122: HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL – TO BUFFALO

Five months had gone by since my last Presidential trip and I expected to stand on the shelf for a few more months; at least until Spring. Then out of nowhere, my photographer decided he needed to make a trip to Buffalo, New York to have James Spence Authentication check out an autograph he had purchased on-line. JSA, which is one of the nation’s leading authentication services, was scheduled to be at Dave & Adam’s in the Buffalo suburb of Williamsville, New York on Saturday January 11, 2020. Tom’s goal was to be first in line at the store when it opened at 10:00am.

I was excited to make a return trip to the Buffalo area. Not only was that western New York city the site of William McKinley’s assassination, it was where President Millard Fillmore was buried as well. Although my photographer and I had visited both sites in 2014; the two of us also made a return trip to Fillmore’s grave in 2017. Some folks may think that the two of us have difficulty bypassing a Presidential gravesite when we’re close by. But there was something else in Buffalo that the two of us hadn’t seen before. It turned out that the gun used by Leon Czolgosz to assassinate President McKinley was on display at the Buffalo History Museum’s Resource Center and Tom had arranged an appointment with museum director Walter Mayer to see it on Saturday morning.

Once I was removed from the shelf and dusted off, Tom and Vicki had our Dodge Ram truck packed and headed for Canada around 2:30pm on Friday January 10, 2020. While the route through Ontario shaved miles and time off the drive to Buffalo, at least when compared to travelling around Lake Erie via Ohio, the 230-mile ride still took about four hours to complete. Our Avenger was more fuel efficient than the Ram, but my photographer wanted to drive our four-wheel drive truck as a precaution to a potential winter storm. After all, Buffalo is famous for its lake-effect snow; and lots of it. It was dark when we crossed the Peace Bridge into Buffalo; but once we were safely through Customs on the U.S. side of the Niagara River, Vicki made reservations at the Comfort Inn in Amherst, New York – which was about six miles west of Dave & Adam’s store. Tired from the long drive, my companions walked to Zetti’s Pizza & Pasta that was located next to the hotel and brought their food back to the room. When Tom placed me alongside the television set for the night, I heard a newscaster mention a new and potential serious novel coronavirus that was first confirmed in China about a month earlier. But China was a long ways from the United States and the reporter had me convinced that the virus would have no affect on Americans or Chinese bobble heads, like me, living in America.

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The alarm clock woke my companions at 6:30am on Saturday January 11, 2020.  Our day’s agenda was packed with sites; plus, my photographer planned on making the trek home immediately after we were finished in Buffalo.  There was a winter storm advisory that warned of a huge snowstorm that was headed for Michigan and Western Ontario; the blizzard was scheduled to hit around sunset.  Not wanting to be stranded in Buffalo, Tom made the executive decision to get home before the storm hit.

Once the Dodge Ram was packed, we were on the road and headed for a rock in the middle of a Buffalo street that we had visited in 2014.  But it wasn’t an ordinary rock, mind you; it was a large boulder with an attached plaque that marked the location where President William McKinley had been shot on September 6, 1901.  At about 8:20am, we arrived in a very nice neighborhood on Fordham Drive where we found the historical marker situated in the street’s median. Although the temperature was in the mid-30s, Vicki stayed in the warm truck while Tom carried me to the boulder and carefully placed me on top of it. From that vantagepoint, it was as though I could see William McKinley as he shook hands and greeted well-wishers inside the Pan-American Exposition’s Temple of Music. Near the end of the ten-minute meet-and-greet, 28-year old Leon Czolgosz approached the President with a handkerchief over his right hand. As McKinley tried to shake the anarchist’s left hand, Czolgosz fired two shots into the President’s stomach from his .32-caliber Iver-Johnson revolver that was concealed beneath the covering. While one bullet hit a button and lodged in McKinley’s coat, the other lead slug hit home. Although the wound was not lethal, the President died eight days later of an infection; likely caused by the unsterilized probing fingers and instruments of McKinley’s doctors.

After President McKinley was shot inside the Temple of Music, he was taken by electric ambulance to the Exposition’s hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. Following the medical procedure, which failed to locate the single bullet that was lodged somewhere in his abdomen, William McKinley was transported from the Exposition grounds to the home of John Milburn that was roughly two miles away. When my photographer finished shooting images of me at the assassination site, Vicki drove the two of us to the site where Milburn’s home once stood. During the short ride, I had wondered if we were travelling the same route the electric ambulance had taken in 1901 with the mortally wounded President onboard.

