May 22, 2019 • 39 mins
When Arthur was selected as the Republican party’s vice presidential nominee in 1880, questions arose about whether he had been born in the United States and consequently whether he was eligible to be vice president at all.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry.
Last time, in our episode about Julius Sands Letters to
Chester A. Arthur, we mentioned that when Arthur was selected
(00:23):
as the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee in eighteen eighty
some questions came up about whether or not he had
been born in the United States, and consequently whether he
was eligible to be the vice president at all. And
some of the details of this are a little convoluted,
and it's not necessarily everyday knowledge today. I think the
random people in my life that I asked if they
(00:45):
had ever heard about this head not. But at the
same time, it has had a surprising amount of staying power.
And after doing a little bit of research into this
while doing that Julius sand episode, I couldn't decide what
to make of the whole thing. So I tell said
my friend Amy, who's a history teacher, and I asked her,
do you have an opinion on whether Chester A. Arthur
(01:06):
was born in the United States? She did not have
an opinion, and then We talked about it for the
next two hours, and over the course of that conversation
we were both like, this needs to be a whole
episode and not just a two sentence side reference in
the Julia sand thing. So here it is. The questions
about Chester A. Arthur's birth really traced back to his dad.
(01:28):
Arthur's father, William Arthur, was born December fifth, seventeen ninety
six in County Antrim, Ireland. His family had enough money
for him to get an education, including pursuing a degree
at Belfast College, but William wanted to practice law, and
they didn't really have the money or connections that he
needed to do that. So William immigrated to Canada around
(01:49):
eighteen nineteen, hoping to find more opportunities there. He settled
in Quebec, not far from the United States border, and
supported himself by teaching while he was still studying law.
In eighteen twenty one, he married an American woman named
Malvina Stone from Vermont. Her family had moved to Canada,
and then they had a daughter named Regina, born in Dunham, Canada,
(02:11):
in eighteen twenty two. Two years later, in eighteen twenty four,
the couple moved to Burlington, Vermont, and Arthur continued to
teach and study law, and their daughter, Jane was then
born in Burlington, Vermont that same year. William Arthur never
put those years of legal study into practice. This was
during the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening.
(02:33):
Arthur had been raised Anglican, and after attending a Revival meeting,
he converted to Free Baptist as that was happening. He
and his wife had another daughter, Almeida, born in Jericho, Vermont,
in eighteen twenty six. By eighteen twenty eight, they were
living in Waterville, Vermont, where their daughter Anne Eliza was born.
Then later that year, Arthur was ordained in Waterville. From
(02:55):
that point on, people mostly knew him as Elder Arthur.
He also nearly stopped registering the births of his children
with civil authorities at this time. In May of eighty eight,
the family moved to Fairfield, Vermont, where a congregation had
hired William as their preacher. In Fairfield, Elder Arthur continued
to teach to help make ends meet, often with his
(03:17):
students lodging with the family. The congregation was growing and
building things like a new parsonage and a new church
but the Arthur's often struggled financially. Winters were especially hard
because William was disabled due to some kind of abscess
or injury to one of his legs back when he
was still living in Ireland. It was harder for him
(03:37):
to do physical work or get around in the harsh,
snowy weather of winter Vermont. On October five nine, William
and Malvina welcomed a son, and they named him Chester,
after Malvina's cousin, Dr Chester Abel, who had attended her
during the birth. The baby's middle name, Alan was after
his paternal grandfather, so his full name was representing both
(03:58):
sides of the family. In a Hober of eighteen thirty,
Elder Arthur took a second job across the Canadian border
in East Stanbridge, Quebec to try to support his still
growing family. They would ultimately go on to have eight children.
He took his eldest daughter, Regina with him. He commuted
back to Fairfield to preach his Sunday sermons there. Within
(04:20):
a year, though the family was moving yet again. In
addition to being a teacher and a preacher, William Arthur
was an ardent abolitionist. Vermont had started the process of
abolishing slavery back in seventeen seventy seven, and black men
in Vermont had been given the right to vote. But
in the eighteen thirties, the idea of abolishing slavery throughout
(04:40):
the United States was incredibly controversial. Pro slavery and anti
abolition riots and other violence were pretty common, including in
places where slavery had already been abolished. William was really
outspoken in his views against slavery, and before long he
was no longer welcome in Fairfield. The family moved repeat
eatedly over the next few years, mostly around Vermont and
(05:03):
New York. They would stay in a place until they
were run out of town by anti abolitionists or until
church leadership decided William's activities were too much of a liability.
Throughout all of this, Chester, Arthur and his siblings were
being taught at home. That changed when the family moved
to Schenectady, New York, in the summer of eighteen forty four.
(05:23):
For the first time, Chester was enrolled in a formal school.
He went to Schenectady's Lyceum and Academy, and then he
started at Union College in eighteen forty five. He took
up the study of law that his father had previously abandoned. Also,
like his father, Chester Arthur worked as a teacher to
support his study of law. This included summer teaching jobs and,
(05:43):
in eighteen fifty one, a post as principal of the
school where two of his sisters worked There, he was
also assigned to teach a group of particularly ill behaved boys.
He also developed romantic friendships with two other young men,
Campbell Allen and James Maston. James would later marry Chester's sister,
al Maida. As they got older, Chester and some of
(06:05):
his siblings became pretty disenchanted with their father's self righteous
behavior and his almost zealous pursuit of both religion and abolition.
So Chester, having the option to do so, left home.
He moved to New York City in eighteen fifty three.
Soon he was moving in Republican political circles, and the
rest of that story is in our earlier episode on
(06:26):
his letters from Julia sand In June of eighteen eighty,
Chester A. Arthur became the Republican Party's nominee for Vice
President of the United States. Soon the Arthur family's nomadic
life during the eighteen twenties and thirties, Elder Arthur's not
reporting his younger children's births and Chester Arthur's extreme secrecy
(06:47):
with the press all combined to cause a problem. Rumors
started to spread among both Democrats and the moderate Republican
faction known as half breeds. In some versions, Arthur had
been born in his father's birthplace of Ireland, and in
other versions he had been born in Canada. The Ireland
rumor was quickly dismissed as impossible, but that Canada rumor
(07:07):
hung on. According to Article to Section one of the
U s Constitution, quote, no person except a natural born
citizen or a citizen of the United States at the
time of the adoption of this Constitution shall be eligible
to the office of President. And according to the Twelfth Amendment,
which took effect in eighteen o four, quote, no person
(07:28):
constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible
to that a Vice President of the United States. The
Constitution doesn't define exactly what natural born citizen means, but
it's generally defined as someone who was a citizen from
the time they were born without having to go through
a naturalization process. When Chester Arthur was born, it was
(07:50):
generally agreed that free white people born in the United
States were citizens from birth, although it wasn't formally part
of the law until later. The law also recognized that
a person might be born outside of the United States
to citizen parents and still be considered a citizen from birth,
but at that time the law considered this citizenship to
(08:11):
pass through the father and not through the mother. Arthur's
father didn't become a U. S. Citizen until eighteen forty three,
way after he was born, so if Arthur had been
born in Canada, he would not be considered a U.
S citizen even though his mother was a citizen. And
we're gonna get to how all of this unfolded after
we first take a little sponsor break. The eighteen eighty
(08:42):
Republican National Convention ran from June second to eighth of
that year, and then on June nine, the day after
it was over, the New York Times ran a profile
of the party's new vice presidential nominee which stated, quote
General Chester A. Arthur was born in Franklin County, Vermont,
October fifth, eighteen thirty. On jun eleventh, the St. Johnsbury
(09:04):
Caledonian of St. John's Bury, Vermont, wrote quote. The papers
say Chester A. Arthur was born in Lansingburg, New York,
fifty years ago, but his father used to live in Vermont,
and some say the candidate was born in Fairfield. On
June twelfth, the Carbon Advocate of Lee Heightened, Pennsylvania published
an article that said he had been born in Vermont.
In eighteen thirty one, The Abbeyville Press and Banner of Abbeyville,
(09:28):
South Carolina published an article on the twenty three that
said Arthur had been born in Albany in eighteen thirty one.
