235: THE ROOM WHERE A COWBOY BECAME MR. PRESIDENT

The one-mile drive north along Delaware Avenue took us over the rainbow and into the Allentown section of Buffalo at just a few minutes before eleven o’clock on Sunday morning June 4, 2023. Tom found a parking spot behind the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site and within minutes I found myself standing in front of the historic Ansley Wilcox house, which was the site where Roosevelt took the Presidential Oath of Office following President William McKinley’s death in 1901.

The Wilcox house was built in 1839 as an officer’s quarters at a military post called the Buffalo Barracks, which was constructed when tensions between the United States and Anglo-Canada reared their ugly heads. By 1845, the post was disbanded, and the home became a private residence. In the late 1800’s, Dexter Rumsey gave the property to his son-in-law Ansley Wilcox and his wife Mary Grace Rumsey as a wedding present. Wilcox was an Oxford scholar and prominent lawyer in Buffalo. Although he never ran for public office, Wilcox was a friend of at least three Presidents – Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Before our tour of the home began at 11:30, I posed for numerous photos near the exterior of the historic house. As I stood in the yard, smiling for the camera, all I could think about was a solemn Theodore Roosevelt arriving at the home on the afternoon of September 14, 1901. TR must have been disheveled after leaving the Adirondack’s in the middle of the night as he travelled aboard a series of stagecoaches that took him to the train station in North Creek, New York. It was at that North Creek Station where Roosevelt first learned President McKinley had died at 2:15am that morning. Once aboard the train, he finished the long 285-mile journey to Buffalo where he was met at the house in front of me by several members of McKinley’s cabinet, some politicians, a couple of judges, and of course, his friend Ansley Wilcox. Members of the press were permitted to witness the inauguration, but no photographs were allowed to be taken.

At precisely 11:30am, my two companions and I, along with a small handful of other tourists, were led inside the home for our tour. We saw the Wilcox’s dining room, along with the living area, but the place that interested me the most was the library. When Theodore Roosevelt entered that very room on September 14, 1901, he told the assembled group in his rather high-pitched voice: “I will take the oath. And in this hour of deep and terrible national bereavement, I wish to state that it shall be my aim to continue, absolutely without variance, the policy of President McKinley, for the peace and honor of our beloved country.” Shortly after Roosevelt was sworn-in to office, Republican Senator Mark Hannah of Ohio, who was a good friend of President McKinley, moaned: “That damned cowboy is President now.”

While Tom held me aloft in the large library, I saw several bookshelves that lined the walls of the well-furnished room. A small wooden table stood near the middle of the room – it was near that table where Theodore Roosevelt raised his right hand and was sworn-in as our 26th President by Federal Judge John R. Hazel. In another room near the library, I had the good fortune to stand on a desk used by President Roosevelt when he wrote his first proclamation as President.

Altogether, we spent about 90 minutes in and around the Wilcox House – and it far exceeded the expectations I had. The visit also gave my photographer and Mongo all the more ammunition as to why it’s important to make return trips to Presidential sites because they never seem to be exactly the same as they were the previous time.

It was fifteen minutes past noon and the three of us were back in the Explorer headed north on Delaware Avenue. Once we reached the Park Meadow section of Buffalo, Tom turned onto Fordham Drive, and he parked a short distance from a flagpole located in the median of that small street. Today, the site is in the middle of a quiet, well-kempt neighborhood; but in 1901, it was where the Temple of Music had been constructed in the center of the bustling Pan American Exposition. My photographer lifted me from the camera case and set me down alongside a medium-sized boulder which featured a bronze plaque affixed to its face. It was on that spot, at 4:07pm on September 6, 1901, where anarchist Leon Czolgosz approached President McKinley in a public reception line inside the Temple of Music and shot the President twice in the abdomen with a .32 caliber Iver Johnson revolver he had concealed beneath a handkerchief. While that boulder was seemingly not as significant as Ford’s Theater or Dealey Plaza where Lincoln and JFK were assassinated, it still represented a dark moment in American history when one of our four Presidents were murdered by gunfire. It was a stark reminder that if a person is willing to give up their life for the President’s life, there is no stopping them. As my friends discussed the assassination, Moldenhauer quoted JFK Secret Service agent Clint Hill: “The first shot is a freebie. You can only react after that first shot is fired.”

During our visit to the City of Light, I couldn’t understand why Buffalo had demolished several historic Presidential homes over the years. However, I knew exactly why the Temple of Music was dismantled, even though it was where President McKinley was assassinated. The ornate building was primarily made of plaster, glass, and wood and it was designed to last long enough for the Pan American Exposition to be completed. As soon as the Exposition had finished, most of the buildings were demolished and a residential subdivision was built in the fair’s footprint.