President McKinley and his wife had arrived at the Milburn House on the evening of September 5, 1901 and spent their first night in Buffalo there. John G. Milburn, owner of the home, was also the President of the Pan-American Exposition and he transformed four of his second-story rooms of the house into a suite for the McKinley’s. Following McKinley’s death in his home on September 14, 1901, Milburn left the area three years later and moved to New York City. On January 10, 1907, a fire severely damaged the house that had been acquired by new owners; ruining the room where McKinley had died. In 1919, the house was renovated and converted into apartments – it remained that way until Canisius High School bought the house and property in 1948. Nine years later, the 96-year old historic house where President William McKinley had died was destroyed and replaced by a parking lot.

As a bobble head, my head normally bobs-about freely whenever I move. But on that cold January morning in 2020, I shook my head in dismay as I was dumbfounded that the city of Buffalo allowed the Milburn House to be demolished. I understood the fact that McKinley wasn’t as popular as Lincoln or Kennedy, but I couldn’t imagine Ford’s Theater, or the Petersen House, or the Texas School Book Depository getting demolished for a dang parking lot. It was roughly 8:45am as Tom carried me back to the truck. I had already visited the site where McKinley was shot; as well as the site where he died. But excitement filled my resin body as we headed to one final piece of my McKinley Presidential puzzle – the museum where the gun that was used to assassinate our 25th President was on display.

After a short 1.4-mile drive from the Milburn House site to the Buffalo History Museum Resource Center, we met Director Walter Mayer at the front door precisely at 9:00am. To me, the museum appeared to look like a large red barn; but that impression quickly changed as Mayer led us into the Pan-American Exposition area where the gun was displayed. At first I was surprised because the McKinley assassination exhibit seemed tucked away in a corner and away from the prime exhibits. However, once I posed alongside the artifacts, I realized the display had been segregated to an area of the museum that put a spotlight on McKinley’s final days in Buffalo. It was a shrine to President McKinley and I was extremely honored to be there.

There were three acrylic boxes attached to a wall that was designed to resemble the Temple of Music. One box featured artifacts associated with McKinley’s assassination; one had items from the President’s medical procedure; and the third had a few relics from McKinley’s fateful trip to Buffalo. When Tom held me up close to the assassination display, I couldn’t take my painted resin eyes off the .32-caliber Iver-Johnson “Safety Automatic” revolver that Leon Czolgosz had purchased from Walbridge Hardware Store, located on Buffalo’s Court Street, for $4.50. Near the barrel of the revolver, which the anarchist purchased only four days before he shot McKinley, were four bullets, two empty bullet casings, and one bullet slug that had ricocheted off the President’s coat button and fell out of his clothes in the ambulance. The sixth and final bullet remained inside the President and was likely still there. Displayed next to the gun’s handle was the handkerchief that the cunning and cowardly assassin used to conceal the weapon that was clutched in his right hand.

The display was artistically put together and was very impressive; especially the way the weapon, handkerchief and bullets were presented. It brought the senseless assassination of our 25th President to life. When I stood close to the image of Czolgosz, the 28-year old anarchist who was born in Alpena, Michigan, I wished that I had the ability to spit. As an admirer of all Presidents, people who make the choice of becoming a Presidential assassin angers me beyond words. It bothered me even more when I discovered the cowardly anarchist was born in my home state. In the end, however, the assassin met the fate he deserved – he was given a fair trial; found guilty; and was put to death in the electric chair. Before the three jolts of electricity ended his worthless life, Czolgosz’s last words were: “I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people – the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime. I am sorry I could not see my father.” Officials were so angered by his heinous act and attitude, sulfuric acid was poured into his casket before his burial in an unmarked grave at Auburn State Prison.

Our 35-minute visit to the Buffalo History Museum Resource Center, which was made possible by the generosity and knowledge of Director Walter Mayer, was the highlight of our trip. As I took my last close look at the historic revolver, along with the image of Czolgosz above it, a line from Elton John’s song ‘Empty Garden’ popped into my head: “It’s funny how one insect can damage so much grain.”

