Aaron Burr was one of the most maligned and mistrusted public figures of his era and, without question, the most controversial vice president in our history. His father was a Presbyterian pastor and president of Princeton College, but died before Burr was two years old. His mother died shortly after that. He was an orphan at age two. Burr graduated from Princeton in 1772 wanting to be a lawyer. The Revolutionary War would interrupt this. Burr joined the army and fought outside Quebec in 1775 and was commended on his bravery. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, but somehow was not liked by General Washington. 

            After the war, he married Theodosia Bartow Prevost, the widow of a British officer and moved to New York City. They had a daughter Theodosia. Burr's wife died in 1794. He practiced law and entered politics, becoming Attorney General for New York in 1789. Burr was elected to the U. S. Senate in 1791, unseating Senator Philip Schuyler and making a lifelong enemy of Schuyler's son-in-law, Alexander Hamilton. As senator, he spoke out against many Federalist policy's in Washington's and Adams' administration. 

            In the Election of 1800, Burr was the vice president on the Democratic-Republican's ticket, headed by Thomas Jefferson. Their opponent was incumbent president John Adams. The election was especially ugly as both sides looked to discredit the other. However, it was after the election that the real fun began.

            Elections were different in 1800 than they are Today. The Electors would cast two ballots, the man with the most votes would be president and the second with be vice president. Before voting, one Elector was to cast his ballot for someone beside the chosen vice president so he would come in second. Somehow, the Democratic-Republicans did not select anyone to cast this vote. Consequently, Jefferson and Burr tied for the most electoral votes with 73 each. Since Burr was his parties selection for vice president, he should have stepped aside. According to the Constitution, if the election is tied, it goes to the House of Representatives with each state getting one vote. The representatives from each state would poll their delegations to determine how their state would vote. Federalist in the House of Representatives hoped to disrupt Jefferson's victory by voting for Burr. Hamilton, not thinking very highly of Burr, supported Jefferson (another man who he disliked). Needing a majority of the 16 sates, it would take 36 ballots in over a week before Jefferson won the election. After this, he would not be trusted by Jefferson or the DemocraticRepublicans.

            Not surprisingly, Burr was not re-nominated by his party in the Election of 1804. So he decided to run for New York Governor. He lost badly. He blamed Hamilton, who referred to Burr as, "a dangerous man, and who ought not to be trusted." Burr, who was still vice president,  challenged Hamilton to a duel. On July 11, 1804 on a cliff in Weehawken, New Jersey, Burr mortally wounded Hamilton. Even though it was illegal, dueling was socially accepted. However, Burr was heavily criticized for it. He was indicted for murder in New York and New Jersey but never stood trial for it. Burr returned to Washington D.C. to continue to preside of the Senate.

            He left the vice presidency in 1805, heavily in debt. Burr entered in a strange plot with Louisiana Governor James Wilkinson. Burr was going to lead an attack against Mexico hoping to get many Western States to leave the Union and make a southeastern confederacy under his leadership. Before it began, Wilkinson betrayed Burr, who was arrested on the charge of treason. He was tried for treason in Richmond, Virginia in 1807. Chief Justice John Marshall presided over the trial and was responsible for Burr's acquittal. After the trial, Burr left for Europe.

            Burr returned to New York five years later. In 1813, his daughter, Theodosia, was lost at sea. Burr never overcame the loss of his beloved daughter. He remarried in 1833 to a wealthy widow, but she soon found out he was squandering her money and sued for divorce. Burr was incapacitated by a series of strokes, eventually dying on Staten Island. Burr was buried with full military honors.

            My wife and I found Burr in Princeton Cemetery on a warm summer afternoon we were spending in Princeton. He is in the same cemetery as President Grover Cleveland and Declaration signer Jonathan Witherspoon.

            When Clinton took office in 1805, he was replacing Aaron Burr (who was 17 years younger than him), Jefferson's first vice president, whose perceived disloyalty had almost cost Jefferson the presidency. Strangely enough, Clinton was an Anti federalist who opposed the ratification of the Constitution, especially the establishment of the Office of the Vice President. He became the first of two vice presidents to serve two different presidents (the other being Calhoun) and the first vice president to die in office.

            Being born in upstate New York, Clinton fought in the French and Indian War in 1757 at the age of 18. After the war, he became a lawyer and entered politics. He married Cornelia Tappan, who was related to the Livingston's (one of the richest families in New York). He became a patriot in the years before the American Revolution. He was elected to the Second Continental Congress. He disliked it, and he soon resigned to accept an appointment as a brigadier general in the New York militia. He was elected the First Governor of New York in 1777, but was shortly back on the battlefield when he led forces to stop British General Clinton for marching north to help General Burgoyne (who ultimately surrendered at the Battle of Saratoga). 

            He continued to serve as Governor of New York until 1795. He served again from 1801 to 1804. His 21 years as governor make him the longest serving chief executive in New York State's history. He was an Anti-Federlist who opposed the Constitution, but he realized that it's ratification was inevitable. When the new government was established in 1787, Clinton wanted to be the first vice president. These early elections are different than Today. There were no presidential tickets. Presidential Electors simply voted for someone to be president and someone to be vice president. Federalist, like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, were horrified that an Anti-Federalist might be the vice president. They successfully pushed for John Adams who received 34 of the 69 votes (Clinton received 3 votes).

            Clinton tried again in 1792, and his chances were better. Hamilton and Madison were not happy with the abrasive John Adams as vice president and wanted someone new. Adams received 77 electoral votes, but Clinton did well, coming in second with 50 votes. Clinton, suffering from poor health, retired as governor in 1795. He decided not to run as Jefferson's vice president in 1796 (they changed the format in 1796). Jefferson lost the election, but since he had the second highest amount of votes, he became vice president. Clinton and Jefferson did not get along. 

            Clinton ran again for Governor of New York in 1801, fearing that Aaron Burr (who he once made Attorney General but since grew to distrust him), would resign the vice presidency and run for governor. He won easily. Even though he was governor, his nephew, De Witt Clinton, was the real power in New York. 

