135: OUR FIRST NIGHT BECAME FRIGHT NIGHT IN GREENEVILLE

I had spent the entire night in the camera case, which was among the numerous belongings that Tom had packed for our two-week Presidential adventure. My photographer and I were once again hitting the history trail with Bob Moldenhauer on a trip that was scheduled to take the three of us to 10 states and to the gravesites of 11 Presidents. When Tom’s alarm clock rang at 3:15am on Friday May 14, 2021, I could feel the excitement run through my resin-filled body. It had been an excruciating 10 months since our last trip and I was ready to take on the world – especially since I had received the Pfizer vaccine and had also undergone an extensive surgical procedure that had me looking pretty darn good. At precisely 4:30am, Tom and I arrived at Mongo’s house in our rented black Nissan Rogue SUV, and we began our trek towards southern Ohio.

During the five-hour ride to our first stop, I enjoyed listening to Tom and Bob discuss not only the upcoming highlights of our current trip, but they also rehashed past adventures the three of us had taken as well. But the elephant in the room that was on all of our minds was the potential gas shortage that could quickly derail all of our plans. Mongo had heard that 88-percent of the gas stations in the Washington D.C. area were out of fuel and people in other states, like Tennessee, were hoarding gasoline due to the fear of service stations running dry. My companions weren’t in panic mode, but instead they devised a plan to keep their fingers on the pulse of gas stations along the route and they would refuel whenever the tank got below half-full.

My photographer parked our Rogue in the parking area near the William Henry Harrison Memorial in North Bend, Ohio at precisely 9:30am. Although we were 30 minutes early for our prearranged rendezvous with Bev Meyers, who is the President of the Harrison-Symmes Memorial Foundation, the extra half-hour gave Tom and Bob plenty of time to capture their exterior images of Harrison’s tomb. My first visit to the tomb of our 9th President was on September 6, 2014 and I was honored to pose for photos at the sacred burial place once again. After all, Harrison was a popular war hero whose military career helped get him into the White House. Unfortunately, Harrison’s presidency was short-lived as he died on April 4, 1841 – just 31 days into his first term. Initially it was believed that President Harrison contracted pneumonia due to his lengthy inauguration speech that he delivered in the cold, damp weather on March 4, 1841. However, modern physicians believed Harrison may have contracted septic shock due to typhoid caused by the public sewage in the White House water supply. Either way, William Henry Harrison was the first President to die in office and his sudden demise left the nation in shock.

At 10:00am Bev Meyers arrived at the front of the memorial and after a brief discussion with my photographer and Bob, she unlocked the doors to the tomb and led the three of us into the Harrison family vault. During my first visit to the tomb in 2014, we were forced to view the President’s crypt through the bars of the locked interior iron gate. But thanks to Ms. Meyers, Tom placed me onto the top edge of the golden faceplate that marked the final resting place of William Henry Harrison and his wife Anna Symmes Harrison. From that incredible position, I could see the crypts of other Harrison family members as well, including John Scott Harrison, who was the only person in American history to be the son of one President and the father of another. Although I wasn’t nervous during our 15-minute stay inside the vault (however, I would never spend the night inside there), I was surprised by how compact and cramped the interior seemed to be; especially when compared to the size of the entire 60-foot-tall memorial. After Tom and Bob finished their photos, Bev locked the doors to the tomb and we headed to the museum that was located in nearby Cleves, Ohio.

Tom typed the address to the Harrison-Symmes Memorial Foundation Museum into his phone and he drove the three of us one mile into Cleves where we reunited with Bev at the entrance. While the museum displayed a lot of artifacts and exhibits that were associated with local area history, it also featured a small room that was dedicated to the Harrison’s – both William Henry and his grandson Benjamin. From my position inside the camera case, I could tell that Ms. Meyers was chomping at the bit to show-off some of the local exhibits. However, my companions were dead set on keeping their focus solely on the Presidents and they headed directly for that small room – hoping to see a handful of Harrison-owned or used artifacts. Unfortunately for the three of us, there was only one item on display that was directly owned by the Harrison’s – a pantry door that came from the John Scott Harrison house, which was Benjamin Harrison’s boyhood home.

After I had posed with the pantry door, my photographer found an interesting artifact that had an indirect association with our 9th President. The relic on display was an ophicleide; a musical instrument that was owned and played by Edward Bebb Hughes at William Henry Harrison’s funeral procession in July 1841 when the President’s remains were carried from the river steamer Raritan up to the newly created Harrison tomb. I was honored to stand near the antique ophicleide and salute its place in Presidential history.

