Washington DC Scandals

Large office building rife with scandals

Old Hamilton Hotel on the corner

A park with some recent scandals

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Here at Lafayette Square we have a scandal surrounding a marital affair and a murder. Let me set the scene for you. The year is 1859. New York Congressman Dan Sickles and his wife Teresa have been married for seven years..but Teresa has been having an affair with a guy by the name of Philip Barton Key. He is the son of Francis Scott Key, and if that name sounds familiar it’s because Francis Scott Key wrote the National Anthem. Oh Say can you see… a scandal?\rHearing of the affair, Dan Sickles confronts Philip Barton Key on a street right across from Lafayette Square, where we are standing. Sickles, armed to the hilt with a few pistols, shoots Key multiple times. A fatal shot hits Key right next to the heart. A passerby picks him up and carries him into the nearby Washington Club where he dies from his injuries. How about that?\rAnd, get this - the very first time in this country’s history that a jury would accept the “insanity defense” was in this case. Yup, Dan Sickles got off scott free… Or should I say Francis Scott free… yeah, bad joke. Anyway, he was acquitted of murder due to “insanity”.\r\rDan Sickles ended up being a general during the Civil War where he did a lot of crazy things. Maybe he really was insane! One of them was while at Gettysburg he lost his leg. It had to be surgically removed. He then packed his leg up and sent it to Washington DC! I wonder what the postage was on that? After the war was over he was known to take his lady friends to see his leg. Weird. But check this out - YOU can actually visit his leg today!! It’s at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington DC. Go give old Dan Sickles leg a visit! But not right now. We have a few more scandals to talk about. Head East on H St NW to get to our next destination. It’s coming right up.\r

Enter description here...Now, to get to our next destination you need to turn right on Madison Place NW. We are gonna check out the Little White House of President McKinley,and then I need you to come back to H Street and turn right.\rOk, after you turn right on Madison Place NW, just keep walking until you find a cream colored house on your left with a wrought iron railing and green rooftops. It’s not that far down the road. I’m gonna give you 10 seconds to get there. 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.\rAlright, well did you find it? There’s a bronze plaque on the side of the house. I’m going to assume you’ve found it, or that you will be here really soon. Let me tell you about the scandal that went on there.\r\rThis house was known as President McKinley’s “Little White House.” It was built in 1828 by a man named Benjamin Ogle Tayloe, a businessman, diplomat and political activist in DC during the first half of the 19th century. Located directly across from the white house, this place became a salon for the politically powerful and socially affluent. Which brings us to the resident we’re talking about today, Garret Augustus Hobart, 24th Vice President of the United States, serving from 1897 until his death in 1899. Vice President Hobart rented the house while in office, to the tune of $8,000 per year – funny enough, the same cost as his salary (over $200,000 today!). So the cost of living in DC has pretty much always been ridiculously expensive.\r\rDuring the time of his residence here, the Vice President and his wife entertained various political figures, the most notable being then President of the US, William McKinley and his wife, Ida. Ida McKinley suffered from a number of health issues, so the first couple enjoyed low-key entertainment at the Hobart’s, avoiding the strain of formal White House functions. Perhaps the “Little White House” also served as a great place to escape from the President’s shady business dealings? About ten years earlier, while governor of Ohio, McKinley unknowingly had tied himself to an old friend who took big business risks, wracking up some $70,000 in debt (nearly $2 million today!) As co-signer on the loans, McKinley was on the hook for the entire amount, and nearly quit politics to return to practicing law in order to pay the debt. However, to keep her husband on track politically, Ida McKinley used her inheritance to pay back the loans. What a gal! No wonder she had health issues.\r\rAlright, let’s head back the way we came in, and when you get to H St NW, turn right so you are heading east toward our next destination. I’ll meet you there!\r

I think you just passed our next stop. It’s that big yellow building on your right and it is known as the Dolley Madison House.\rDolley Madison inspired the term “first lady” as well as a line of snack cakes to competitor Little Debbie, yet this presidential widow lived out her days in this yellow house on Lafayette Square (which was probably not actually yellow at the time) practically penniless. But in her heyday she was the toast of Washington. And although the majority of folks felt admiration and affection for her, she couldn't seem to escape scandal, even though most of it was simply untrue. \r\rShe was raised on a Quaker plantation in rural Virginia, yet some claimed she tended bar at her father's nonexistent tavern. Uh...nope. Others insisted she slept her way around Washington. It seems some people thought of Dolley as a hottie who inspired lust in men. A local newspaper around 1814 insinuated that she was the unfaithful wife of an impotent husband, possibly because...while she had a child from an earlier marriage, she and James had no children of their own. There's even a rumor that suggests Thomas Jefferson pimped out Dolley and her sister to visiting foreign dignitaries. Um...not true. Just because she was allegedly hot doesn't mean she was loose. Right ladies?\r\rAlso...she supposedly fled the White House, before the British set fire to it in 1814, carrying a life-sized portrait of George Washington (which still hangs in the East Room of the White House till this day). While she did ensure the safety of the painting, she had the good sense to remove the canvas from its frame first. Nice try, rumor mill. One humorous story alleges that Dolley, taller and larger than her husband James, would sometimes give him piggyback rides around the White House, which I personally hope was a drunken party trick. \r\rWhatever you choose to believe, hopefully you'll remember Dolley Madison as a woman with the grace and charm befitting her position. As President Zachary Taylor declared after her death in 1849, she was the “first lady of the land for a century.” Well said.\r\rKeep heading east until you get to 15th St NW, then turn right and I’ll meet you at Pennsylvania Ave. I’ve got a great White House scandal to tell you. No D.C. scandal tour would be complete without at least one story that took place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Enjoy.\r