No trip to Buffalo would be complete without a visit to the grave of our 13th President Millard Fillmore. Since Forest Lawn Cemetery was only a short jaunt down Delaware Avenue from the Temple of Music site, the Fillmore gravesite was where Tom and Bob planned to take me next. I had visited Fillmore’s final resting place three times in the past; first in 2014, then in 2017, and finally in 2020 – that’s right, every three years. And since it was 2023, I was right on schedule to make my fourth trip to Forest Lawn and the grave of the man known as “The Last of the Whigs”.

One might think my photographer would know the location of Fillmore’s grave like the back of his hand. But once we got inside the massive burial ground, Tom blindly navigated all over the cemetery for over twenty minutes and he still had no clue as to where it was located. As soon as I began to question his mental capacity, Mongo took the initiative and asked for directions from several people he saw walking the grounds. Finally, at a few minutes past one o’clock, we saw the flagpole and 22-foot-tall pink granite obelisk that marked the fence-enclosed Fillmore burial plot.

My two companions wasted little time at the Fillmore gravesite. Tom and Bob paid their personal respects to the President, as did I, and then we returned to our vehicle for the one-mile journey to our final Presidential site in Buffalo – the site of the John Milburn home where President William McKinley died.

It turned out half of our one-mile drive towards the next site was inside Forest Lawn Cemetery. Once my photographer navigated through the gates of the burial ground, we headed south along Delaware Avenue, and we found the historical marker just a few minutes later. The blue marker with a yellow inscription had been placed near the road, close to the Canisius High School parking lot where the Milburn House once stood. That’s right – the elegant mansion where our 25th President died on September 14, 1901 was demolished, and then replaced with a parking lot.

Built in 1861 for George C. Vaughan, the elegant home at 1168 Delaware Avenue was purchased by prominent lawyer John Milburn and his wife Patty in 1888. Eleven years later, Milburn was named President of the newly created Pan American Exposition. The following year, Milburn remodeled their home with the intention of hosting a variety of national and international figures. When plans were finalized for President McKinley and his wife Ida to visit the Exposition, the Milburn’s prepared to host them in their home as well. As a matter of fact, John Milburn provided a suite of rooms on the second floor of his home where the McKinley’s stayed. In the afternoon of September 6, 1901, President McKinley headed to the fair to greet visitors at a reception held at the Temple of Music while Ida McKinley remained at the Milburn House to rest. At 4:07pm, anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot the President twice in the abdomen at close range. After an operation in the Exposition’s hospital, McKinley was brought to the Milburn House for rest, recuperation, and possible recovery. At first, the President seemed to be recovering from his wounds, but by the evening of September 13th, things began to quickly go south. So much so, in fact, McKinley said to those around him: “It is useless, gentlemen. I think we ought to have prayer.” At 2:15am, early in the morning of September 14, 1901, William McKinley died in his bedroom at the home of John Milburn. His final words were spoken to his wife, Ida, when he said with his last breath: “We are all going, we are all going. God’s will be done, not ours.”

The Milburn’s remained in Buffalo until 1904, then sold their historic house when they moved to New York City. Over the years, a succession of people owned the home. On January 10, 1907, a fire severely damaged the house, ruining the room where McKinley had died. At one point in the 1920’s, the home was converted into apartments; and in 1948, the Jesuit Community of Canisius High School bought the place and used the apartments. In 1957, however, Canisius High School announced plans to demolish the historic home because it needed additional space on its campus. Today, the site of the Milburn House, the sacred place where our 25th President died, is the high school parking lot. In my mind, it was yet another shameful waste of a historic site in Buffalo, and the four-foot-high metal sign was a disgusting reminder of the demolition – at least in my resin mind.

Our time in Buffalo, New York was over, and I was happy to be getting out of town before another historic building could be demolished. Instead of visiting the homes where Presidents Fillmore and McKinley died, or the building where McKinley was assassinated, I saw a hotel, a rock, and a parking lot. It was Pride Day on that cloudless Sunday in Buffalo, but when it came to historical preservation in the City of Light, they had nothing to be proud of. As a matter of fact, I was surprised the Ansley Wilcox house hadn’t been turned into a bowling alley called ‘Ten Pin Teddy’s’.

The three of us had been very efficient with our time and we were over an hour ahead of schedule. Since we had a five-hour drive following our final stop of the day in East Aurora, New York, my photographer called Fillmore House curator Kathy Frost and asked if she could bump-up our pre-arranged “private” tour from 3:30 to 3pm. The news wasn’t good, however, as Kathy said two other visitors would be touring the house with us and she had to stick to the 3:30 start time. I knew right away Tom was disappointed because he had arranged our “private tour” weeks in advance, and now we wouldn’t have the historic home to ourselves.