There was no doubt that Bev Meyers was extremely proud of that small museum in Cleves, and rightfully so. During our visit, Bev had mentioned numerous times that the centerpiece of the museum – a sword that was owned by John Cleves Symmes and once used by William Henry Harrison – was on its way back to the museum after being stolen many years ago. Hopefully someday in the near future I’ll have the opportunity to pose alongside that historic sword after it makes its way back to its rightful place – the Harrison room at the museum in Cleves.

After our 20-minute visit to the museum had ended, the three of us bid farewell to Bev Meyers and headed back into North Bend for a visit to the farm site that was once owned by William Henry Harrison and where his grandson, 23rd President Benjamin Harrison, was born on August 20, 1833. When Tom placed me on the hallowed ground near the house that graced the site today, I couldn’t help but think about the Harrison family who once lived near the spot where I was standing. There might not be a family in America who had a greater historic lineage than the Harrison’s. William Henry Harrison’s father, Benjamin Harrison V, served three years in the Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence. Ninth President William Henry’s son, John Scott Harrison, served four years in the United States House of Representatives and was the father of our 23rd President Benjamin Harrison. As I stood in the grass that came up to the knees of my breeches, I couldn’t have been more proud to be where I was at – on the same ground where William, John, and Benjamin all once walked, worked, and played. In my resin-filled mind and heart, the Harrison’s have been wrongly underrated in the laurels of American history. As a matter of fact, after I gave it more thought, the Harrison’s made more of an impact on our nation’s history than John and John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts – and that’s saying something!

At 11:15am, Tom placed me inside the camera case and the three of us embarked on one of the longest scheduled drives of the entire trip – roughly 300 miles of non-stop travel that took us through a small section of Indiana, through Kentucky, and ultimately to the day’s final destination in Greeneville, Tennessee. I was excited to get back to Greeneville for several reasons. First, I knew we had reservations at the General Morgan Inn where Tom experienced paranormal activity during our stay in 2019. Second, I had hoped to stand on Andrew Johnson’s tombstone; but I would have to rely on Mongo scaling the wrought iron fence that guarded the grave. And last but not least, I looked forward to seeing Russell and Amber Emmette once again.

When we finally arrived in Greeneville, we immediately made our way up Monument Hill to the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery where Bob got his first glimpse at the grave of our 17th President. My photographer was surprised the cemetery gates were open at 5:20pm – he thought we were twenty minutes late for entry into the sacred burial ground. Although the late afternoon sun angle was terrible for photos, that visit gave my companions the idea to return for night photos of Johnson’s gravesite – which was something I thought would be cool. There’s nothing better than visiting a cemetery after dark.

We drove into downtown Greeneville where we checked in to the General Morgan Inn. I laughed to myself when Tom asked the desk clerk for a room on the second floor, which was the area of the hotel that’s reputed to be haunted by the ghost of General John Hunt Morgan himself. When the clerk said we had Room 212, I nearly fell out of the camera case – that was the same room that my photographer, his wife, and I had stayed in during our 2019 visit to Greeneville. I knew what I planned on doing throughout the night: I’d be on full ghost alert!

For dinner, the three of us headed five miles east until we arrived at a Tusculum eatery called the Old Oak Tap Room. I could tell that my photographer was hungry as I watched him eat his BLT sandwich and tater tots like someone was about to snatch them from him. But he wasn’t finished – Tom also ordered a beer cheese pretzel that was so enormous he had to take some of it back to the hotel in a doggie bag. I had wondered if John Hunt Morgan liked beer cheese pretzels.

After a brief respite back at the hotel, the three of us headed out on foot to get some night photos of downtown Greeneville. The first site we walked to was the first house owned by Andrew Johnson, which was just over one block from the General Morgan. Although I laughed to myself as Tom huffed and puffed his way up the hilly sidewalk, my giddiness turned sour when I saw a small tent that was erected in the street in front of the historic home. It turned out that Greeneville was hosting their annual Iris Festival and there were vendor tents set up on North College Street as far as the eye could see; including near Johnson’s digs. My photographer did his best to capture images of me as I stood on the window ledge of Johnson’s house, but the nearby vendor’s tent became an annoyance and I could tell Tom was irritated. Once they were finished at the Johnson house, Mongo and Tom returned to Main Street where they photographed the General Morgan Inn from across the street. I smiled to myself when I heard my photographer tell is friend: “At least there’s no damned tents in front of that hotel.”