            In the Election of 1804, the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans dumped their disloyal vice president Aaron Burr in favor of Clinton. Thomas Jefferson supported him mostly because at age 65 he would be too old to run against his chosen successor, James Madison, in the Election of 1808. Clinton, however, had other plans. New York Democratic Republicans were tired of Virginians dominating their party and saw this as a chance to get some control. 

            They won the election, making Clinton the first Vice President to be elected as a "Running Mate" under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment, however President Jefferson ignored his vice president so as not to encourage his presidential ambitions. While in Washington D.C., Clinton kept to himself socially. As the Election of 1808 approached, support in the party was between Madison and Clinton. Madison was nominated by the Democratic Republicans, but to keep the support of New yorkers, nominated Clinton as the vice president. Clinton was not thrilled at this prospect. In the Election of 1808, Clinton actually received 3 electoral votes for the presidency. In the end, he was elected madison's vice president.

            As President of the Senate, he was unable, due to poor health, to come to any sessions in 1811. He opened the 12th Congress at the end of 1811, but by March of 1812 was too ill to continue. He died a month later. He was the first person to lie in state in the Capitol. 

            I picked up George Clinton's picture on a trip to Lake Placid in April of 2002. My wife, Debbie, along with two nephews, Damian and Daniel (who are in the picture - Damian is on the left and Daniel is on the right) were going to a hockey tournament. We stopped in Kingston for the photo and a cup of coffee at the local Dunkin Doughnuts. It was very easy to find the Church, all we had to do was head to the tall white steeple which can be seen for miles.

            Unlike Today, when a vice president is either elevated to the presidency or should for some reason be no longer able to serve in the office, there was no provision set up to replace a vice president when the Constitution was formed. It wouldn't be until the passage of the 25th Amendment in 1967 that a system would be set up to replace a vice president. The first time this occurred was in 1912 when Vice President George Clinton died in office. The vice presidency was vacant for almost a year. Elbridge Gerry was elected as vice president in 1812 and sworn in in 1813 filling the position. However, it would be again vacant when Gerry became the second vice president to die in office a year and a half later.

            The son of a former British sea captain, Gerry graduated from Harvard College in 1758. After graduation, he returned home to Marblehead to join the families thriving mercantile and shipping business. He got interested in politics as the Colonies started to move toward independence. Gerry was elected to the Second Continental Congress in December 1775, serving until 1780 and again from 1783 to 1785. As a member, he signed the Declaration of Independence which he considered the greatest single act of his life. 

            After the war, Gerry was a member of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. His political philosophy was that a "natural elite" of able and talented individuals should govern the new nation and not democracy in it's truest from. He felt too much democracy would jeopardize the stability of the government or jeopardize the liberties of the people. During the Convention, Gerry strode toward the middle ground between the federalists and those favoring states' rights. He pushed for the "Great Compromise". As the Convention wore on, Gerry began to believe that the Constitution would give the Federal Government too much power. Wanting to save a document that he now considered seriously flawed, Gerry wanted to include a bill of rights and several specific proposals to safeguard popular liberties. All were defeated. He opposed the idea that the vice president is also the President of the Senate, saying that the Executive Branch should have nothing to do with the Legislature. In the end, Gerry refused to sign the Constitution.

            Federalist in Massachusetts felt betrayed by Gerry and he was defeated in his bid to be governor. He was, however, elected to the House of Representatives for two terms. Tiring of the constant fighting between Hamiltonian Federalists and Jeffersonian Democratic Republicans, he retired from the House in 1793. At the age of 41, he married Ann Thompson. Ann Gerry's had ten children  between 1787 and 1801, severely straining her health and causing Gerry to stay at home.

        President John Adams made Gerry an envoy to France where he became involved in the XYZ Affair. Disliked by Federalists, Gerry slowly moved into the Democratic Republican political party. In 1810, Gerry was elected Governor of Massachusetts. He was re-elected to a second term. It was during this term that Gerry approved a controversial redistricting plan designed to give Democratic Republicans an advantage of Federalists in the state senatorial elections. The Federalist newspapers responded to this plan with cartoon figures of a salamander-shape election district, called the "Gerrymander", adding to the American political lexicon a term that is still used Today whenever a political party in power changes a political district to gain a political advantage.

            In the Election of 1816, James Madison wanted a stable New Englander on his ticket to replace the dead George Clinton. Despite some misgivings over Gerry's age (he was 67 at the time), he ran and was elected with Madison. Strangely enough, he did very little to attach electors in Massachusetts, two voted for him and none voted for Madison.

            Gerry remained at home in Massachusetts on inauguration day, March 4, 1813, taking his oath of office there. He did go to Washington D.C. to preside over the Senate. He actively supported the War of 1812, despite the fact that most New Englanders did not. The war brought great divisions in Congress and caused Gerry's health to get worse. Gerry spent the summer of 1814 in Massachusetts. When he returned to Washington D.C., he found the capital had changed. The British troops had burned most of the city's public buildings, including the Capitol, and the Senate would meet in temporary quarters for the remainder of his term. 

            Gerry defended the administration, but the pressures of the war was draining his health. He became seriously ill in late November 1814. On November 22, he retired early in the evening. The next morning he was complaining of chest pains. He died at his boardinghouse later that day.

            I added Gerry to my list on July 28, 2002 on a weekend trip to Manassas, Virginia with my wife Debbie and my nephew Damian. We had gone to the National Cathedral for 11 am Sunday service that morning and also visited President Woodrow Wilson. It was incredibly hot that day in Washington D.C., the temperature hovering at around 100 degrees. We also visited Governor Samuel Lewis Southard of New Jersey.

            This vice president was very close, if not the closest. I got him in the Bowery in Manhattan. The neighborhood is not what it used to be when Tompkins was buried here. I was just happy I didn't have to wake any homeless people up so I could get the picture, there were two sleeping in front of the church. The only other famous person here is Peter Stuyvesant, 'Ol Peg Leg Pete. Tompkins died shortly after leaving office. I guess no longer being the VP was too much for him to bear. I wonder how Al Gore doing these days?

