was still Jefferson’s slave when he died in 1826.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

History Collection – 10 Historic Presidential Affair Scandals

Auto Blog – LBJ’s Amphibious Car Caught Friends and Dignitaries by Surprise

Bear, James A. Jr. – Jefferson at Monticello (1967)

Bernstein, Richard B. – Thomas Jefferson: The Revolution of Ideas (2004)

Cheat Sheet – Shocking Scandals of Former US Presidents

Cracked – 4 Practical Jokes You Won’t Believe US Presidents Pulled

Daily Beast – Grover Cleveland’s Scandal: The Most Despicable in American History

History Collection – Quirks and Oddities of Influential People in History

History Collection – Quirky Founding Fathers and Other Bonkers Bits of American History

Davis, Burke – Old Hickory: A Life of Andrew Jackson (1977)

Gawker – LBJ Was Obsessed With His Dick

Gizmodo – Which President Greenlit a Trip to the Center of the Earth?

Graff, Henry F. – Grover Cleveland (2002)

Guardian, The, January 22^nd, 2018 – Why Lyndon Johnson, a Truly Awful Man, is My Political Hero

History Collection – 20 Myths From American History We’re Here to Debunk

Jacobin, August 28^th, 2012 – Lincoln and Marx

Kaplan, Fred – John Quincy Adams: American Visionary (2014)

Live Journal – Andrew Jackson, Man of Honor

Miller, Nathan – Theodore Roosevelt: A Life (1992)

Monticello – Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemming: A Brief Account

National Park Service – Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Vehicles

National Park Service – Roosevelt’s Bar Fight

Politico, November 19^th, 2013 – in the Senate: Bobby Baker’s Salacious Secret History of Capitol Hill

Sandburg, Carl – Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (1926)

Thayer, William Roscoe – Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography (1919)

History Collection – 20 Ill-Fated Powerful Men in U.S. History

ThoughtCo. – Was Abraham Lincoln Really a Wrestler?

Tugwell, Rexford Guy – Grover Cleveland: A Biography of the President Whose Uncompromising Honesty and Integrity Failed America (1968)

Washington Post, July 3^rd, 2014 – The First Celebrity First Lady: Frances Cleveland

Washington Post, July 7^th, 2017 – Sally Hemings Wasn’t Thomas Jefferson’s Mistress, She Was His Property

Wikipedia – Richard Lawrence (Failed Assassin)

History Collection – Scandals the US Founding Fathers Tried to Keep Secret