Tom and Bob and one last site to photograph at night and it was one that I was excited to see as well. Since the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery was too far away to walk, the three of us took the Rogue and made the one-mile drive to Monument Avenue and up to the burial ground. Earlier in the day, my companions had devised a scheme to get all of us into the cemetery at night should the front gates be locked, but luckily for us the gates were wide open, and Tom guided our Nissan up the steep hillside to a spot near Johnson’s final resting place.

Once my photographer had the car parked and he carried me to the front of Andrew Johnson’s grave, I was stunned by the majestic beauty of the site’s white marble stonework set against the black sky. Bob said it best: “Monuments like Johnson’s tombstone take on an entirely different appearance at night. If they look really good in the daylight, they’ll look spectacular lit up at night.” Tom tried to take a handful of images of me posing outside of the locked iron fence with the illuminated tombstone behind me, but the photos couldn’t accurately capture what his eyes saw. Out of nowhere, Mongo said to my photographer: “Do you want me to climb the fence and put Jefferson on the tombstone?” Seconds after I heard my photographer tell his friend “yes”, I found myself standing on the white marble monument that marked the grave of President Andrew Johnson. While I had visited Johnson’s grave twice in the past four years, I couldn’t believe my resin eyes that I was standing on the ornate monument – especially at night. I knew my rotund cameraman would have no chance of climbing over that fence, but Mongo went over it faster than a spider monkey scales a banana tree. From my position on the flat ledge that was alongside the President’s name, I tried not to focus on potential spirits who might roam the cemetery grounds. Instead, my thoughts centered on Andrew Johnson and the difficult position he was thrown in after the death of Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865. When President Johnson didn’t like some of the shenanigans that Secretary of War Edwin Stanton tried to pull with Lincoln out of the picture, Andrew tried to fire him – which led to the new President’s impeachment trial.

As I stood on the monument, I was afforded a close look at the two sculpted bass reliefs of items that Andrew Johnson held dearly to his heart – the U.S. Constitution and the Bible. And finally, high above my head at the top of the monument, I saw a weird-looking eagle who was perched on the American flag. Over the past eight years of visiting Presidential sites, I had stood on the tombstones of many Presidents. On that calm May night in 2021, with the crescent Moon hanging low in the western sky, I stood in silent tribute on Johnson’s monument in Greeneville, Tennessee. I haven’t experienced a prouder moment!

The three of us left the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery satisfied with the first day of our trip. I had stood on two Presidential gravesites that I had written-off as impossible for me to get close to. But thanks to Bev Meyers and Bob Moldenhauer, I stood where no other bobble head has ever been before, and both were very proud moments for me.

We arrived back at Room 212 of the General Morgan Inn at about 10:20pm and Tom immediately placed me next to the television set where I stood vigil on “ghost patrol”. It’s true I was caught off-guard during our 2019 stay in Room 212 when “something” or “someone” moved my photographer’s clothes from the bed to the floor and the pants, shirt, and socks remained neatly stacked. But on that night, I was ready for anything. If any paranormal entity were to enter our room, I was going to poop my knickers.

The lights went out in the room at roughly 10:45pm and my companions went to sleep very quickly. Although the hotel was completely booked to capacity, the place was eerily quiet. Around 2:00am, however, my photographer suddenly woke from his sleep as he heard someone walking in our room. I heard it too, but I never saw anyone or anything. There were four or five distinct footsteps, but as soon as Tom sat up in bed to see where Bob was, the room went silent. Mongo was still sound asleep in his bed.

At precisely 3:15am, the footsteps were back – the four or five pronounced footsteps sounded the same as they did about an hour earlier. Once again, my photographer sat up in bed to see if it was his friend who had made his way to the bathroom, but Bob was still asleep in his bed. I felt bad because I didn’t see anything unusual in the darkness. I didn’t see any orbs, no shadows or apparitions, and I certainly didn’t see John Hunt Morgan or Greene Room Grace. But perhaps it wasn’t either of the “regular” hotel spirits. Perhaps it was Andrew Johnson and he came to our room to insist that I never stand on his tombstone again. Unfortunately, that was a promise I was in no position to make – although I wish he would’ve brought me a clean pair of knickers.