President’s Day was created in 1885 to celebrate the birthday of George Washington. Since 1971, it has been on a Monday so that Americans would have a three day weekend in the gloom of February. For New Yorkers, it is a special day since many of our nation’s presidents have hailed from the Empire State beginning with Martin Van Buren from Kinderhook. Of course, only one (to date) has been born in New York City larger than life Theodore Roosevelt. Famously, Teddy was thrust into the Oval Office by an assassin’s bullet as was New York City’s other president, Chester Arthur.
Chester Arthur took the oath of office at 2:15 AM on September 20, 1881 when the immensely popular James Garfield died. Garfield had lingered for months after he was shot at Union Station in Washington in July of the same year. Arthur became the second president to take the oath of office in New York City. The first, of course, being Washington. In 1881, most Americans, let alone Republicans, were horrified. Garfield had been viewed as a reformer, a supporter of civil rights and an all round good guy. At best, Arthur was viewed as the mouthpiece of political boss, Roscoe Conkling, the poster child for Gilded Age political corruption. Arthur had been placed on the ticket as an attempt to hold together the fractious Republican party.
But as is often the case, there is more to Arthur than meets the eye. A native of Vermont, like so many young men then and now, Arthur came to New York City to make his mark in the legal profession. He joined a leading law firm in New York that was active in abolition cases in the 1850s. Arthur would be involved in two important ones Lemmon v New York, that challenged the right of a slave owner to bring their slaves to New York City. He also defended Elizabeth Jennings Graham, who was denied a seat on a New York City street car because she was black. The case led to the desegregation of streetcars in the city.
Like most young upcoming couples, Arthur and his wife Ellen lived in the Gramercy Park area finally settling on Lexington Avenue above Madison Square Park. They liked to entertain and were well known in legal circles. Arthur had joined the Republican party at its inception and became active in the New York Republican party. Like today, the city was the heart of the Democratic party in the state and staunchly supported the Democrats in the 1860 presidential election. Once war was declared, Arthur joined the New York militia as quartermaster where he demonstrated significant organizational skills which led to his promotion as brigadier general despite never seeing the front during the Civil War.
His career after the war would increasingly be tied to politics and not the law. Arthur’s political connections and organizational skills led to one of the most lucrative jobs in the federal bureaucracy of the latter half of the 19th century – the New York Customs House. The Customs House was viewed by Republican reformers as the seat of “patronage” the system where politicians placed their supporters in jobs that financial benefited both and led to corruption. So for reformers Arthur was part of a corrupt system that on the state and federal level they wanted to change. The reform movement would split the Republican party leading to the “compromise” ticket of Garfield and Arthur in 1880. So when Garfield was killed, by a supporter of the Arthur branch of the party, things were grim indeed.
But Chester Arthur turned out to be not quite the political mouthpiece of Conkling. He vetoed many bills that his own party wanted surprising observers in and out of government. The major accomplishment of his administration the Pendleton Reform Act began the reform of the patronage system that had led to his appointment as Vice President. While he was president he was diagnosed with Bright’s Disease (the same ailment that killed Teddy Roosevelt’s first wife, Alice). Not surprisingly, the Republicans did not renominate him in 1884 and another New Yorker, Democrat Grover Cleveland took office. Arthur retired to his home on Lexington Avenue where he died two years later of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Arthur’s home still stands at 123 Lexington Avenue. Many New Yorkers shop at Kalustyan’s Indian grocery store on a regular basis not realizing that they are standing on the spot where presidential history was made.
Official Portrait of Chester Arthur, 21st President of the United States
Daniel Huntington
Bowery & Canal 