One of the primary reasons for our visit to the Buffalo area was for my photographer to have a signature from an autograph book he had purchased examined by James Spence Authentication. After we completed the 14-mile drive to the Williamsville memorabilia shop called Dave & Adam’s, Tom was fourth in line when the doors opened at 10:00am. When my camera guy was asked to leave his relic and return at 2:00pm for the authentication results, I was happy because that meant we had four additional hours to see more sites in the area – including the grave of Millard Fillmore at Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Most of the 12-mile drive to Forest Lawn was along the same route we had taken out to Williamsville; as the cemetery was located down the road from the museum. Although the temperature had reached the mid-40s by 10:30am, which was a heat wave for Buffalo in January, the wind had picked-up in intensity as well. Tom drove our truck through the stone and iron gates of Forest Lawn, and he easily navigated the winding roadway to the center of the large burial ground where we found the final resting place of 13th President Millard Fillmore. I figured my photographer would have no difficulty in getting to the gravesite; after all, it was our third trip to Fillmore’s grave in the past seven years.

While Vicki stayed warm in the truck, my photographer carried me past dozens of old headstones towards the Fillmore plot; an iron-fenced area that was marked with a tall flagpole and an American flag. As soon as I got my first glimpse of Fillmore’s 22-foot-tall pink granite obelisk, I was stunned to see that the shrubbery that once surrounded the marker was gone. The bottom of the obelisk was visible, as were the two small stones that marked the graves of the President and his second wife, Caroline. Located next to the obelisk were two wreaths; one of which had been sent by President Trump only four days earlier to honor the 220th anniversary of Fillmore’s birth. Millard Fillmore was born on January 7, 1800 and was the first President born in the 19th century.

When I bid farewell to Millard Fillmore for the third (and likely not my last) time, Tom carried me back to the Dodge Ram where his wife patiently waited for us to “do our thing”. It was lunch time, at least for them, and that meant only one thing – Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. Without saying anything in advance to his wife or me, my photographer had found a place that was featured on Guy Fieri’s television show in August 2009 and it wasn’t to far from the cemetery. The episode was ‘Legacies’ from Season 7 and the place was called ‘Lake Effect Diner’; which became the second Triple D establishment that my companions had dined at.

As my photographer parked the truck near the Lake Effect Diner, I caught a glimpse of the place from an opening in the camera case and I was impressed. The shiny silver exterior, with blue and yellow trim, looked like a diner out of the 1950s – and that’s always cool in my book. The interior was equally as impressive; patrons sat in booths, or they could simply pull up a stool at the counter. We didn’t have a lot of choices where to sit as the place was packed. We got lucky as our booth was at the back of the diner and the mirrored wall gave my photographer a view of the entire interior. After they studied the menu, my gluttonous camera guy decided to start his lunch off with a $5.50 root beer shake; his wife refused to pay that price and ordered a Diet Coke. Unfortunately, due to the length of time it took for their food to arrive, Tom was “forced” to order a second root beer shake that arrived with his beer-battered haddock sandwich and fries. While my companion’s weren’t blown away by the food, especially since the Triple XXX diner in West Lafayette, Indiana was still fresh in their minds, Tom and Vicki still enjoyed the atmosphere of the quaint diner.

The three of us headed back to Williamsville where Tom got the bad news that his autograph was a copy. At the moment he got the news, I heard him say: “Thank God eBay will make sure I get my money back” – which he did. It was roughly 2:15pm when we began the long four-hour journey home. During the entire way, my companions hoped that the forecasted snow storm wouldn’t affect our travel. I stayed comfortable in my camera case on the back seat; but at the same time, I feared the worse during our drive through the frozen tundra of Canada. The Canadians aren’t famous for hockey because it’s sunny and warm in January. By the time we arrived at the Blue Water Bridge that connected Sarnia, Ontario with Port Huron, Michigan, my companions saw a handful of snowflakes as they fell in front of our truck’s headlights.

We made it back on Saturday evening before the storm hit; although we didn’t get as much snow as was originally predicted. Tom placed my chilled resin body back on the shelf where I had some time to think about the assassination of William McKinley. There are ways to demonstrate one’s displeasure with a President – a person could cast a vote for the other candidate in the next election or they could pick up a sign and peacefully protest in front of the White House. As I stood on the shelf with a vinyl picture of the White House behind me, I couldn’t get the image of Czolgosz’s revolver or the bullets out of my mind. The only comfort that I had, primarily because history cannot be reversed, was the fact that William McKinley’s tomb in Canton, Ohio was a fitting tribute to an amazing President. Leon Czolgosz’s acid-filled coffin in an unmarked grave at Auburn State Prison, on the other hand, virtually erased that skumbag’s presence from the face of the Earth forever. I was certain the next time my photographer and I visited Canton and the tomb of William McKinley, our January visit to Buffalo will be front and center in my mind. I couldn’t wait to get back on the road again – 2020 will be a memorable year!