He was born seven times in various places. A little later,
in eighteen eighty, General James S. Brisbane published a biography
for the campaign called From the Towpath to the White
House The Early life and public Career of James A. Garfield,
(09:51):
Major General USA. The record of a wonderful career which,
like that of Abraham Lincoln, by native energy and untiring industry,
led this man from obscurity to the foremost position in
the councils of the Nation, including a sketch of the
life of Honorable Chester A. Arthur Moment of silence for
these fabulous titles. The text follows the same pattern as
(10:15):
the title, spending more than five hundred pages on Garfield's
biography and twenty three on Arthur's, with five of those
being the text of Arthur's speech accepting the nomination. Brisbane
gives Arthur's date and place of birth as October five,
eight thirty in Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont. So it's clear
from just these examples, which are just some of the
(10:38):
reporting around all of this, there was some confusion about
exactly when and where Arthur was born. I found zero
references from eighteen eighty that said that he was born
in Fairfield, Vermont, on October five, eighteen twenty nine, which
is what's considered correct today. By the late fall and
early winter of eighteen eighty, this lack of clarity about
(11:01):
where and when Arthur had been born had grown to
include suspicion that wherever it was, it was not in
the United States. An article published on December twenty, eighteen eighty,
in the Sacramento Daily Record Union read quote, A lawyer
of Brooklyn has been investigating in Vermont to see if
Chester A. Arthur was not really born on Canadian soil,
(11:22):
and left apparently pleased with his discoveries. Old residents say
there is no question of Arthur being a citizen. The
Brooklyn lawyer being referenced was Arthur P. Henman, who in
some accounts had been hired by the Democrats and in
others was an anti stalwart Republican. He really could have
been both those things at the same time. At first,
(11:42):
Henman believed that Arthur had been born in Ireland, but
he gradually started focusing on the idea that he might
really be Canadian. He traveled to the Vermont Quebec of
border area to interview people about what they remembered of
the Arthur family and their baby boy from fifty years
before or later on. In eighteen eighty four, when Arthur
(12:03):
was pursuing a nomination for re election, Henman published these
eighteen eighty findings in a book titled How a British
Subject Became President of the United States. Without really citing
any sources, Hinman alleged that after being nominated for Vice President,
Arthur couldn't say where he had been born. Henman also
alleged that Arthur had gone to Montreal after the Republican
(12:25):
National Convention to see if there was any evidence of
his birth in records. There there is no evidence for
either of these assertions, although the day after the convention ended,
The New York Times did publish a column called Campaign
Notes which paraphrased Roscoe Conkling as saying he might spend
some time that summer fishing with Arthur in Canada. Henman's
(12:47):
contention was, this was not a fishing trip. It was
a go see if you're found out, and if so,
cover it up trip. Henman's key witness was a quote
Mrs Stevens, who had been a playmate and companion of
Mrs Arthur went at school. According to Henman, Mrs Stephens
said that Chester Arthur's mother, Malvina, had given birth to
(13:07):
her oldest boy on March sixteenth or eighteenth, eighteen twenty eight,
at her parents house in Dunham Flats in Quebec. Mrs
Stevens remembered that it was one day off from St
Patrick's Day, but she couldn't really remember in which direction
it was one day off of St Patrick's day. This baby,
according to her, was named William Chester Alan Arthur. Henman
(13:28):
went on to say that in November of eighteen thirty,
Melvina Arthur had delivered another son, Chester Abel Arthur. While
living in Fairfield, Vermont. Chester Abel had then died in
eighteen thirty one while the family was visiting Burlington, Vermont.
From there, Henman details more moves and more births for
the Arthur family before arriving at the eighteen thirty four
(13:50):
birth of William Arthur Jr. And Heinsburg, Vermont. At that time,
Henman claimed the family decided to drop the William from
their oldest guns name William Chester Alan Arthur, making him
just Chester Alan Arthur. Henman connected all these dots to
conclude that the man the world knew as Chester Alan
Arthur born in Vermont was really his eldest brother born
(14:13):
in Quebec. So dramatic and weird. Not only that, Hinman
contended that William Chester Alan Arthur had decided to adopt
the birthdate and birthplace of his deceased baby brother, Chester
Able when he decided to run for president. There are
some problems with Henman's account. It is cobbled together from
(14:34):
a hodgepodge of interviews, many of them with people in
their elder years who were recalling events and baby names
from about fifty years before. A lot of these accounts
really contradict each other and while Heiman cherry picked the
ones that supported his allegations when describing what he thought happened.
He then included all of them in his book, whether
they backed him up or not, So you can go
(14:56):
read all of like the totally disparate accounts of what
people I thought this baby's name was and when he
was born in his explanation, so sort of the summary
portion of this book. It is often not clear whose
account Henman is referring to, and in some spots he
doesn't seem to have a source for what he's saying
at all. Maybe wouldn't pass muster in your journalism one
(15:18):
oh one course. Now on top of that, his whole
argument rests on the idea that Malvina Arthur gave birth
to a boy named William Chester Alan Arthur on either
March sixteenth or eighteenth of eighteen twenty eight. But we
know that she gave birth to a daughter, and Eliza Arthur,
on January one, of eighty eight. The only way this
(15:39):
could have happened would be for these two children to
have been fraternal twins born eleven weeks apart, or from
Alvina Arthur to have had two wombs and been pregnant
in both at the same time. Both of those scenarios
are incredibly rare, and the first would have been virtually
impossible given the state of medicine in eighteen twenty eight.
(16:00):
Is more likely to happen on Gray's anatomy than in
the real world. Even so, though by February of a
teen eighty one, after the election but before the inauguration,
papers were reporting on Hinman's speculations, sometimes mentioning him by
name and other times not. For example, the Centered Democrat
(16:21):
of bellefont Pennsylvania published an article on February third one
that read, quote, it has been charged with great deliberation
for several weeks that Chester A. Arthur, the Vice President elect,
is not a native of the United States. These allegations
have taken form, and affidavit's have been procured by those
investigating the matter, which go on to prove conclusively that
(16:42):
Mr Arthur was born in Canada. Also on the third
the Western Sentinel of Winston Salem, North Carolina published this
statement quote. The latest sensation now is that Chester A.
Arthur is not eligible to the position of vice president
to which he has been elected. In a probability that W. H.
English will yet be vice president. Six days later, in
(17:05):
the clear Field Republican of clear Field of Pennsylvania, quote,
where was he born? Is now agitating the public mind?
The Vice President elect Chester A. Arthur claims that he
was born in the state of Vermont, but a little
investigation seems to show that he was born in Canada
and therefore as not eligible. It is queer that a
sensible man cannot tell where he was born. And on
(17:27):
February twenty three, in the Indiana States Sentinel, quote, it
seems to be impossible to find out just where Chester A. Arthur,
vice President elect, was born. Arthur does not know he
was not born where, nor when he asserts he was born.
He has no proofs of his nativity. But the Senate
Committee on Privileges and Elections have come to the conclusion
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that he was born in three towns and all within
the United States that will do so. I did not
actually find evidence that the Senate Committee on Privileges and
Elections had come to that conclu usian at all, and
the National Republican called the report that the committee was
looking into it an idiotic lie. Also, to be clear,
(18:09):
these newspapers all had their own political slants, and some
of them had initially been started to support a specific
candidate or a specific party. So none of this should
be interpreted as an impartial account of anything I did
for a while ago on this rabbit hole of like
trying to trace the political leanings of the editors of
all of these papers, and then I was like, this
is like fifteen different papers were referring to. That's gonna
(18:32):
take me a master's thesis and this is a thirty
minute podcast as an assigned Am I the only one
that doesn't think it would be that weird to not
know where you're born? Oh No, I think that's totally
like one you don't remember, right, And to his family
was so nomadic they might not even remember with any
sort of clarity or consistency. Yeah, I I totally know
(18:55):
where my where I was born because my parents told
me specifically, and we lived like near enough to the
hospital I was born in that we would go past
it and my mom would be like, that's where you
were born. But well, and it was a recorded birth
as well, right, Yeah, I have a birth certificate. But yeah,
these were all babies who are mostly being born at
home or at a relative's house, like in families that
(19:16):
were moving around a whole lot, and when babies weren't
viewed with quite the same Uh, there was not the
level of preciousness like yeah, celebration. Yeah, so many babies
died when they were really young that like sometimes people
didn't even name their babies until later, Like it was
(19:37):
not nearly as documented as is now, so that the
fact that there was uncertainty is not really strange. No,
I don't think so either. Uh. James Garfield was inaugurated
as president on March foe, and at that point the
chatter about where Arthur was born seems to have quieted down,
at least as far as what was being printed in newspapers.