We arrived in the small village of East Aurora at roughly 2:15pm. With over an hour to kill, my companions decided to kill their afternoon hunger pains with a stop at the local McDonald’s where they ate their ‘Fill” of “More” cheeseburgers. It was disgusting to watch my photographer as he gobbled down two Quarter Pounders with cheese in a matter of minutes. All I could do was stand back and hope he didn’t try to take a bite out of me. When my two friends finished their late lunch, the three of us made our way to Shearer Avenue where Tom parked the Explorer near the front of the Millard Fillmore House at roughly 3pm. Not wanting to waste any time, Tom and Bob began photographing the exterior of the historic home before they went inside to meet Kathy.

Fifteen minutes after our arrival, two vehicles and their occupants arrived in front of the site. When I saw the two guys walk across the street, my resin jaw nearly fell to the ground. I immediately recognized them – the pair had been on the same Ansley Wilcox House tour with us. At first, I thought they might be deranged bobble head stalkers, but it turned out Greg and Steve had the same Presidential interests as my companions and me – and that’s always cool in my book. Even more impressive to me was the fact that Greg Barr came all the way from Idaho to see the home, while Steve Reynolds was visiting from Texas.

Millard Fillmore built the house where I was standing for his bride Abigail in 1826 and they lived there for roughly four years before moving to Buffalo. The original location of the home was on Main Street in town, but it had been relocated to a lot on Shearer Avenue to help preserve it from demolition – which is what they do in Western New York. The home is the only surviving building other than the White House associated with Fillmore’s life. Millard and Abigail’s son, Millard Powers Fillmore, was born in the house in 1828.

Kathy, along with Louann Roberts, led us on a very thorough and informative 75-minute tour of the home’s interior. We saw a countless number of artifacts owned by the Fillmore’s, some of which were used in the White House. And the best part of all? I was allowed to stand and pose for photos on or near some of the historic relics.

Kathy Frost was an absolute gem of a host, and she did her best to talk about the extraordinary life of our 13th President Millard Fillmore. There are times, however, if something looks like a lemon, smells like a lemon, and tastes like a lemon, it’s likely a lemon. During our visit, Kathy stirred up a good batch of lemonade when she told us Fillmore’s decisions and policies as President kept the country out of the Civil War for about eight years. That’s the moment when my photographer reminded her that Fillmore’s signing of the evil Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 cemented his place in history as one of our worst Presidents. Some historians believe President Fillmore valued his wife’s opinion in the White House, and he never made an important decision without consulting her first. It’s likely Abigail advised her husband to not sign the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, even though he eventually did. Had Millard listened to his wife’s sage advice, Franklin Pierce may have never been elected President.

Moments before we walked back out of the original front door constructed by Millard Fillmore in 1826, Kathy mentioned another site along Main Street that we might be interested in. Today, the building is known as Vidler’s 5 & 10, Inc., but back in the day, Fillmore’s law office was situated precisely beneath the famed “Vidler on the Roof”. When the law office burned to the ground in 1904, Vidler’s built an addition to their growing store over the footprint of Fillmore’s office building.

We left East Aurora, New York at roughly 5:30pm, which was 45 minutes later than we had anticipated. Some of the reason we got behind schedule was due to the fact my photographer never knows when to stop talking about the Presidents or the sites we’ve visited in the past. The Explorer was full of gas; my companion’s bellies were full of hamburgers; I smelled like lemons; and the three of us began the 298-mile journey eastward across the lower portion of New York State where Tom had reserved a hotel in Middletown.

It seemed to take an eternity before we finally exited the highway at 10:15pm and headed for the Microtel Inn & Suites near Middletown, New York. I knew for a fact my companions were exhausted because they had been awake and on the go since 2:50am. As soon as I noticed the hotel through an opening in the camera case, however, disaster struck. I’m not sure if it was because Siri had quit talking or my photographer had missed the signage for the hotel, but he accidentally got back on the highway instead of entering the Microtel’s parking lot. Twenty-two miles and 30 minutes later, we finally got turned around; and once again we arrived at the Microtel. Thankfully, that second time was a charm.

By 11pm, Tom and Bob had registered; had the vehicle unpacked very quickly; and then got settled into the room where the two of them discussed their strategy for the following day. I stood alongside the television set and simply shook my head as my companions slightly altered the agenda. It didn’t take too long after the lights were extinguished before I heard my photographer start to snore. We had an amazing first day; and day two of our adventure was set to begin bright and early at 5:30am. West Point – here we come! 

**THIS POST IS DEDICATED TO KATHY FROST – ONE OF THE FRIENDLIEST; MOST ENERGETIC; AND HISTORICALLY PASSIONATE DOCENTS I’VE EVER BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH**