Artist's depiction. No photograph was taken.
June 2, 1886: A wedding ceremony is held at the White House. And the groom is the President himself.
There had been previous Presidents who came to the office without wives. Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren and Chester Arthur were widowers. And James Buchanan was a lifelong bachelor.
In the places of the late would-have-been First Ladies, Martha Jefferson, Rachel Jackson, Hannah Van Buren and Ellen Arthur, were, respectively: Daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph, niece Emily Donelson and daughter-in-law Sarah Jackson, daughter-in-law Sarah Van Buren, and sister Mary Arthur McElroy.
John Tyler was widowed when his wife Letitia died on September 10, 1842. He married the much-younger Julia Gardiner on June 26, 1844, at the Church of the Ascension in New York. In the interim, the First Lady had been his daughter-in-law, Priscilla Tyler. This 2nd marriage for Tyler lasted until his death on January 18, 1862.
And there had been previous weddings at the White House:
* March 29, 1812: Lucy Payne Washington, sister of First Lady Dolley Madison, married Supreme Court Justice Thomas Todd. Despite Dolley's late previous husband having been named John Todd, Thomas Todd was not a relative.
* March 9, 1820: Maria Hester Monroe, daughter of President James Monroe, married her 1st cousin, Samuel L. Gouverneur, who was the President's Private Secretary. He later served in the New York State Assembly.
* February 25, 1828: John Adams II, son of President John Quincy Adams and grandson of President John Adams, married his first cousin, Mary Catherine Hellen. John was his father's Private Secretary. Unfortunately, both he and his brother, George Washington Adams, fell victim to alcoholism and died young.
* April 10, 1832: Mary A. Eastin, niece of Rachel Jackson, the late wife of Andrew Jackson, married Lucius J. Polk. Lucius appears not to have been related to eventual President James K. Polk, another Tennessee politician, who was something of a Jackson protégé.
* November 29, 1832: Mary Anne Lewis, daughter of a close friend of Jackson's, married Alphonse Pageot.
* January 31, 1842: Elizabeth Tyler, daughter of President John Tyler, married William Waller.
* May 21, 1874: Nellie Grant, daughter of President Ulysses S. Grant, married Algernon Sartoris.
* June 19, 1878: Emily Platt, niece of President Rutherford B. Hayes, married Russell Hastings.
Grover Cleveland was a bachelor when he was inaugurated on March 4, 1885. His sister, Rose, stood in as First Lady. But he was biding his time. On June 2, 1886, at the White House, he married Frances Folsom, the daughter of Oscar Folsom, his former law partner. Oscar died in a carriage accident in Buffalo in 1875, and had left Frances' guardianship to Grover.
She was 21 when they married in 1886, making her by far the youngest First Lady ever (still). Byron Sunderland, a Presbyterian minister, performed the ceremony.
She was 21, pretty and petite. He was 49 and fat. But, as icky as their relationship sounds, it lasted for the rest of his life, until 1908. And she was actually considered a close political advisor to him. After he was defeated for re-election in 1888, Frances was the one who convinced him to run to regain the office in 1892, and he won.
The Cleveland family, 1907. Left to right: Esther, Francis,
Frances, Marion, Richard & Grover.
Grover and Frances Cleveland had 5 children: Ruth, Esther, Marion, Richard and Francis. Ruth was not, as the legend says, the namesake of the Baby Ruth candy bar. She died of diphtheria at age 12. The rest all lived until at least 1974, and Francis lived until 1995, 111 years after his father was first elected President. (It would be as if, in 2022, a child of Woodrow Wilson were still alive, or if Malia or Sasha Obama were to live until 2119.)
Frances Cleveland married Thomas J. Preston Jr., an archaeology professor, in 1913, and was still married to him when she died on October 29, 1947, 50 years after leaving the White House, a record for a former First Lady; and 39 years after being widowed, short of Sarah Polk's record of living 42 years after James K. Polk died.
Millard Fillmore was President from the death of Zachary Taylor on July 9, 1850 until the Inauguration of Franklin Pierce on March 4, 1853. Just 26 days later, on March 30, his wife, Abigail, died, making her the First Lady with the shortest post-White House life. Fillmore became the 1st President to remarry, marrying Caroline Carmichael on February 10, 1858. This marriage lasted until he died on March 8, 1874.
On October 25, 1892, shortly before Cleveland regained the Presidency from Benjamin Harrison, First Lady Caroline Harrison died. Her husband did not get a sympathy vote. His daughter, Mary Harrison McKee, served as First Lady for the last 4 months of the Harrison Administration. On April 6, 1896, Benjamin Harrison married Mary Dimmick. She was Caroline's niece, so their pre-marriage relationship was every bit as "Okay for the time, but pretty cringey today" as Grover and Frances'. They remained married until Benjamin died on March 13, 1901.
On August 6, 1914, Ellen Wilson, wife of Woodrow Wilson, died. She remains the last First Lady to have died "in office." Their daughter, Margaret Wilson, served as First Lady until the President married Edith Galt on December 18, 1915, at Edith's home in Washington, not at the White House. That marriage lasted until Woodrow Wilson died on February 3, 1924.
Weddings at the White House since the Folsom-Cleveland wedding:
* February 17, 1906: Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, married Nicholas Longworth. Happy to give the bride away, TR had once said, "I can run the country, or I can control Alice. I cannot do both." Already a Congressman from Ohio, Nick later served as Speaker of the House of Representatives.
* November 25, 1913: Jessie Wilson, daughter of Woodrow, married Francis B. Sayre, then a prosecutor in the District Attorney's office in New York City. He later served as High Commissioner to the Philippines.
* May 7, 1914: Eleanor Wilson, another daughter of Woodrow, married William Gibbs McAdoo. A Tennessee lawyer, he had led the building of the Hudson Tubes rail project (now the PATH system connecting Manhattan and northern New Jersey), and was Wilson's Secretary of the Treasury. In 1920, McAdoo was Wilson's 1st choice to succeed him as President, but couldn't get the nomination then, or on his 2nd try in 1924. He later served as a U.S. Senator from California. Wilson's other daughter, Margaret, who filled in as First Lady between her father's marriages, never married.
(Under current law, changed after John F. Kennedy made his brother Robert the Attorney General, if the Wilson-McAdoo marriage had happened first, that appointment could not have been made.)
* August 7, 1918: Alice Wilson, niece of Woodrow, married Isaac Stuart McElroy, Jr., a minister.
* July 30, 1942: Harry Hopkins, advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, married Louise Gill Macy.
* December 9, 1967: Lynda Bird Johnson, daughter of President Lyndon B. Johnson, married Charles S. Robb, then a Marine Corps officer, and later Governor of Virginia and a U.S. Senator.
* June 12, 1971: Tricia Nixon, daughter of President Richard Nixon, married Edward F. Cox. This was the 1st outdoor wedding on the grounds of the White House. Cox was a corporate lawyer, and later served as Chairman of the Republican Party of the State of New York. Nixon's other daughter, Julie, married David Eisenhower, grandson of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, on December 22, 1968, at Marble Collegiate Church in New York, with the famous minister and author Norman Vincent Peale presiding.
* May 28, 1994: Tony Rodham, brother of First Lady Hillary Clinton, married Nicole Boxer, a film producer, and daughter of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer of California.
* October 19, 2013: Pete Souza, the Chief Official White House Photographer, married Patti Lease.
(UPDATE: November 19, 2022: Naomi Biden, granddaughter of President Joe Biden, married Peter Neal.)
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June 2, 1886 was a Wednesday. These games were played in baseball's National League:
* The New York Giants beat the Kansas City Cowboys, 7-3 at the original Polo Grounds in Harlem, Manhattan. The Cowboys only played in the NL in this 1886 season, and folded.
* The Philadelphia Quakers beat the St. Louis Maroons, 8-6 at Recreation Park in Philadelphia. After this season, the Maroons moved, becoming the Indianapolis Hoosiers, and folded after the 1889 season. At that point, the Quakers, already being unofficially called the Phillies (short for "Philadelphias"), made the name change official.
* The Chicago White Stockings beat the Boston Beaneaters, 9-0 at the original South End Grounds in Boston. Today, these teams are known as the Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta Braves.
* The Detroit Wolverines beat the Washington Nationals, 6-4 at the Swampoodle Grounds in Washington. The Wolverines won the NL Pennant the next year, but folded the year after that. The Nationals folded the year after that, and bear no connection to the current franchise of that name.
And in the American Association:
* The New York Metropolitans beat the Louisville Colonels, 7-1 at the St. George Cricket Grounds on Staten Island. Yes, the Metropolitans were often called the Mets, and the later team was named in part for them. They played from 1880 to 1887. The Colonels joined the NL in 1892, after the AA folded, but folded themselves in after the 1899 season.
* The Brooklyn Grays lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 6-2 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. The Grays would join the NL in 1890, the Reds in 1892. The Grays became the Dodgers in 1911.
* The Pittsburgh Alleghenies beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 6-1 at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. The Alleghenies joined the NL in 1890, and became the Pirates. An American League team would later take up the Philadelphia Athletics name.
* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-4 at the original Oriole Park in Baltimore. Both teams joined the NL in 1892. These Orioles folded after the 1899 season. At that point, the St. Louis team was renamed the Cardinals. The AL had a team called the St. Louis Browns, but in 1954, they moved, becoming... the Baltimore Orioles.
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