(19:58):
But after Garfield was shot by ARLs Jay Gato, the
question took on a renewed urgency, and we're going to
talk more about that after we have another little sponsor break.
President Garfield survived for weeks after being shot in March
(20:19):
of eighteen eighty one, and as his death seemed more
and more likely, people once again started raising questions about
his vice president and whether he was eligible to the presidency.
On September eight one, the National Republican of Washington d c.
Published this exchange as a letter to the editor. Quote
to the editor of The Republican, will you please inform
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me where General Chester A. Arthur was born? C? J.
Lemon The answer quote General Arthur was born in Fairfield,
Franklin County, Vermont, on October thirty. There are some persons
who do aver that he was born in Canada, but
they do not know what they're talking about. Surprisingly, the
(21:02):
Republicans definitive statement did not settle this issue. They do
not know what they were talking about. I love that
Garfield died on September nine. On September twenty, the New
York Herald printed a report written before his death which
definitively stated that Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont. It
based this conclusion on an interview with an anonymous source,
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who was described as an intimate friend. This friend said
the whole story of a foreign birth came about because
Arthur's old neighbors quote assumed too much when hearing that
Chester Arthur had been named for Dr Chester Abel. The
Herald's reporter interviewed A. P. Hinman and recapped his version
of events as well. The Herald also interviewed New York
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lawyer and former US District Attorney George Bliss, who was
a colleague of Arthur's, who said, in part quote, I
can only say that the whole thing is the most
arrant nonsense. I might as well have been asked whether
of sorrow as a citizen. The question of the American
citizenship of Mr Arthur is so absurd that it would
be a waste to say anything about it. The Herald's
(22:09):
report was picked up and republished in other newspapers, including
the Memphis Daily Appeal. On September twenty one, The New
York Sun published the findings of its own investigation into
where Arthur had been born. The Sun's report ran under
the headline General Arthur's birthplace. It is near the Canada
line on the Vermont side, it began, quote, The Sun
(22:30):
has received lately many letters of inquiry as to the
birthplace of Chester Alan Arthur, as well as other letters
professing doubt of General Arthur's citizenship, some of them alleging
that he was born in the neighborhood of Dunham, Canada,
and therefore not eligible to the Vice presidency to settle
that question. Definitely, a reporter for The Sun visited Fairfield
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Franklin County, Vermont, which has generally been regarded as Mr
Arthur's birthplace. The place in Canada where it has been
alleged that he was born was also it did if
you're thinking right now, hey, Tracy and Holly, is that
the same New York Sun that published the Great Moon
Hoax and the Yes Virginia Letter. Yes, it is sure thing. Uh.
(23:13):
It also seems to have at least in the like
the Hodgepodge of articles from there from this particular year,
because it's political leanings shifted over time. Uh. It really
seems to be more critical of Republicans than Democrats in
eight one. So, like Arthur Henman, this Son reporter had
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gone to the general area where Arthur had been born
and had tried to find formal documentation about when and
where that happened. But this reporter did not find anything conclusive.
The church where Elder Arthur had been preaching at the
time in Fairfield was no longer standing, and the Greater
Free Baptist Organization had really dwindled. It no longer had
any records. So the only record that he found of
(23:57):
the Arthur's in Dunham, Canada, which is where p but
we're alleging Chester Arthur had been born was a record
of the birth of William Arthur's eldest daughter. From there,
the reporter interviewed locals who were between the ages of
sixty and eighty seven. The article contained such testimonies as well,
I reckon I recollect Elder Arthur. He came here to preach.
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When they were building the new meetinghouse. There was a
kind of a fish shaped vein with eight painted on it.
It was painted so bad that the feller has painted
it was ashamed of it. I like how this local
person from Vermont is written as though he talked like
a cowhand. Yeah Texas, Yeah, um so those That quote
(24:45):
was purportedly the words of Leonard D. Greer, who also
remembered the Arthur's and specifically remembered that Dr chester Able
had delivered their son. Greer was really certain that they
had named this baby chester Able after the doctor. Other
people that were interviewed around Fairfield had the same recollection,
and that included dr Abel's brother, Calvin. The doctor himself,
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by this point had passed on. Calvin answered a question
about this baby's name with quote, well, I guess having
been named after my brother, it's Chester Abele Arthur. The
overall consensus of the people interviewed in Fairfield was that
the Arthur's had a son while living there, that they
named him Chester Abel, after the doctor who delivered him,
and that he was the same person as the Chester
(25:31):
Arthur who had been elected vice president. Although several people
who thought about it were surprised his middle name was
given as Alan rather than Able, other people had given
that no thought whatsoever. The son's reporter, though, also talked
to some people who maintained that this was not the
same person. Their argument was that Chester Abele Arthur had
(25:52):
died in Burlington, Vermont, while still a baby, and that
elder Arthur had given his body to doctors quote to
dissected for scientific purposes. Then, while elder Arthur was working
in East Standbridge, according to this account, his wife and
the rest of the children were living with her parents
in Meg's Corners, Canada. And then while there these people
(26:15):
alleged she had another baby, and this other baby is
the one who became president, taking his brother's identity to
do it. So it's really similar to the story that
Henman had reported about Arthur taking a deceased baby brother's name,
but in this case it was an older brother and
not a younger brother. The residence of East Stanbridge, Quebec,
on the other hand, remembered things differently. Seventy year old
(26:39):
Lyndall Corey reported that Elder Arthur had come to town
with his daughter Regina in the autumn of eighteen thirty
and taught there for eighteen months. Neither Corey nor anyone
else interviewed in East Stanbridge recalled the rest of the
family being present. Corey had heard this rumor about donating
a baby's body two doctors, but didn't have any recollection
(26:59):
of a bee being born to the Arthur's in East Stanbridge,
or of any of the Arthur's living there besides Elder
Arthur and his daughter Regina. So as had happened with
Henman's report, the Sun got a whole lot of contradictory
accounts from locals, and again these were people being asked
about a baby name from fifty years before. The son, however,
(27:20):
drew the opposite conclusion in its report to what Henman did,
citing an anonymous gentleman quote intimately connected with the president's
life and family. This anonymous source said that Arthur was
named after both Dr Chester Able and his own paternal grandfather.
The son reported that this unnamed source had personally seen
the Arthur family Bible and that the entry for Chester's
(27:43):
birth read Chester Alan Arthur born in Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont,
October five, eighteen thirty. Speculation continued in the months that followed,
and as we noted earlier, Henman published his book when
Arthur was seeking re election in eighteen eighty four, but
when Arthur didn't earn the Republican nomination for president, the
question faded away, and then he died in eighteen six.
(28:06):
Arthur never directly addressed this controversy, but according to an
article published in The New York Times on February twelfth,
eighty one, he did give a speech at a celebratory
dinner at Delmonico's in New York City. About two hundred
people were there, including politicians and high profile supporters. In
his speech, Arthur said quote, I don't think we had
(28:28):
better go into the minute secrets of the campaign so
far as I know them, because I see reporters present
who were taking it all down. And while there is
no harm in talking about some things after the election,
is over you cannot tell what they may make of
it because the inauguration has not yet taken place. And
while I don't mean to say anything about my birthplace,
whether it was in Canada or elsewhere, still, if I
(28:50):
should get to going about the secrets of the campaign,
there is no saying what I might say to make
trouble between now and the fourth of March. So, after
all of that, when and where was Chester A. Arthur born?
We actually have more information on that than you might
think from the quality of all of those nineteenth century reports. Yeah,
(29:11):
there's more to go on than oral testimony from people
living fifty years later. Not that oral testimony is without value,
but seriously, who really remembers the middle name of the
baby that was born in your neighborhood to a family
that lived there for a couple of years fifty years before.
I imagine there are people here and there that might
but overall, I would not put a whole lot of
(29:32):
stock in those accounts. Now now, So, three different members
of the Arthur family compiled genealogies, all of them started
decades before Chester became a vice presidential nominee. William Arthur Sr.
Started compiling one about the time he converted to Free Baptist.
Chester Arthur compiled one in eighteen fifty nine, and Chester's sister,
(29:53):
Malvina Arthur Haynesworth wrote one in her diary. All three
of them give Chester's state of birth as October five,
eighteen twenty nine. We also have two different Arthur family bibles,
one belonged to William Arthur, Sr. And the other TOI.
Chester Arthur. Both of those list his birthplace and date
as October five, eighty nine in Fairfield, Vermont. If you're
(30:17):
not familiar with the tradition of keeping a family Bible,
these are bibles that are passed down through families that
have designated pages for keeping family records. Family members write
down important dates like births, baptisms, and marriages on these pages,
and that might seem like an informal document, but family
Bibles are or have been used to substantiate people's births
(30:38):
for things like school enrollment, driver's licenses, and even passports. Yeah,
you can't really just show up at the passport office
with your family Bible and get a passport, but it's
like part of the substantiating documentation and a lot of contexts.
And then we also have census records. The Arthur family
was enumerated in the eighteen fifties census us on August
(31:00):
eight of eighteen fifty Chester Arthur is listed as a
student born in Vermont, age twenty. Since they were counted
in August and he was born in October, that would
put his birth year at eighteen twenty nine. Arthur was
counted in the eighteen sixties census on July, and he's
listed as thirty years old and born in Vermont. In
(31:22):
the eighteen seventy census, he was counted in December, after
his birthday, and in that year's record says age is
listed as forty one, which follows the same mathematical pattern,
but his birthplace is listed as a pair of ditto
marks like same as the line above, But the line
above is the last entry from another household that person
(31:42):
was born in New York. That discrepancy is a mystery
in our theme of bad uses for time machines. I
would go back in time and ask that census taker, Hey,
what's up with this? And is this an error? Like
what happened? And they would say, oh, I don't know,
I was tired probably, And then there's the eighteen eighties
senses taken in June, which lists Arthur's place of birth
(32:04):
as Vermont and his age is forty nine. Following the
pattern of all this other documentation, it really should be fifty.
So it seems as though between eighteen seventy and eighteen eighty,
when Arthur was between the ages of forty one and fifty,
he maybe started fudging his age by a year. Thomas
c Reeves chalked it up to quote simple vanity, calling
(32:26):
Arthur quote one of the most vainglorious men of the
Gilded Age. And the fact that he was lying about
his age apparently intentionally, like that year is even on
his tombstone. Uh, made people sort of go, well, what
else was he lying about? He was lying about when
he was born? Was he lying about where? Maybe his weight?
(32:48):
Like we said at the top of the show, The
story that Arthur was really Canadian has kind of stuck around.
Canada's History magazine published an article on this subject in
two thousand and At time, the magazine was called The Beaver.
This article kicks off with quote, Presidents of the United
States must be born on US soil, so says the
American Constitution. But evidence suggests that Chester Arthur, the twenty
(33:12):
first president, was born in a foreign land, Canada. Perhaps
don't tell the Americans. Later on this article says quote
Chester Arthur was most likely a citizen of Lower Canada,
a British subject born in Dunham Flats, Quebec, near the
Vermont border. So, among other things, this article kind of
misrepresents what natural born citizen really means, and at least
(33:34):
in the online version, it does not cite any sources
for where its information came from, but it does seem
like a lot of it is from a p Headman's
how a British subject became President of the United States,
which we noted lots of problems with earlier in the episode.
CBS Sunday Morning produced a segment inve that takes more
of a both sides approach, interviewing a museum curator in
(33:57):
Quebec who says she's pretty convinced he was born in Canada,
along with Fairfield, Vermont locals who say he was not.
They also talked to John Dumbville, Vermont's Historic Sites Operations chief,
who says, of the Canadian question, there is a chance,
but I doubt it. This debate has also come up
over the last decade or so in the context of
(34:17):
Ted cruise is eligibility for the presidency because he was
born in Canada, as well as the birther Or conspiracy
theory about President Barack Obama's citizenship. For all three of
these men, these questions were definitely attempts to discredit them
and suggest that they were not fit for office. But
in a lot of other ways, these controversies don't really
compare because Ted Cruise and Barack Obama both released their
(34:41):
birth certificates showing where they had been born. Arthur, on
the other hand, was not at all forthcoming. He released
no documentation of where he had been born, and this
was really totally in line with how secretive he always
was with the press about everything. And really, who know
whether if he had brought out his family Bible and
(35:02):
was like right here, it says whether people would have
moved on to insisting that that family Bible was fake. Really,
it's not impossible that chester A. Arthur's mother visited her
parents or his father in Canada while she was pregnant
with him and gave birth to him there. But there's
no evidence whatsoever that Arthur assumed the identity of a
deceased brother, and there are multiple family and census records
(35:25):
listing his birthplace as Vermont. Most of them date back
to before the Civil War, long before Arthur became the
vice presidential nominee, and long before he had any reason
to prove that he was in natural born citizen. Yeah,
why would he have started lying about it in eighteen
fifty We call that the long con the super long count,
(35:46):
especially because he personally might not have been the person
talking to the census taker that day, right. Uh So, anyway,
that is the cookie story of Chester A. Arthur. Uh
When the first little reference to it that I read
was like and then people asked whether he was born
in Canada, and I said, Okay, that's weird. And then
I got to the part of people saying he had
(36:08):
assumed the identity of a dead baby brother, and I
was like, Okay, now this is just strange. We are
going to talk about it a little more. Yeah, do
you have listener meal to talk about I do. It's
for Megan, and I wanted to read this because it's
just funny to me. Megan first of all, has the
(36:28):
subject line in the email of You're in luck. You
are I and and it says Dear Tracy and Holly.
I hope that pun didn't send this note straight to
your spam folder. I just wanted to write a quick
note to say thank you for your recent episode on
Hennig and Phosphorus. I was having a very bad day
and I was cracking up listening to this episode. I
(36:48):
felt like I could hear you guys trying so hard
not to laugh, and that made me laugh harder. So
thanks for that. It is right up there in my
favor episodes with Hessian's Marjory Camp and the boy Jones. Also, Holly,
I know you don't like musicals, but I really think
you should check out the music for the show You're
in Town. I was thinking about it the whole time
you were talking about p Barrels. I know nothing about
(37:11):
this show. Just for the record, f y, I for clarification,
I feel like I am forever defending this. I don't
mind musicals. I don't want to watch them because I
don't want to watch people. I love music, I don't
want to watch people singing. Uh. This is sort of
like how I said something in an episode one time
(37:32):
about not enjoying Sonheim and we got a number of
emails explaining to me how how like, gifted and brilliant
Sonheim was, and I was like, I'm not arguing the
mastery of Sondheim. I'm talking about my personal enjoyment listening
to it right anyway. Uh. Megan goes on to thank
(37:54):
us and says that she runs on Mondays and Wednesdays
because she has the show to listen to you on
those days. Thank you so much, Megan for sending this note.
It made me laugh. Just now made Holly laugh. I'm
really excited when we get to do episodes that make
people laugh sometimes because not all of them new. If
you would like to write to us about this or
any other podcast, we are at History Podcast at how
(38:16):
stuff Works dot com, and then we're all over social
media at miss in History. That's where you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
and Instagram. You can come to our website, which is
missed in history dot com, where you will find show
notes of all the episodes that Holly and I have
worked on together. In the show notes for today include
links to scans of a whole lot of nineteenth century newspapers,
(38:36):
and you can also find a searchable archive of all
our episodes ever, and you can subscribe to our show
on Apple podcast the I heart Radio app, and wherever
else you get podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class
is a production of I heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
(38:58):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. H
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry.
Last time, in our episode about Julius Sands Letters to
Chester A. Arthur, we mentioned that when Arthur was selected
(00:23):
as the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee in eighteen eighty
some questions came up about whether or not he had
been born in the United States, and consequently whether he
was eligible to be the vice president at all. And
some of the details of this are a little convoluted,
and it's not necessarily everyday knowledge today. I think the
random people in my life that I asked if they
(00:45):
had ever heard about this head not. But at the
same time, it has had a surprising amount of staying power.
And after doing a little bit of research into this
while doing that Julius sand episode, I couldn't decide what
to make of the whole thing. So I tell said
my friend Amy, who's a history teacher, and I asked her,
do you have an opinion on whether Chester A. Arthur
(01:06):
was born in the United States? She did not have
an opinion, and then We talked about it for the
next two hours, and over the course of that conversation
we were both like, this needs to be a whole
episode and not just a two sentence side reference in
the Julia sand thing. So here it is. The questions
about Chester A. Arthur's birth really traced back to his dad.
(01:28):
Arthur's father, William Arthur, was born December fifth, seventeen ninety
six in County Antrim, Ireland. His family had enough money
for him to get an education, including pursuing a degree
at Belfast College, but William wanted to practice law, and
they didn't really have the money or connections that he
needed to do that. So William immigrated to Canada around
(01:49):
eighteen nineteen, hoping to find more opportunities there. He settled
in Quebec, not far from the United States border, and
supported himself by teaching while he was still studying law.
In eighteen twenty one, he married an American woman named
Malvina Stone from Vermont. Her family had moved to Canada,
and then they had a daughter named Regina, born in Dunham, Canada,
(02:11):
in eighteen twenty two. Two years later, in eighteen twenty four,
the couple moved to Burlington, Vermont, and Arthur continued to
teach and study law, and their daughter, Jane was then
born in Burlington, Vermont that same year. William Arthur never
put those years of legal study into practice. This was
during the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening.
(02:33):
Arthur had been raised Anglican, and after attending a Revival meeting,
he converted to Free Baptist as that was happening. He
and his wife had another daughter, Almeida, born in Jericho, Vermont,
in eighteen twenty six. By eighteen twenty eight, they were
living in Waterville, Vermont, where their daughter Anne Eliza was born.
Then later that year, Arthur was ordained in Waterville. From
(02:55):
that point on, people mostly knew him as Elder Arthur.
He also nearly stopped registering the births of his children
with civil authorities at this time. In May of eighty eight,
the family moved to Fairfield, Vermont, where a congregation had
hired William as their preacher. In Fairfield, Elder Arthur continued
to teach to help make ends meet, often with his
(03:17):
students lodging with the family. The congregation was growing and
building things like a new parsonage and a new church
but the Arthur's often struggled financially. Winters were especially hard
because William was disabled due to some kind of abscess
or injury to one of his legs back when he
was still living in Ireland. It was harder for him
(03:37):
to do physical work or get around in the harsh,
snowy weather of winter Vermont. On October five nine, William
and Malvina welcomed a son, and they named him Chester,
after Malvina's cousin, Dr Chester Abel, who had attended her
during the birth. The baby's middle name, Alan was after
his paternal grandfather, so his full name was representing both
(03:58):
sides of the family. In a Hober of eighteen thirty,
Elder Arthur took a second job across the Canadian border
in East Stanbridge, Quebec to try to support his still
growing family. They would ultimately go on to have eight children.
He took his eldest daughter, Regina with him. He commuted
back to Fairfield to preach his Sunday sermons there. Within
(04:20):
a year, though the family was moving yet again. In
addition to being a teacher and a preacher, William Arthur
was an ardent abolitionist. Vermont had started the process of
abolishing slavery back in seventeen seventy seven, and black men
in Vermont had been given the right to vote. But
in the eighteen thirties, the idea of abolishing slavery throughout
(04:40):
the United States was incredibly controversial. Pro slavery and anti
abolition riots and other violence were pretty common, including in
places where slavery had already been abolished. William was really
outspoken in his views against slavery, and before long he
was no longer welcome in Fairfield. The family moved repeat
eatedly over the next few years, mostly around Vermont and
(05:03):
New York. They would stay in a place until they
were run out of town by anti abolitionists or until
church leadership decided William's activities were too much of a liability.
Throughout all of this, Chester, Arthur and his siblings were
being taught at home. That changed when the family moved
to Schenectady, New York, in the summer of eighteen forty four.
(05:23):
For the first time, Chester was enrolled in a formal school.
He went to Schenectady's Lyceum and Academy, and then he
started at Union College in eighteen forty five. He took
up the study of law that his father had previously abandoned. Also,
like his father, Chester Arthur worked as a teacher to
support his study of law. This included summer teaching jobs and,
(05:43):
in eighteen fifty one, a post as principal of the
school where two of his sisters worked There, he was
also assigned to teach a group of particularly ill behaved boys.
He also developed romantic friendships with two other young men,
Campbell Allen and James Maston. James would later marry Chester's sister,
al Maida. As they got older, Chester and some of
(06:05):
his siblings became pretty disenchanted with their father's self righteous
behavior and his almost zealous pursuit of both religion and abolition.
So Chester, having the option to do so, left home.
He moved to New York City in eighteen fifty three.
Soon he was moving in Republican political circles, and the
rest of that story is in our earlier episode on
(06:26):
his letters from Julia sand In June of eighteen eighty,
Chester A. Arthur became the Republican Party's nominee for Vice
President of the United States. Soon the Arthur family's nomadic
life during the eighteen twenties and thirties, Elder Arthur's not
reporting his younger children's births and Chester Arthur's extreme secrecy
(06:47):
with the press all combined to cause a problem. Rumors
started to spread among both Democrats and the moderate Republican
faction known as half breeds. In some versions, Arthur had
been born in his father's birthplace of Ireland, and in
other versions he had been born in Canada. The Ireland
rumor was quickly dismissed as impossible, but that Canada rumor
(07:07):
hung on. According to Article to Section one of the
U s Constitution, quote, no person except a natural born
citizen or a citizen of the United States at the
time of the adoption of this Constitution shall be eligible
to the office of President. And according to the Twelfth Amendment,
which took effect in eighteen o four, quote, no person
(07:28):
constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible
to that a Vice President of the United States. The
Constitution doesn't define exactly what natural born citizen means, but
it's generally defined as someone who was a citizen from
the time they were born without having to go through
a naturalization process. When Chester Arthur was born, it was
(07:50):
generally agreed that free white people born in the United
States were citizens from birth, although it wasn't formally part
of the law until later. The law also recognized that
a person might be born outside of the United States
to citizen parents and still be considered a citizen from birth,
but at that time the law considered this citizenship to
(08:11):
pass through the father and not through the mother. Arthur's
father didn't become a U. S. Citizen until eighteen forty three,
way after he was born, so if Arthur had been
born in Canada, he would not be considered a U.
S citizen even though his mother was a citizen. And
we're gonna get to how all of this unfolded after
we first take a little sponsor break. The eighteen eighty
(08:42):
Republican National Convention ran from June second to eighth of
that year, and then on June nine, the day after
it was over, the New York Times ran a profile
of the party's new vice presidential nominee which stated, quote
General Chester A. Arthur was born in Franklin County, Vermont,
October fifth, eighteen thirty. On jun eleventh, the St. Johnsbury
(09:04):
Caledonian of St. John's Bury, Vermont, wrote quote. The papers
say Chester A. Arthur was born in Lansingburg, New York,
fifty years ago, but his father used to live in Vermont,
and some say the candidate was born in Fairfield. On
June twelfth, the Carbon Advocate of Lee Heightened, Pennsylvania published
an article that said he had been born in Vermont.
In eighteen thirty one, The Abbeyville Press and Banner of Abbeyville,
(09:28):
South Carolina published an article on the twenty three that
said Arthur had been born in Albany in eighteen thirty one.