            Daniel D. Tompkins was one of eleven children of Jonathan Griffin Tompkins and Sarah Ann Hyatt Tompkins, tenant farmers from a farm near Scarsdale. During the American Revolution, Tomkin's father served in the militia and after the war, he served as a delegate to the state legislature. Tompkins graduated from Columbia University, first in his class, in 1795. He became a lawyer and married Hannah Minthorne, the daughter of a well-connected Democratic-Republican merchant. Tompkins' father-in-law was a prominent member of the Tammany Society (also known as "Bucktails," after the distinctive plumes worn at official and ceremonial gatherings), a political organization that would one day challenge the Clinton dynasty for control of the New York Democratic-Republican party.

            Tompkins began his political career in 1800 politicking for his father-in-law. Tompkins served as a New York City delegate to the 1801 state constitutional convention and was elected to the New York assembly in 1803. In 1804 he won a seat in the United States House of Representatives, but he resigned before Congress convened to accept an appointment as an associate justice of the New York Supreme Court. Tompkins was a popular judge and close associate of New York City mayor De Witt Clinton (nephew of then current vice president George Clinton), who supported him in the 1807 gubernatorial race in an effort to unseat Morgan Lewis. Tompkins was portrayed as the "Farmer's boy" as opposed to the aristocratic Lewis and won a solid victory. Tompkins soon broke ranks with Clinton and supported his rival, James Madison, in the 1808 presidential election.

            Re-elected governor in 1810, Tompkins was a loyal supporter of the Madison administration. After the United States declared war on Great Britain in the summer of 1812, he did his best to raise troops and supplies for the war effort. With Federalists, who opposed the War of 1812, in control of the state legislature and the Clintonians also resolutely opposed to the war, Tompkins was hard pressed to come up with the money to pay for troops and supplies. He used his own money to pay and arm the militia and personally endorsed loans to finance strengthening the state's defenses. New York being on the border with Canada was in constant danger of attack from the British. Tompkins, himself, was in a tight personal financial position since he was in heavy debt because of large purchases of land on the north shore of Staten Island. He built a mansion on Fort Hill (a.k.a. Brighton Heights). Tompkins bought a large parcel of land for development from Cornelius Vanderbilt which would eventually become the village of Tompkinsville. Because of the debt, he actually turned down President Madison's offer of a cabinet position simple because the salary would was too small to support his family.

            Tompkins was well respected by the people of New York and was praised for his leadership in the newspapers. In 1916's gubernatorial race, Tompkins defeated Federalist Rufus King by a comfortable margin in an intensely partisan campaign focusing on the candidates' wartime records. But the victory was marred by Federalist accusations that Governor Tompkins had misused public funds during the war, charges that would haunt him for the remainder of his life.

            Many in New York wanted to see Tompkins become president. Encouraged by Tompkins' victory, his supporters redoubled their efforts to secure his presidential nomination. Outside of New York, however, few Americans had ever heard of Tompkins, and few Democratic-Republicans believed him capable of winning the presidency. The Democratic-Republicans instead backed "heir apparent" James Monroe, who received the nomination on March 16, 1816. In a concession to New York Democratic-Republicans, who were crucial to the party, Tompkins was given the vice-presidential nomination. Tompkins, like many New Yorkers, believed that Virginians had monopolized the presidency long enough, but, he assured one supporter, he had "no objection to being vice President under Mr. Munro." The end of the war brought popularity for the Democratic-Republican Party and marked the beginning of the end for the Federalists, who had become suspect because of their opposition to the war. In this euphoric post-war atmosphere, Monroe and Tompkins won an easy victory over Federalist presidential candidate Rufus King of New York beginning what historians have called "The Era of Good Feelings." Somehow, the 'Good Feelings' will not extend to Vice President Tompkins.

            Tompkins' was in poor health, the result of a fall from his horse in 1814. His health problems kept him for the most part at his home in Staten Island instead of Washington D.C. presiding over the senate as was the job of the vice president. Tompkins' health eventually improved enough to permit his return to public life, but his financial affairs were in such a chaotic state by 1817 that he found little time to attend the Senate. In his haste to raise the huge sums required for New York's wartime defense, he had failed to keep good records, commingling his money with state and federal funds. Tompkins claimed he was owed money, setting the stage for a long and bitter battle that continued through his first term as vice president. Tompkins financial position grew worse as he couldn't pay off his debts. Tompkins slid deeper into debt and began to drink heavily.

            The vice president's financial troubles, and his continuing involvement in New York politics, kept him away from Washington for extended periods. He feuded with his former ally, De Witt Clinton, now governor of New York. Governor Clinton's resentment of the "Virginia dynasty" knew no bounds, and with Tompkins now on record as a supporter of the Monroe administration, the long-simmering rivalry between the vice president and his former mentor finally came to a head. In 1820, the New York Senate voted to award Tompkins money to settle his accounts, but Clinton's allies in the state assembly blocked it saying that Tompkins owed them money instead.

            Tompkins grew increasingly bitter with each new assault on his integrity, but many New Yorkers, having themselves suffered severe financial reverses during the panic of 1819, sympathized with him, and continued to hold him in high regard. In 1820, the Bucktails nominated Tompkins as their candidate to oppose Clinton in the gubernatorial race, which he ultimately lost by a narrow margin. However, Tompkins achieved a personal victory when the state legislature finally approved a compromise settlement over the money owed him.

            When Tompkins did find time to attend the Senate, he did a poor job. His shortcomings were painfully apparent during the debates over the admission of Missouri into the Union. The issue was not so much statehood but of the institution of slavery. During the debates, Tompkins returned to New York to work on his gubernatorial campaign. His abrupt departure angered antislavery senators, who were thus deprived of the vice president's tie-breaking vote in the event of a deadlock between the free states and the slave states. However, it didn't really matter, since there were no tie votes to be broken. Many northern were disappointed that Tompkins did not speak out against slavery and instead just left. The debates continued through the spring of 1820, without Tompkins, when Congress finally approved the Missouri Compromise.

            Tompkins managed to avoid the slavery question, despite being a leader in the fight to abolish slavery in New York State, that would certainly have alienated President Monroe, an important consideration since Tompkins had every intention of remaining on the ticket as Monroe's running mate in 1820.