Ready to go see the White House? Turn right and look for a crowd of protesters and tourists. They will be either yelling at or taking pictures of the White House. Head on in there.\rWe probably have hundreds of scandals to pick from when it comes to the White House, but I decided on one that you have likely never heard of. \rThe moral of the story at this stop on our tour is probably...don't use questionable tactics when negotiating land treatises. In other words, don't swindle property from native people. Seriously, don't do it. It doesn't end well. Just ask any president elected to office in a year ending in a zero. Well, you pretty much can't ask any of them because they're mostly dead, and all but two died while serving their term. That's precisely what the alleged curse is about. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's back up.\r\rThe year was 1811 and the government waged a battle against a group of natives in what is now Indiana, who were resisting the westward expansion of the United States. You see, the Native Americans had been somehow duped into giving up large tracts of land two years earlier in the Treaty of Fort Wayne, and they wanted it back. So Shawnee leader, Tecumseh, began a rebellion against William Harrison, who was governor of the Indiana Territory at the time. Harrison would later be elected as President of the United States in the year 1840 (that date is important to this story).\r\rWhile the native people were unsuccessful in their rebellion, legend has it that Tecumseh's brother, who was known as the prophet (and who's name I would no doubt butcher if I attempted to pronounce), placed a curse on the office of the presidency. Well, not the oval office, but rather, the position. Specifically, all presidents who were elected on a year ending in zero, the same ending number as Harrison, are supposedly cursed to die while serving their term. Weird, right? And the curse has more or less held up. The only two presidents to survive were both victims of assassination attempts. Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980, survived a severe gunshot wound, and George W Bush, elected in 2000, survived a live grenade attack that oddly failed to detonate. \r\rSo...that's all pretty creepy, and with the 2020 election around the corner, potential candidates better brace themselves. I'm thinking somebody really ought to go through the White House with a sage stick or something. Yikes! \r\rSo, I’m pretty hungry now and you probably are too. Fight your way through the tourists and protesters and back toward 15th St. Cross 15th and then turn right so you are headed south on 15th St NW. There’s a restaurant with a scandal waiting for us!\r

Check it out everyone! Washington D.C.'s oldest saloon - Old Ebbitt Grill. Presidents such as Grant, Garfield, Cleveland, McKinley and Roosevelt all passed through these doors, which stands to reason since it's located mere steps from the White House. The original structure on this site was built in 1800. And the property that was initially 2 Federal style four-story houses, changed hands a bunch of times before being purchased by William E. Ebbitt in 1856, who turned it into a boarding house. The property changed hands again, and the building served as offices for several newspapers at one point, including The New York Times. But eventually, at least the name stuck, and in 1872, a grand hotel was established at this site, known as Ebbitt House. \r\rWhatever popularity and prominence the hotel enjoyed was short lived, however, because it began to decline in the early 1900s. In August 1913, a kitchen fire broke out, resulting in thousands of dollars worth of damage. Three months later, the manager at that time, a George R. Shutt, stood accused of selling booze to underage children. Trouble with alcohol continued throughout the prohibition years, and the grill allegedly continued to sell liquor secretly. \r\rProbably the most notable scandal occurred in 1977 when Old Ebbitt Grill was identified as the location of a notorious Soviet Spy Ring operation. A key reporter for the Soviet Union's news agency, TASS, was caught in an FBI sting and expelled from the United States in February of that year. Today, you may still be able to order Russian dressing on their Mixed Greens Salad...but maybe consider a \rvinaigrette instead.\r\rWe aren’t done yet, by the way. A couple more fun stops are waiting for you after you fill your belly at the Old Ebbitt Grill. Make sure to pay your restaurant bill and then come back out and keep heading south. I wanna show you a cool statue.\r

Just like I promised, on your right is a big statue. This is General William Tecumseh Sherman. Not too much of a scandal going on here, but I wanted to tell you a little bit about this statue. General Sherman was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. \rThe horse depicted here is probably Duke, since Duke was Sherman’s favorite horse. Duke was a bright bay color with a white blaze on his forehead and one white sock on his left hind leg. Sherman said Duke was the horse he rode everyday in Atlanta. He also had a portrait painted of Duke after the war, and had it hung in his office.\r\rNow, if you want to hear a little bit about General Sherman, here are 8 facts that you might not know:\r\rHe was named after a Shawnee Indian chief and went by the nickname “Cump” as a child.\rHe married his foster sister. Sure did. I guess that could be considered a bit of a scandal, am I right?\rHe dropped out of the military to become a banker.\rHe played a big role in sparking the California Gold Rush\rHe joined the military again after President Lincoln called for 750,000 volunteers to enlist after the Civil War began.\rHe was best friends with Ulysses S. Grant\rHe had a mental breakdown during the war and was labeled as “insane” by many newspapers in that time. Perhaps also scandalous?\rWilliam T. Sherman coined the term “War is hell”\r\rSo there ya go. Hope you learned something.\rAnd just like that, we are coming up on our LAST stop. Turn left when you get to Pennsylvania Ave NW.\r

Ok, time to wrap this whole thing up and put a bow on it. On your right is the White House Visitor’s Center. In here you will find a large scale model of the white house where you can imagine ALL of those presidential scandals happen. There are also interactive exhibits, which are always fun, an art gallery, a gift shop and much much more.\r\rAnd that’s the end of this tour. I’m sure there are hundreds more scandals in this city but I hope you enjoyed the ones I highlighted for you. It has been fun for me! UCPlaces has lots of other tours as well, like a distillery tour, a horse statue tour, and a tour of the National Mall. You don’t want to miss them.\rI hope we can hang out again soon. Until then, so long and happy touring!\r.