He was born seven times in various places. A little later,
in eighteen eighty, General James S. Brisbane published a biography
for the campaign called From the Towpath to the White
House The Early life and public Career of James A. Garfield,
(09:51):
Major General USA. The record of a wonderful career which,
like that of Abraham Lincoln, by native energy and untiring industry,
led this man from obscurity to the foremost position in
the councils of the Nation, including a sketch of the
life of Honorable Chester A. Arthur Moment of silence for
these fabulous titles. The text follows the same pattern as
(10:15):
the title, spending more than five hundred pages on Garfield's
biography and twenty three on Arthur's, with five of those
being the text of Arthur's speech accepting the nomination. Brisbane
gives Arthur's date and place of birth as October five,
eight thirty in Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont. So it's clear
from just these examples, which are just some of the
(10:38):
reporting around all of this, there was some confusion about
exactly when and where Arthur was born. I found zero
references from eighteen eighty that said that he was born
in Fairfield, Vermont, on October five, eighteen twenty nine, which
is what's considered correct today. By the late fall and
early winter of eighteen eighty, this lack of clarity about
(11:01):
where and when Arthur had been born had grown to
include suspicion that wherever it was, it was not in
the United States. An article published on December twenty, eighteen eighty,
in the Sacramento Daily Record Union read quote, A lawyer
of Brooklyn has been investigating in Vermont to see if
Chester A. Arthur was not really born on Canadian soil,
(11:22):
and left apparently pleased with his discoveries. Old residents say
there is no question of Arthur being a citizen. The
Brooklyn lawyer being referenced was Arthur P. Henman, who in
some accounts had been hired by the Democrats and in
others was an anti stalwart Republican. He really could have
been both those things at the same time. At first,
(11:42):
Henman believed that Arthur had been born in Ireland, but
he gradually started focusing on the idea that he might
really be Canadian. He traveled to the Vermont Quebec of
border area to interview people about what they remembered of
the Arthur family and their baby boy from fifty years
before or later on. In eighteen eighty four, when Arthur
(12:03):
was pursuing a nomination for re election, Henman published these
eighteen eighty findings in a book titled How a British
Subject Became President of the United States. Without really citing
any sources, Hinman alleged that after being nominated for Vice President,
Arthur couldn't say where he had been born. Henman also
alleged that Arthur had gone to Montreal after the Republican
(12:25):
National Convention to see if there was any evidence of
his birth in records. There there is no evidence for
either of these assertions, although the day after the convention ended,
The New York Times did publish a column called Campaign
Notes which paraphrased Roscoe Conkling as saying he might spend
some time that summer fishing with Arthur in Canada. Henman's
(12:47):
contention was, this was not a fishing trip. It was
a go see if you're found out, and if so,
cover it up trip. Henman's key witness was a quote
Mrs Stevens, who had been a playmate and companion of
Mrs Arthur went at school. According to Henman, Mrs Stephens
said that Chester Arthur's mother, Malvina, had given birth to
(13:07):
her oldest boy on March sixteenth or eighteenth, eighteen twenty eight,
at her parents house in Dunham Flats in Quebec. Mrs
Stevens remembered that it was one day off from St
Patrick's Day, but she couldn't really remember in which direction
it was one day off of St Patrick's day. This baby,
according to her, was named William Chester Alan Arthur. Henman
(13:28):
went on to say that in November of eighteen thirty,
Melvina Arthur had delivered another son, Chester Abel Arthur. While
living in Fairfield, Vermont. Chester Abel had then died in
eighteen thirty one while the family was visiting Burlington, Vermont.
From there, Henman details more moves and more births for
the Arthur family before arriving at the eighteen thirty four
(13:50):
birth of William Arthur Jr. And Heinsburg, Vermont. At that time,
Henman claimed the family decided to drop the William from
their oldest guns name William Chester Alan Arthur, making him
just Chester Alan Arthur. Henman connected all these dots to
conclude that the man the world knew as Chester Alan
Arthur born in Vermont was really his eldest brother born
(14:13):
in Quebec. So dramatic and weird. Not only that, Hinman
contended that William Chester Alan Arthur had decided to adopt
the birthdate and birthplace of his deceased baby brother, Chester
Able when he decided to run for president. There are
some problems with Henman's account. It is cobbled together from
(14:34):
a hodgepodge of interviews, many of them with people in
their elder years who were recalling events and baby names
from about fifty years before. A lot of these accounts
really contradict each other and while Heiman cherry picked the
ones that supported his allegations when describing what he thought happened.
He then included all of them in his book, whether
they backed him up or not, So you can go
(14:56):
read all of like the totally disparate accounts of what
people I thought this baby's name was and when he
was born in his explanation, so sort of the summary
portion of this book. It is often not clear whose
account Henman is referring to, and in some spots he
doesn't seem to have a source for what he's saying
at all. Maybe wouldn't pass muster in your journalism one
(15:18):
oh one course. Now on top of that, his whole
argument rests on the idea that Malvina Arthur gave birth
to a boy named William Chester Alan Arthur on either
March sixteenth or eighteenth of eighteen twenty eight. But we
know that she gave birth to a daughter, and Eliza Arthur,
on January one, of eighty eight. The only way this
(15:39):
could have happened would be for these two children to
have been fraternal twins born eleven weeks apart, or from
Alvina Arthur to have had two wombs and been pregnant
in both at the same time. Both of those scenarios
are incredibly rare, and the first would have been virtually
impossible given the state of medicine in eighteen twenty eight.
(16:00):
Is more likely to happen on Gray's anatomy than in
the real world. Even so, though by February of a
teen eighty one, after the election but before the inauguration,
papers were reporting on Hinman's speculations, sometimes mentioning him by
name and other times not. For example, the Centered Democrat
(16:21):
of bellefont Pennsylvania published an article on February third one
that read, quote, it has been charged with great deliberation
for several weeks that Chester A. Arthur, the Vice President elect,
is not a native of the United States. These allegations
have taken form, and affidavit's have been procured by those
investigating the matter, which go on to prove conclusively that
(16:42):
Mr Arthur was born in Canada. Also on the third
the Western Sentinel of Winston Salem, North Carolina published this
statement quote. The latest sensation now is that Chester A.
Arthur is not eligible to the position of vice president
to which he has been elected. In a probability that W. H.
English will yet be vice president. Six days later, in
(17:05):
the clear Field Republican of clear Field of Pennsylvania, quote,
where was he born? Is now agitating the public mind?
The Vice President elect Chester A. Arthur claims that he
was born in the state of Vermont, but a little
investigation seems to show that he was born in Canada
and therefore as not eligible. It is queer that a
sensible man cannot tell where he was born. And on
(17:27):
February twenty three, in the Indiana States Sentinel, quote, it
seems to be impossible to find out just where Chester A. Arthur,
vice President elect, was born. Arthur does not know he
was not born where, nor when he asserts he was born.
He has no proofs of his nativity. But the Senate
Committee on Privileges and Elections have come to the conclusion
(17:48):
that he was born in three towns and all within
the United States that will do so. I did not
actually find evidence that the Senate Committee on Privileges and
Elections had come to that conclu usian at all, and
the National Republican called the report that the committee was
looking into it an idiotic lie. Also, to be clear,
(18:09):
these newspapers all had their own political slants, and some
of them had initially been started to support a specific
candidate or a specific party. So none of this should
be interpreted as an impartial account of anything I did
for a while ago on this rabbit hole of like
trying to trace the political leanings of the editors of
all of these papers, and then I was like, this
is like fifteen different papers were referring to. That's gonna
(18:32):
take me a master's thesis and this is a thirty
minute podcast as an assigned Am I the only one
that doesn't think it would be that weird to not
know where you're born? Oh No, I think that's totally
like one you don't remember, right, And to his family
was so nomadic they might not even remember with any
sort of clarity or consistency. Yeah, I I totally know
(18:55):
where my where I was born because my parents told
me specifically, and we lived like near enough to the
hospital I was born in that we would go past
it and my mom would be like, that's where you
were born. But well, and it was a recorded birth
as well, right, Yeah, I have a birth certificate. But yeah,
these were all babies who are mostly being born at
home or at a relative's house, like in families that
(19:16):
were moving around a whole lot, and when babies weren't
viewed with quite the same Uh, there was not the
level of preciousness like yeah, celebration. Yeah, so many babies
died when they were really young that like sometimes people
didn't even name their babies until later, Like it was
(19:37):
not nearly as documented as is now, so that the
fact that there was uncertainty is not really strange. No,
I don't think so either. Uh. James Garfield was inaugurated
as president on March foe, and at that point the
chatter about where Arthur was born seems to have quieted down,
at least as far as what was being printed in newspapers.