            By 1820, Tompkins health was getting worse. The strain on his personal life and his heavy drinking were taking their toll. Still, even though some Democratic-Republicans attempted to block his renomination, he was added to the ticket with Monroe for re-election. The 1820 presidential election generated surprisingly little interest, given the problems then facing the nation. The country was suffering from a severe depression and the American occupation of Spanish Florida had unleashed a torrent of anti-administration criticism from House Speaker Henry Clay of Kentucky. Although the Missouri controversy had been resolved for the moment, the truce between North and South was still perilously fragile. Monroe ran virtually unopposed, with the Federalist Party now dead, winning all but one of the 232 electoral votes. Tompkins, however, did not do as well. Not all the electors would vote for him complaining he was absent from Congress far too much. 13 of the electors who voted for Monroe, voted for vice presidents other then Tompkins.

            Tompkins missed the opening session of the 17th Congress on December 3, 1821, and continuing ill health kept him away most of the time. Tompkins was clearly losing control and was seen walking around Washington D.C. in a drunken state. He was even accused of presiding over Congress while intoxicated. During his brief stay in Washington, he had managed to alienate Monroe, having severely criticized the president. Tompkins would spend the next several months trying to settle his accounts. Before leaving Washington D.C., he assigned his Staten Island mansion and his other land holdings, to a group of trustees, and on his return to New York, he moved into a run-down boardinghouse in Manhattan.

            While he was away from Congress. The Senate approved a bill, despite the objections of New Yorker Martin Van Buren, that would keep public officials who owed money, like Tompkins, from being paid depriving Tompkins of his last remaining source of funds. However, in June of 1822, A Federal Court cleared Tompkins of any wrongdoings and awarded him $136,799.

            Tompkins, now exonerated, returned to Washington to resume his duties in the Senate a seemingly changed man. Unfortunately, the money owed Tompkins was not paid right away leaving him and his family in dire financial straights. He remained in the senate for the rest of his term, but told everyone he wanted to do nothing more after the election of 1824.

            After leaving Washington D.C., at the end of his term, the impoverished vice president continued to drink heavily, and after years of indebtedness his business affairs were in shambles. Tompkins died in Tompkinsville (today it's a neighborhood in Staten Island) less then three months later. He was buried in his wife's family vault in St. Mark's Church in the Bowery. After his death his once-magnificent Staten Island estate was sold off in a series of sheriff's sales. His mansion was later torn down. In 1847, Congress approved a payment of close to $50,000 to Tompkins' heirs, still less then what was owed him.

            Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan, once a salt marsh owned by Peter Stuyvesant and later by Tompkins was drained and developed in 1834, into a park named after the vice president. His college essays were collected in A Columbia College Student in the Eighteenth Century (ed. by R. W. Irwin and E. L. Jacobsen, 1940).

            Here is the man that started it all. He was my first grave photo of someone famous. I visited Charleston, South Carolina in December of 1984. It was winter, the trees had no leaves and there were Christmas decorations out, but walking around in shorts somehow didn't feel wintry. I flew down for a few days to visit my friend Carl, who was spending the winter there. He had rented a nice apartment on Lagarr Street in the old historical section of the city. During my stay, we visited Fort Sumter, where it all started and the WWII aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Yorktown (the second one - the first having been sunk at the Battle of Midway). I also walked around the old part of the city taking photos. The architecture here is of beautiful ante-bellum homes. There are a number churches with churchyards in Charleston. Among those that I visited, there is St. Michael's Episcopal Church on Broad and Meeting Streets (the oldest church in Charleston - built in 1761), which has a large white steeple. It's churchyard has, among others, U.S. Constitution signers John Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pickney and Confederate general Mordecai Gist.  Nearby is Saint Philip's Church Episcopal Church on Church Street. This church is large and gray with features an octagonal tower with Corinthian columns. It was here that I found John C. Calhoun. With Calhoun is Declaration of Independence signer, Edward Rutledge and Constitution signer Charles Pickney (cousin of the Charles Cotesworth Pickney). Both Pickney's signed the Constitution which must have been somewhat confusing. Both churches, along with the rest of Charleston, were damaged in an earthquake in 1886 and by Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

                 St. Philip's has a churchyard adjacent to three sides and another one across the street. I have read that St. Philip's only allows people that were born in the city of Charleston to buried next to the church. Since Calhoun was not, he was buried across the street. His wife, who was born in Charleston, was buried next to the church. I guess she took 'death do us part' literally.

            Debbie and I were taking a trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for a few days in July of 2001. We were going to enjoy Amish Country and pick up DPOTUS James Buchannan. We first stopped in Philadelphia. I was born here and Debbie went to college here so we both had some ties to the city. Strangely enough, it is not too far away, yet we never seem to come here. So, we visited for the afternoon, before heading to Lancaster. We walked around the old part of the city and visited St. Peter's Church. Outside the church is the churchyard where Dallas is buried along with War of 1812 naval hero Stephen Decatur and painter Charles Wilson Peale, who did portraits of people like George Washington. Luckily, I had the information that Dallas was buried there before we arrived. There is no mention anywhere about a vice president being buried next to the church. I would think that at the very least, a sign commemorating Dallas could be placed on the street next to the church. There are certainly enough other historical markers around this section of Philadelphia. 

            George Mifflin Dallas was born in Philadelphia while it was the capital of the United States. He was the son of Alexander Dallas, a prosperous attorney who served as President Madison's Secretary of the Treasury. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1810 and became a  lawyer. He worked as a private secretary to Albert Gallatin,  the U.S. Minister to Russia. Dallas returned in 1814 and commenced the practice of law in New York City. After working for the United States Bank from 1815 to 1817, he returned to Philadelphia and was appointed deputy attorney general in 1817. In 1828, Dallas was elected the mayor of Philadelphia. He left the position six months later to be the United States district attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania. In 1831, he was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Isaac D. Barnard and served from December 13, 1831, to March 3, 1833, where he was chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs. He declined to be a candidate for reelection in 1832 and resumed his law practice. However, a year later he became attorney general of Pennsylvania. In 1837, Dallas was appointed by President Martin Van Buren as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia (this is what ambassadors were called back then, the title was changed to Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in the 1890's and is still used today). He returned from St. Petersburg, Russia to the United States in 1839 at his own request.  In the years following, he was engaged in a long struggle with James Buchannan for party leadership in Pennsylvania.

           In 1844, Dallas was chosen by the Democrats to be the vice-president on the ticket with Tennessee governor, James Knox Polk. They won easily over Whig candidates Henry Clay and Theodore Frelinghuysen, though the popular vote was close (only 38,000 votes separated the two tickets). Polk, the Manifest Destiny president declared war on Mexico shortly after the election.

          As vice-president, Dallas was very loyal to Polk. Though his struggle with Buchannan, who was Polk's secretary of state, continued. In 1846, Dallas cast the tie-breaking vote on low tariff legislation, voting for the bill which Polk supported but which was opposed by the majority of those in his own state. He was hated so much so that he was hung in effigy there and he had to move his family away for their own safety. He never again held political office in Pennsylvania.

           After his term as vice-president, Dallas was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary (there is that title again) to Great Britain by President Franklin Pierce from 1856 to 1861 (he replaced James Buchannan who was running for president). During this time, he worked hard to keep relations with Queen Victoria and Great Britain normal as the United States was coming apart over the slavery issue. He was relieved by Charles Francis Adams in May of 1861 and returned to Philadelphia as the Civil War broke out. He died there almost four  years later on New Years Eve in 1864 the age of 72.

          Five presidents (John Adams,  John Quincy Adams, James Monroe, Martin Van Buren and Buchannan) and two vice-presidents (Dallas & Charles Dawes) served as ambassadors to Great Britain, along with a president's father (John Kennedy) and two president's sons (John Q. Adams & Abraham Lincoln).

          Incidentally, many people think the City of Dallas was named after George Dallas. However, the Dallas city webpage says it most likely is not. Dallas County, which was named three years after the city, was named for George Dallas at the same time Polk County was named after James Polk. According to city records, Dallas had it's name in 1843, before George Dallas was elected VP. This makes it somewhat unlikely they would have named the city after him. Some think it may have been named after George Dallas' brother Commodore Alexander James Dallas, who was stationed in the Gulf of Mexico and was the U. S. Treasury Secretary around the end of the War of 1812. Some think it was after Walter R. Dallas, who fought at San Jacinto, and whose family had land near John Neely Bryan's (the town's founder and namer) land. Still others think it was in a contest held there in 1842. Since Bryan never wrote anything down, they probably will never know for sure. I'm sure you were all wondering about this.

         Dallas is the great-great-great-granduncle of Rhode Island's longest serving senator, Claiborne Pell. In the picture, you can't make Dallas' name out - he's at the very top.

                  Schuyler Colfax was the first dead vice president, and the 17th overall, that my wife Debbie and I visited on "The Five DPOTUS Tour '05". Along with the dead presidents, we picked up dead vice presidents, dead supreme court chief justices and losing presidential candidates. We started out from Bayonne early in the morning on Saturday, August 27. We drove across I-80 through Pennsylvania (what a drive that was) and into Ohio. We went past Cleveland and west along the Ohio Turnpike to Fremont (Rutherford B. Hayes) and finally to Sandusky to spend the night. The next day, we continued our trip west toward Chicago. One of the stops on the way was South Bend, Indiana. We found City Cemetery fairly easy and Colfax even easier. He is just inside the main gate. After snapping our photo we left to visit the University of Notre Dame. We walked around the campus seeing the chapel, the grotto, the stadium and of course, 'Touchdown' Jesus. Both Debbie and I were very much impressed with Notre Dame.

               At the end of July, 2006, my wife and I drove to Massachusetts for three days. We stayed in the town of Natick, just outside of Boston. We went to a Red Sox game in Fenway Park and got to see David Ortiz hit a walk-off three run homer against the Cleveland Indians. The next morning, we set out to find Henry Wilson. The cemetery was about a mile from the hotel. There are two Dell Park cemeteries next to each other, with identical signs, and neither one saying "Old." The first one looked a lot more modern then the second one. I have a feeling that the name is not the Old Dell Park Cemetery, but it's rather the "old" Dell Park Cemetery. We did find the right one and found Wilson fairly easy. The marker is a lot smaller then I thought it would be.

                  Thomas Andrews Hendricks was the sixth dead vice president, and the 22nd overall, that my wife Debbie and I visited on "The Five DPOTUS Tour '05". Along with the dead presidents, we picked up dead vice presidents, dead supreme court chief justices and losing presidential candidates. We started out from Bayonne early in the morning on Saturday, August 27. We drove for two days, with numerous stops, on our way to Chicago. After spending the week in Chicago, we headed on to Iowa and then back to Springfield, Illinois. The next night we left Springfield and headed to Indianapolis, Indiana. In Indianapolis, we drove to Crown Hill Cemetery. This is one of the most famous cemeteries in the country due to the fact it has one dead president, Benjamin Harrison, three dead vice-presidents; Charles Fairbanks, Thomas Marshall and Hendricks along with famous gangster John Dillinger. Crown Hill is extremely large and though Harrison's grave is easy to finds (since there are signs to it) the three vice-presidents were not. I knew the areas they were in, but they were not easily marked in the cemetery. Hendricks was the last to be located and by far the most difficult.

                Hendricks, who was born on a farm in Ohio and moved to Indiana the following year with his parents, John and Jane Thomson. Hendricks was from a prominent political family; his father, an uncle and three cousins were all members of the Indiana state legislature while another uncle was the third governor of Indiana and a U.S. senator. After his graduation from Hanover College in 1841 (another famous alumni of Hanover College is actor Woody Harrelson from TV's Cheers), he began studying law. Becoming a lawyer two years later, he practiced law in Shelbyville, Indiana and later married Eliza Morgan. A Jacksonian Democrat, he became involved in politics shortly after. He spoke out against the "Know-Nothing" Party and their anti-Catholic and anti-immirgrant views. In 1848, Hendricks, who was very politically ambitious, was elected to the Indiana state legislature were he became a member of the State constitutional convention where he led the move to enact "Black Laws" that promoted segregation and restricted the migration of free blacks into the state.

                Two years later, he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives and won. He won re-election two years later in 1852. A popular member of the House, he became a follower of Illinois Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas and supported Douglas' controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act. This act permitted residents of the territories to determine whether or not to permit slavery, a concept known as "popular sovereignty." This issue was very controversial and resulted in the emergence of the new Republican party. His support of the Kansas-Nebraska Act brought about his defeat for re-election to a third term in 1854.

                After his defeat, Hendricks accepted an appointment from President Franklin Pierce to become commissioner of the General Land Office in the Interior Department, a post he held through 1859. Next, Hendricks ran for Governor of Indiana in 1860, but lost to Republican Henry S. Lane. After his defeat, he moved to Indianapolis and practiced law.

                After the firing on Fort Sumter in April of 1861, Civil War broke out in the United States. Indiana was split between those who advocated peace by letting the South secede from the Union and those who wanted to fight to maintain the Union. Hendricks became one of his states leading "War Democrats." Later in the year, when it was discovered that Jesse D. Bright, the president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate and Indiana's leading Democrat, was supporting the Confederacy, was expelled from the Senate. The following year, the Indiana state legislature choose Hendricks to take his seat in the United States Senate [popular voting of senators wouldn't come about until 1913]. He was one of only ten Democrats in the now reduced Congress [The eleven southern Confederate states were gone].

                Unlike many Democratic "Copperheads", Hendricks was loyal to President Lincoln and the Union but opposed many aspects of the Republican-dominated military effort in the American Civil War and the Reconstruction program for the South after the war. He favored Lincoln's plan of leniency toward the former Confederate states and opposed the Radical Republicans plans. Unfortunately, his racist belief that Blacks were not equal to Whites led him to oppose all legislation aimed at assisting freed Blacks, either politically or economically. He went so far as to openly oppose the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution that gave freedom for slaves as well as voting rights and U.S. citizenship.

                In 1868, during the Democratic National Convention held at Tammany Hall in New York City, Hendrick's name was put forward for president, but he lost to New York Governor Horatio Seymour. From that year until his death, he was put forward for nomination for the Presidency at every national Democratic Convention except 1872. After his one term as senator was up, he returned to Indiana. In 1872, Hendrick's defeated Civil War general Thomas M. Browne to become Indiana's 16th governor, the first Democratic governor elected in a northern state after the war, replacing Republican Conrad Baker.

                During the presidential election of 1872, Democratic candidate Horace Greeley died days after the popular vote in the presidential election. In the Electoral College, Governor Hendricks received 42 electoral votes that were previously pledged to Greeley.

                In the 1876 Democratic National Convention held at Merchants Exchange Building in St. Louis, Hendricks was the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. the Democratic Party, but after the Panic of 1873, Hendricks became associated with the "greenbacks." This made New York financiers very nervous and the nomination went to New York governor Samuel Tilden instead. To balance out the ticket, and get "greenback" votes, Hendricks was nominated to be Tilden's running mate.

                The Election of 1876 was the most controversial in the history of the United States (even more then 2000). Because of all of the scandals surrounding the prior Grant administration, both parties looked to get candidates who could win the public trust. When the votes were counted up, Tilden looked like the easy winner. He had 4,288,546 votes to Hayes' 4,034,311 giving Tilden 51% of the popular vote. However, Tilden was one electoral vote short of the majority needed to win. Hayes had even less electoral votes. The problem was that three southern, and former Confederate states, had sent in two sets of voting results. South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida where Reconstruction Republican governments were still in control submitted two sets of electoral ballots, one favoring Tilden, the other Hayes.

               Congress opted to appoint an Electoral Commission to find a solution. The commission consisted of five members of the House, five from the Senate and five justices from the Supreme Court with a party affiliation of seven Republicans, seven Democrats and one Independent. The Independent, Supreme Court Justice David Davis of Illinois (whose grave I also photographed on this trip), dropped out when the Illinois state legislature suddenly appointed Davis to fill an empty seat in the U.S. Senate. Justice Joseph P. Bradley, a Republican, was selected as his replacement. Though a fan of Tilden, he joined the other Republicans and the vote was 8 to 7 along party lines. Hayes was president. However, Southern Democrats planned to block the Commission's report with a filibuster. A secret compromise was worked out to get the Democrats to go along with it, including removal of Federal troops from the former Confederate states and ending Reconstruction in the former Confederacy.

                In the Democratic Convention of 1880 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hendricks was not nominated, that honor going instead to William H. English of Indiana, who with presidential candidate Winfield Scott Hancock, lost to Republican James Garfield. Later that year, he suffered a stroke while on vacation in Arkansas.

           One pleasant Sunday afternoon in May of 2006, my wife and I took a drive north along the Hudson River  towards Rhinebeck, New York. Rhinebeck is a picturesque town among the hills of upstate New York. It's a short distance north of Hyde Park and Franklin D. Roosevelt's home and museum. While in Rhinebeck, which has some nice antique shops, we visited Rhinebeck Cemetery and got a photo of Levi Morton's grave. Morton becomes the 23rd dead vice president on my list.

            Morton was born in Shoreham, Addison County, Vermont. He was a clerk in a general store in Enfield, Massachusetts, taught school in Boscawen, New Hampshire, engaged in mercantile pursuits in Hanover, New Hampshire, moved to Boston, entered the dry-goods business in New York City and engaged in banking there. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1876 to the 45th Congress. He was appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes as honorary commissioner to the Paris Exhibition of 1878.

             Morton was elected as a Republican to the 46th and 47th Congresses, serving from March 4, 1879 until his resignation on March 21, 1881. Presidential candidate James Garfield asked him to be his vice presidential candidate in 1880, but Morton rejected the offer. He asked to be Minister to Great Britain or France instead. Ironically, if Morton had accepted. He, instead of Chester Arthur, would have become the 25th president after the assassination of Garfield in 1881. Garfield named him to be Minister to France and he served from 1881 to 1885 (Incidentally, it was this appointment that led indirectly to Garfield's assassination — his murderer, Charles Guiteau, decided to assassinate the president when he was passed over as minister to France). He was very popular in France, helping commercial relations run smoothly between the two countries during his term, and he hammered the first nail in the construction of the Statue of Liberty.

            In 1888, he was elected Vice President of the United States on the Republican ticket with Benjamin Harrison, serving from March 4, 1889 to March 3, 1893.

            After leaving as vice president, Morton was elected Governor of New York from 1895 to 1897. Following his public career, he became a real estate investor. He died in Rhinebeck on his 96th birthday. Among vice presidents, Morton lived to be the second oldest (the oldest was John Nance Garner who lived to the age of 98). Morton even survived five of his successors in the vice presidency; Adlai E. Stevenson, Garret Hobart, Theodore Roosevelt, Charles W. Fairbanks and James S. Sherman.

                  Adlai Stevenson was the third dead vice president, and the 19th overall, that my wife Debbie and I visited on "The Five DPOTUS Tour '05". Along with the dead presidents, we picked up dead vice presidents, dead supreme court chief justices and losing presidential candidates. We started out from Bayonne early in the morning on Saturday, August 27. We drove for two days, with numerous stops, on our way to Chicago. After spending the week in Chicago, we headed on to Iowa to visit Herbert Hoover's grave and then back to Springfield, Illinois. On the way to Springfield, we stopped in Bloomington, Illinois to visit the Stevensons. They were both easy to find. I had e-mailed the cemetery before going and they gave me good directions to the gravesites.  

             Adlai Ewing Stevenson, son of John Turner Stevenson and Eliza Ewing Stevenson (descended from Northern Irish Presbyterians), was born on the family tobacco farm in Christian County, Kentucky. At the time, Kentucky was a slave state and the Stevenson family owned a few slaves. When their tobacco crop was ruined in 1852, the family set their slaves free and moved to Bloomington, Illinois, where they operated a sawmill. Stevenson attended Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. He studied law and became a lawyer. He wanted to marry Letitia Green, the daughter of the college president and Presbyterian minister, but their family considered Stevenson socially inferior. After nine years, and the death of the minister, they were married. They had three daughters and a son Lewis (father of future presidential hopeful Adlai Stevenson II).

             Stevenson became involved in politics after attending the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858. Stevenson became a supporter of the Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas and helped campaign for him against Lincoln. He spoke out against the "Know-Nothing" Party and their anti-Catholic and anti-immirgrant views which made him popular among immigrants. In 1860, at age 23, he received a small political office which he held throughout the Civil War. In 1864, he was elected District Attourney and later started a law firm with his cousin James S. Ewing creating a very prominant law firm, Stevenson & Ewing.

             In 1874, Stevenson ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and won. This is a major accoplishment considering that the Republicans dominated post-Civil War politics. However, the economic panic of 1873 caused voters to sweep him into office in the first Democratic congressional majority since the Civil War. He was defeated for re-election in 1876. In 1878, he returned to Congress for another term, but was again defeated when he ran for re-election.

             Stevenson served as a delegate to the Democratic convention of 1884 held at Exposition Building in Chicago that nominated Grover Cleveland for president. Cleveland also abhorred the patronage system and refused to hand out jobs as political rewards. He eventually gave in to those who insisted on rewarding the party faithful and made Stevenson Postmaster General, who promptly set about replacing postmasters around the country with loyal Democrats. Postmasters, there were about 55,000 of them, were important political jobs since they had the ability to know everyone in small communities and were able to help distribute partisan mail. One Republican newspaper called Stevenson, ""an official axman who beheaded Republican officeholders with the precision and dispatch of the French guillotine in the days of the Revolution." In all, Stevenson replaced 40,000 postmasters with loyal Democrats. When Cleveland was defeated for re-election by Republican Benjamin Harrison in 1888, the new Postmaster General reversed over 30,000 of Stevenson appointments.

             At the 1992 Democratic National Convention held at the Chicago Coliseum, Cleveland was nominated to try and regain the White House and as his running mate, the Democrats nominated the "headsman of the post office," Adlai Stevenson. Stevenson, like many others in the party wanted to use greenbacks and free silver to inflate the currency and help the farmers which would balance out Cleveland, who was a hard-money, gold-standard supporter laissez-faire president. This was the same strategy that worked in 1884 with Cleveland and Hendricks and it worked again as both Cleveland and Stevenson won the election by almost 400,000 votes.

             The currency controversy would dominate the term. Just before Cleveland was inaugurated, a financial panic on Wall Street, caused by a major railroad company going bankrupt, plunged the country into a depression. Cleveland was opposed to any government interference while Stevenson, called "Uncle Adlai," advocated currency reform. In 1893, in an effort to protect the U.S. gold reserve, Cleveland wanted to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act [this act allowed citizens to exchange their silver for gold]. This split the Democratic Party. Those like Cleveland, called "Goldbugs," believed the currency should only be based on gold. Those like Stevenson, called "Silverites" believed in minting unlimited amounts of silver coins and paper currency. The silverite Democrats in the senate used every means possible to stop the repeal including a filibuster. Stevenson, as president of the senate, did nothing to stop them. They eventually compromised on a three-year gradual repeal. The silverites called it the "Crime of 1893" and it hurt the economy anyway causing many to lose upcoming elections in 1894. This issue was so sensitive, that when Cleveland faced a life threatening cancer operation and with a silverite vice president, he had it done in secret so as not to cause another financial panic.

             Cleveland and Stevenson remained cordial but Cleveland never consulted Stevenson on any issue. Cleveland thought that Stevenson was to deep among the free-silver men, referring to them as "Stevenson's Cabinet."

             At the 1896 Democratic National Convention held again at the Chicago Coliseum, Stevenson hoped to get the nomination for president. Though there was some support, it soon faded away amid the enthusiastic support for newcomer William Jennings Bryan. Bryan supported free silver with his "Cross of Gold" speech. Cleveland was totally left out when the Democrats embraced the free silver platform and nominated Bryan. Most pro-Cleveland Democrats deserted Bryan but Stevenson supported him. Bryan eventually lost to Republican William McKinley. McKinley tried to appease the silverites by creating a bipartisan commission led by Stevenson, but this amounted to little.

             Four years later at the 1900 at the Democratic National Convention held at Convention Hall in Kansas City, Bryan was re-nominated. Many Democrats felt that he was doomed to defeat and showed little interest in being the losing running mate. The Democrats turned to 65 year old Stevenson to be vice president, but as was predicted, they went down to defeat against the William McKinley/Teddy Roosevelt Repubilcan ticket. Stevenson returned to his law practice in Bloomington. At age 73, he ran unsuccessfully for governor of Illinois. He retired from politics and died of a heart attack in Chicago at the age of 78.

             One grandson, Adlai Ewing Stevenson II, would go on to run twice unsuccessfully for president of the United States and later become U.N. Ambassador who played a pivotal role during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His son, Stevenson's great-grandson, Adlai Ewing Stevenson III, was a U.S. senator from Illinois from 1970 to 1981. His son, Stevenson's great-great-grandson, Adlai Stevenson IV, was a Chicago television reporter back in the 1980's. There is now an Adlai Stevenson V born in 1994.  McLean Stevenson, an actor who among his many roles played Col. Blake on the television series "M*A*S*H", was the grandson of Adlai Stevenson's brother.

            Had Hobart not died when he did, he would have gone on to be the 26th President of the United States. He would have become the first New Jersey born and raised president. Instead, a guy from New York named Teddy Roosevelt did.

            Garret Augustus Hobart, or "Gus" as he was known to his friends, was born in Long Branch, New Jersey and graduated from Rutgers College (now a university) in New Brunswick.  In 1866, he became a lawyer in Paterson, New Jersey. In 1869, he married Jennie Tuttle, the daughter of a prominent Paterson attorney, Socrates Tuttle, who he worked for. Hobart's rise in his profession and in the business world was rapid: he became the director of several banks and at one time was connected with sixty corporations. A Republican, he became involved in local politics and in 1872, he was elected to the state assembly. In 1876, he was elected to the state senate and became president of the senate in 1881. He left the senate in 1882 and became a member of the Republican National Committee.

            Hobart was never elected to any national office when the Republican Party tapped him to be McKinley's running mate in 1896. Many attribute this selection to Mark Hanna, McKinley's key political aide. Hobart was a strong supporter of the Gold Standard and the Republicans needed an easterner to help get the big business vote. This he did as McKinley and Hobart won by a landslide over William Jennings Bryan.

               After their election, McKinley and Hobart had one of the best working relationships of any president and vice-president. They spent evenings together smoking cigars and talking politics. Hobart helped McKinley with Congress, particularly in getting Congress to approve the the Spanish-American war. His one important act as vice president was to cast the tie-breaking vote in 1899 against an amendment to the treaty with Spain that would have promised future independence for the Philippine Islands. In 1899, it was expected that the two would run together for re-election. However, Hobart was stricken with a heart attack in the summer of 1899 and died later in November in his home in Paterson at the age of 55.

              The Hobart's rented the historic Ogle Tayloe House on Lafayette Square, a half-block from the White House, as his vice-presidential residence, which would be called the "Little Cream White House" because of its lavishness. Hobart's wife, Jennie often acted as hostess at the White House due to McKinley's wife Ida being an invalid. His mansion and 250 acre estate in Wayne, New Jersey was sold in 1948 and became the new home of William Paterson University.

                  Charles Fairbanks was the fifth dead vice president, and the 21st overall, that my wife Debbie and I visited on "The Five DPOTUS Tour '05". Along with the dead presidents, we picked up dead vice presidents, dead supreme court chief justices and losing presidential candidates. We started out from Bayonne early in the morning on Saturday, August 27. We drove for two days, with numerous stops, on our way to Chicago. After spending the week in Chicago, we headed on to Iowa and then back to Springfield, Illinois. The next night we left Springfield and headed to Indianapolis, Indiana. In Indianapolis, we drove to Crown Hill Cemetery. This is one of the most famous cemeteries in the country due to the fact it has one dead president, Benjamin Harrison, three dead vice-presidents; Fairbanks, Thomas Marshall and Thomas Hendricks along with famous gangster John Dillinger. Crown Hill is extremely large and though Harrison's grave is easy to finds (since there are signs to it) the three vice-presidents were not. I knew the areas they were in, but they were not easily marked in the cemetery. Fairbanks was the second to be located.

                    Charles Fairbanks was born in a modest log house in Ohio. His father, Loriston Fairbanks, was a farmer and wagon maker who had moved from New York to go into business for himself and his mother, Mary Adelaide Smith, was a local temperance advocate. Charles graduated from Ohio Wesleyan and later from Cleveland Law College, taking only six months to complete his courses and pass the bar. On October 6, 1874, Charles married Cornelia Cole and moved with her to Indianapolis, Indiana, where, with the help of an uncle, Charles took a position as attorney with the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad system. Over the next decade, young Fairbanks built a sterling reputation, as well as a personal fortune, as a lawyer for numerous railroad interests in the Midwest.

                    In 1884, Indiana's Republicans split in their support of presidential candidates, some favoring Walter Q. Gresham and others preferring Benjamin Harrison. The election of Harrison in 1888 seemingly jeopardized Fairbanks' prospects, since he had been active on behalf of the Gresham faction. Harrison's lackluster performance in the White House and impressive Democratic victories in 1892, gave Fairbanks the opportunity to return to prominence. The campaign of 1892 also brought him into contact with the governor of Ohio, William McKinley. The two men formed a friendship that lasted until McKinley's untimely death in 1901 and proved extremely beneficial to the careers of both men.

                    When William McKinley ran for president in 1896, he made his friend Fairbanks a key player in his campaign strategy. Fairbanks ran McKinley's campaign in Indiana and delivered a united Hoosier delegation for McKinley at the Republican National Convention in St. Louis. McKinley won the Republican nomination handily, then defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the general election. With the Republicans in control of the Indiana legislature, they choose, with a little help from President McKinley, Fairbanks as senator [up until 1913, state legislatures choose U.S. Senators not popular vote].

                    Fairbanks' Senate career proved competent if unspectacular. He was neither a great orator nor a brilliant political thinker. He succeeded by mastering the intricacies of the Senate and by avoiding controversy. He stuck to the party line and was well respected among his colleagues. He favored restricting immigration and requiring a literacy test before entry into the United States, both popular positions. Although he had originally opposed the pressure for war with Spain in 1898, he faithfully followed President McKinley's lead when war came. He was involved in the Canadian-Alaska