This article looks at the third of three
presidential assassinations to occur during the lifetime of John and Frances
Glessner. William McKinley was elected
to the first of two terms in 1896; on March 4, 1897 he was sworn in as the
nation’s 25th president. Six
months into his second term, McKinley visited the Pan-American Exposition in
Buffalo, New York. He delivered his
address at the fairgrounds to an audience estimated at 50,000 on September 5, 1901.
The next day, after visiting Niagara Falls, the
President returned to the fairgrounds, where he was to meet the public at the
Temple of Music. A man by the name of
Leon Czolgosz, who decided he needed “to do something heroic” after hearing a
speech by anarchist Emma Goldman in Cleveland, came to the head of the line,
and pulling a gun out from beneath a handkerchief, shot McKinley two times in
the abdomen. One bullet hit a button and
was deflected, but the other entered the president’s body.
McKinley was taken by ambulance to the hospital
on the fairgrounds. Dr. Matthew D. Mann was
unable to locate the bullet, so cleaned and closed the wound. Ironically, a primitive x-ray machine was
being exhibited at the Exposition, but was not employed to locate the
bullet. McKinley was taken to Milburn
House where he convalesced for several days and appeared to be improving.
On the morning of September 13th, his
health quickly deteriorated; unknown to his doctors gangrene was growing
on the walls of his stomach and poisoning his blood. By
evening, McKinley realized the end was near, and with friends and relatives
gathered around his bedside, his last words were reported to be, “We are all
going, we are all going, God’s will be done, not ours.” He died at 2:15 am on September 14, 1901 and
later that day Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as president. Czolgosz was quickly put on trial for murder,
found guilty, and was executed on October 29, 1901.
The president’s body was taken by train to
Washington DC where it first lay in the East Room of the White House, and then
in state in the Capitol. It was then
taken to the Stark County Courthouse in Canton, Ohio. On September 19th, the funeral
service was held at the First Methodist Church, and then the casket was taken
to the McKinley house. Mrs. McKinley,
overcome with grief, did not attend the services in Washington or Canton, but
did listen from an adjacent room to the funeral service at their home. In September 1907, the McKinley monument was
completed in Canton, containing the bodies of the president, his two daughters,
and his wife who had died four months before the monument was dedicated.
Interestingly, Frances Glessner’s journal only
makes two brief mentions of the assassination.
For reasons unknown, but possibly due to ill health, she made only brief
sporadic entries in her journal during mid-1901. An entry covering five weeks written at The
Rocks dated September 14, 1901, notes only “President McKinley was shot” and
then “Saturday the 14th President McKinley died.”
Thomas and Mary (Glessner) Kimball
The interesting connection between the Glessners
and the McKinleys has to do with the McKinley house in Canton, Ohio. That house had been built about 1870 by John
Glessner’s older sister Mary and her husband Thomas Kimball. Located at 715 Market Avenue North, the
two-story frame house with broad front porch became famous during
McKinley’s first presidential campaign in 1896.
According to the book Cabins, Cottages & Mansions: Homes of the Presidents of the United
States by Nancy D. Myers Benbow and Christopher H. Benbow (Gettysburg, PA:
Thomas Publications, 1995), the McKinleys were married in January 1871 and resided
for a time in the St. Cloud Hotel in Canton.
Shortly thereafter, Mrs. McKinley’s father, James Saxton, purchased the
house for the couple and they remained there until 1877, when they sold the
house and moved to Washington D.C. upon McKinley’s election to Congress.
In 1896, McKinley leased his old home in Canton
and celebrated his silver wedding anniversary there. As he launched his presidential campaign, he
considered it inappropriate to travel around the country delivering
speeches. Instead, people came, by the
thousands, to his home where he delivered speeches from the front porch. It is estimated that McKinley gave over 300
speeches in his “front porch campaign” to nearly 750,000 individuals, something
that had never before happened in U.S. history.
In 1899, he repurchased the home for $14,500
with the plans of retiring there after concluding his term as president. Mrs. McKinley remained in the house until her
death in 1907, keeping it as a shrine to her late husband. After she died it went through a long sad
history. It was used as a hospital and
then a nursing home and by 1930 had been moved.
After plans to save the house were unsuccessful, the house was carefully
dismantled with the idea of later rebuilding it. But the parts were allowed to deteriorate and
many were vandalized or stolen, making reconstruction impossible.
An interesting newspaper clipping in the
Glessner archives entitled “Drive to Save McKinley Home from Auction Fails”
(pictured above) notes the following:
“This photo shows the home of former President
William McKinley, inset, at Canton, Ohio, which faces the auction block because
of a lack of funds for its rehabilitation and maintenance. A movement to solicit $15,000 in
subscriptions to save the home, scene of McKinley’s famous “front porch”
campaign, failed and now it must be sold at auction unless federal aid can be
obtained."
A note accompanying the article, written by John
Glessner states:
“House built about 1870 at Canton Ohio by Thomas
S. & Mary Glessner Kimball, & afterwards sold to the McKinleys. The latter made all his speeches from these
porches in his campaign for the Presidency.
And now in 1934 an effort is being made to raise money to repair &
preserve it as a memorial.”
William McKinley has the dubious distinction of
being the only President for whom no house in which he ever lived is still
standing, except for the White House.
The site of the home is now occupied by the Stark County District
Library.
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