(19:58):
But after Garfield was shot by ARLs Jay Gato, the
question took on a renewed urgency, and we're going to
talk more about that after we have another little sponsor break.
President Garfield survived for weeks after being shot in March
(20:19):
of eighteen eighty one, and as his death seemed more
and more likely, people once again started raising questions about
his vice president and whether he was eligible to the presidency.
On September eight one, the National Republican of Washington d c.
Published this exchange as a letter to the editor. Quote
to the editor of The Republican, will you please inform
(20:40):
me where General Chester A. Arthur was born? C? J.
Lemon The answer quote General Arthur was born in Fairfield,
Franklin County, Vermont, on October thirty. There are some persons
who do aver that he was born in Canada, but
they do not know what they're talking about. Surprisingly, the
(21:02):
Republicans definitive statement did not settle this issue. They do
not know what they were talking about. I love that
Garfield died on September nine. On September twenty, the New
York Herald printed a report written before his death which
definitively stated that Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont. It
based this conclusion on an interview with an anonymous source,
(21:25):
who was described as an intimate friend. This friend said
the whole story of a foreign birth came about because
Arthur's old neighbors quote assumed too much when hearing that
Chester Arthur had been named for Dr Chester Abel. The
Herald's reporter interviewed A. P. Hinman and recapped his version
of events as well. The Herald also interviewed New York
(21:46):
lawyer and former US District Attorney George Bliss, who was
a colleague of Arthur's, who said, in part quote, I
can only say that the whole thing is the most
arrant nonsense. I might as well have been asked whether
of sorrow as a citizen. The question of the American
citizenship of Mr Arthur is so absurd that it would
be a waste to say anything about it. The Herald's
(22:09):
report was picked up and republished in other newspapers, including
the Memphis Daily Appeal. On September twenty one, The New
York Sun published the findings of its own investigation into
where Arthur had been born. The Sun's report ran under
the headline General Arthur's birthplace. It is near the Canada
line on the Vermont side, it began, quote, The Sun
(22:30):
has received lately many letters of inquiry as to the
birthplace of Chester Alan Arthur, as well as other letters
professing doubt of General Arthur's citizenship, some of them alleging
that he was born in the neighborhood of Dunham, Canada,
and therefore not eligible to the Vice presidency to settle
that question. Definitely, a reporter for The Sun visited Fairfield
(22:51):
Franklin County, Vermont, which has generally been regarded as Mr
Arthur's birthplace. The place in Canada where it has been
alleged that he was born was also it did if
you're thinking right now, hey, Tracy and Holly, is that
the same New York Sun that published the Great Moon
Hoax and the Yes Virginia Letter. Yes, it is sure thing. Uh.
(23:13):
It also seems to have at least in the like
the Hodgepodge of articles from there from this particular year,
because it's political leanings shifted over time. Uh. It really
seems to be more critical of Republicans than Democrats in
eight one. So, like Arthur Henman, this Son reporter had
(23:35):
gone to the general area where Arthur had been born
and had tried to find formal documentation about when and
where that happened. But this reporter did not find anything conclusive.
The church where Elder Arthur had been preaching at the
time in Fairfield was no longer standing, and the Greater
Free Baptist Organization had really dwindled. It no longer had
any records. So the only record that he found of
(23:57):
the Arthur's in Dunham, Canada, which is where p but
we're alleging Chester Arthur had been born was a record
of the birth of William Arthur's eldest daughter. From there,
the reporter interviewed locals who were between the ages of
sixty and eighty seven. The article contained such testimonies as well,
I reckon I recollect Elder Arthur. He came here to preach.
(24:18):
When they were building the new meetinghouse. There was a
kind of a fish shaped vein with eight painted on it.
It was painted so bad that the feller has painted
it was ashamed of it. I like how this local
person from Vermont is written as though he talked like
a cowhand. Yeah Texas, Yeah, um so those That quote
(24:45):
was purportedly the words of Leonard D. Greer, who also
remembered the Arthur's and specifically remembered that Dr chester Able
had delivered their son. Greer was really certain that they
had named this baby chester Able after the doctor. Other
people that were interviewed around Fairfield had the same recollection,
and that included dr Abel's brother, Calvin. The doctor himself,
(25:08):
by this point had passed on. Calvin answered a question
about this baby's name with quote, well, I guess having
been named after my brother, it's Chester Abele Arthur. The
overall consensus of the people interviewed in Fairfield was that
the Arthur's had a son while living there, that they
named him Chester Abel, after the doctor who delivered him,
and that he was the same person as the Chester
(25:31):
Arthur who had been elected vice president. Although several people
who thought about it were surprised his middle name was
given as Alan rather than Able, other people had given
that no thought whatsoever. The son's reporter, though, also talked
to some people who maintained that this was not the
same person. Their argument was that Chester Abele Arthur had
(25:52):
died in Burlington, Vermont, while still a baby, and that
elder Arthur had given his body to doctors quote to
dissected for scientific purposes. Then, while elder Arthur was working
in East Standbridge, according to this account, his wife and
the rest of the children were living with her parents
in Meg's Corners, Canada. And then while there these people
(26:15):
alleged she had another baby, and this other baby is
the one who became president, taking his brother's identity to
do it. So it's really similar to the story that
Henman had reported about Arthur taking a deceased baby brother's name,
but in this case it was an older brother and
not a younger brother. The residence of East Stanbridge, Quebec,
on the other hand, remembered things differently. Seventy year old
(26:39):
Lyndall Corey reported that Elder Arthur had come to town
with his daughter Regina in the autumn of eighteen thirty
and taught there for eighteen months. Neither Corey nor anyone
else interviewed in East Stanbridge recalled the rest of the
family being present. Corey had heard this rumor about donating
a baby's body two doctors, but didn't have any recollection
(26:59):
of a bee being born to the Arthur's in East Stanbridge,
or of any of the Arthur's living there besides Elder
Arthur and his daughter Regina. So as had happened with
Henman's report, the Sun got a whole lot of contradictory
accounts from locals, and again these were people being asked
about a baby name from fifty years before. The son, however,
(27:20):
drew the opposite conclusion in its report to what Henman did,
citing an anonymous gentleman quote intimately connected with the president's
life and family. This anonymous source said that Arthur was
named after both Dr Chester Able and his own paternal grandfather.
The son reported that this unnamed source had personally seen
the Arthur family Bible and that the entry for Chester's
(27:43):
birth read Chester Alan Arthur born in Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont,
October five, eighteen thirty. Speculation continued in the months that followed,
and as we noted earlier, Henman published his book when
Arthur was seeking re election in eighteen eighty four, but
when Arthur didn't earn the Republican nomination for president, the
question faded away, and then he died in eighteen six.
(28:06):
Arthur never directly addressed this controversy, but according to an
article published in The New York Times on February twelfth,
eighty one, he did give a speech at a celebratory
dinner at Delmonico's in New York City. About two hundred
people were there, including politicians and high profile supporters. In
his speech, Arthur said quote, I don't think we had
(28:28):
better go into the minute secrets of the campaign so
far as I know them, because I see reporters present
who were taking it all down. And while there is
no harm in talking about some things after the election,
is over you cannot tell what they may make of
it because the inauguration has not yet taken place. And
while I don't mean to say anything about my birthplace,
whether it was in Canada or elsewhere, still, if I
(28:50):
should get to going about the secrets of the campaign,
there is no saying what I might say to make
trouble between now and the fourth of March. So, after
all of that, when and where was Chester A. Arthur born?
We actually have more information on that than you might
think from the quality of all of those nineteenth century reports. Yeah,
(29:11):
there's more to go on than oral testimony from people
living fifty years later. Not that oral testimony is without value,
but seriously, who really remembers the middle name of the
baby that was born in your neighborhood to a family
that lived there for a couple of years fifty years before.
I imagine there are people here and there that might
but overall, I would not put a whole lot of
(29:32):
stock in those accounts. Now now, So, three different members
of the Arthur family compiled genealogies, all of them started
decades before Chester became a vice presidential nominee. William Arthur Sr.
Started compiling one about the time he converted to Free Baptist.
Chester Arthur compiled one in eighteen fifty nine, and Chester's sister,
(29:53):
Malvina Arthur Haynesworth wrote one in her diary. All three
of them give Chester's state of birth as October five,
eighteen twenty nine. We also have two different Arthur family bibles,
one belonged to William Arthur, Sr. And the other TOI.
Chester Arthur. Both of those list his birthplace and date
as October five, eighty nine in Fairfield, Vermont. If you're
(30:17):
not familiar with the tradition of keeping a family Bible,
these are bibles that are passed down through families that
have designated pages for keeping family records. Family members write
down important dates like births, baptisms, and marriages on these pages,
and that might seem like an informal document, but family
Bibles are or have been used to substantiate people's births
(30:38):
for things like school enrollment, driver's licenses, and even passports. Yeah,
you can't really just show up at the passport office
with your family Bible and get a passport, but it's
like part of the substantiating documentation and a lot of contexts.
And then we also have census records. The Arthur family
was enumerated in the eighteen fifties census us on August
(31:00):
eight of eighteen fifty Chester Arthur is listed as a
student born in Vermont, age twenty. Since they were counted
in August and he was born in October, that would
put his birth year at eighteen twenty nine. Arthur was
counted in the eighteen sixties census on July, and he's
listed as thirty years old and born in Vermont. In
(31:22):
the eighteen seventy census, he was counted in December, after
his birthday, and in that year's record says age is
listed as forty one, which follows the same mathematical pattern,
but his birthplace is listed as a pair of ditto
marks like same as the line above, But the line
above is the last entry from another household that person
(31:42):
was born in New York. That discrepancy is a mystery
in our theme of bad uses for time machines. I
would go back in time and ask that census taker, Hey,
what's up with this? And is this an error? Like
what happened? And they would say, oh, I don't know,
I was tired probably, And then there's the eighteen eighties
senses taken in June, which lists Arthur's place of birth
(32:04):
as Vermont and his age is forty nine. Following the
pattern of all this other documentation, it really should be fifty.
So it seems as though between eighteen seventy and eighteen eighty,
when Arthur was between the ages of forty one and fifty,
he maybe started fudging his age by a year. Thomas
c Reeves chalked it up to quote simple vanity, calling
(32:26):
Arthur quote one of the most vainglorious men of the
Gilded Age. And the fact that he was lying about
his age apparently intentionally, like that year is even on
his tombstone. Uh, made people sort of go, well, what
else was he lying about? He was lying about when
he was born? Was he lying about where? Maybe his weight?
(32:48):
Like we said at the top of the show, The
story that Arthur was really Canadian has kind of stuck around.
Canada's History magazine published an article on this subject in
two thousand and At time, the magazine was called The Beaver.
This article kicks off with quote, Presidents of the United
States must be born on US soil, so says the
American Constitution. But evidence suggests that Chester Arthur, the twenty
(33:12):
first president, was born in a foreign land, Canada. Perhaps
don't tell the Americans. Later on this article says quote
Chester Arthur was most likely a citizen of Lower Canada,
a British subject born in Dunham Flats, Quebec, near the
Vermont border. So, among other things, this article kind of
misrepresents what natural born citizen really means, and at least
(33:34):
in the online version, it does not cite any sources
for where its information came from, but it does seem
like a lot of it is from a p Headman's
how a British subject became President of the United States,
which we noted lots of problems with earlier in the episode.
CBS Sunday Morning produced a segment inve that takes more
of a both sides approach, interviewing a museum curator in
(33:57):
Quebec who says she's pretty convinced he was born in Canada,
along with Fairfield, Vermont locals who say he was not.
They also talked to John Dumbville, Vermont's Historic Sites Operations chief,
who says, of the Canadian question, there is a chance,
but I doubt it. This debate has also come up
over the last decade or so in the context of
(34:17):
Ted cruise is eligibility for the presidency because he was
born in Canada, as well as the birther Or conspiracy
theory about President Barack Obama's citizenship. For all three of
these men, these questions were definitely attempts to discredit them
and suggest that they were not fit for office. But
in a lot of other ways, these controversies don't really
compare because Ted Cruise and Barack Obama both released their
(34:41):
birth certificates showing where they had been born. Arthur, on
the other hand, was not at all forthcoming. He released
no documentation of where he had been born, and this
was really totally in line with how secretive he always
was with the press about everything. And really, who know
whether if he had brought out his family Bible and
(35:02):
was like right here, it says whether people would have
moved on to insisting that that family Bible was fake. Really,
it's not impossible that chester A. Arthur's mother visited her
parents or his father in Canada while she was pregnant
with him and gave birth to him there. But there's
no evidence whatsoever that Arthur assumed the identity of a
deceased brother, and there are multiple family and census records
(35:25):
listing his birthplace as Vermont. Most of them date back
to before the Civil War, long before Arthur became the
vice presidential nominee, and long before he had any reason
to prove that he was in natural born citizen. Yeah,
why would he have started lying about it in eighteen
fifty We call that the long con the super long count,
(35:46):
especially because he personally might not have been the person
talking to the census taker that day, right. Uh So, anyway,
that is the cookie story of Chester A. Arthur. Uh
When the first little reference to it that I read
was like and then people asked whether he was born
in Canada, and I said, Okay, that's weird. And then
I got to the part of people saying he had
(36:08):
assumed the identity of a dead baby brother, and I
was like, Okay, now this is just strange. We are
going to talk about it a little more. Yeah, do
you have listener meal to talk about I do. It's
for Megan, and I wanted to read this because it's
just funny to me. Megan first of all, has the
(36:28):
subject line in the email of You're in luck. You
are I and and it says Dear Tracy and Holly.
I hope that pun didn't send this note straight to
your spam folder. I just wanted to write a quick
note to say thank you for your recent episode on
Hennig and Phosphorus. I was having a very bad day
and I was cracking up listening to this episode. I
(36:48):
felt like I could hear you guys trying so hard
not to laugh, and that made me laugh harder. So
thanks for that. It is right up there in my
favor episodes with Hessian's Marjory Camp and the boy Jones. Also, Holly,
I know you don't like musicals, but I really think
you should check out the music for the show You're
in Town. I was thinking about it the whole time
you were talking about p Barrels. I know nothing about
(37:11):
this show. Just for the record, f y, I for clarification,
I feel like I am forever defending this. I don't
mind musicals. I don't want to watch them because I
don't want to watch people. I love music, I don't
want to watch people singing. Uh. This is sort of
like how I said something in an episode one time
(37:32):
about not enjoying Sonheim and we got a number of
emails explaining to me how how like, gifted and brilliant
Sonheim was, and I was like, I'm not arguing the
mastery of Sondheim. I'm talking about my personal enjoyment listening
to it right anyway. Uh. Megan goes on to thank
(37:54):
us and says that she runs on Mondays and Wednesdays
because she has the show to listen to you on
those days. Thank you so much, Megan for sending this note.
It made me laugh. Just now made Holly laugh. I'm
really excited when we get to do episodes that make
people laugh sometimes because not all of them new. If
you would like to write to us about this or
any other podcast, we are at History Podcast at how
(38:16):
stuff Works dot com, and then we're all over social
media at miss in History. That's where you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
and Instagram. You can come to our website, which is
missed in history dot com, where you will find show
notes of all the episodes that Holly and I have
worked on together. In the show notes for today include
links to scans of a whole lot of nineteenth century newspapers,
(38:36):
and you can also find a searchable archive of all
our episodes ever, and you can subscribe to our show
on Apple podcast the I heart Radio app, and wherever
else you get podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class
is a production of I heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
(38:58):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. H
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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