On this Presidents’ Day, where I hope all my readers are out and about and thus not actually reading this, I figured it would make the most sense to have a look back at Presidents who have been on the Hill for reasons outside the usual inauguration or State of the Union addresses.
We start with the first President: While George Washington did not spend much time on the Hill for the simple reason that it did not exist at the time, he did own a couple of houses here. He had been convinced to build them to give the new city a boost. He did not live to see them completed.
The first President to actually come to the Capitol was also the first to live here. John Adams had to live in a boardinghouse here on the Hill because the White House was not done yet.
The next President also lived here as President – although only briefly. Thomas Jefferson set out from his boarding house just south of the Capitol to go get sworn in. He then returned to his old digs before eventually moving to the White House.
Detail of painting in Capitol showing L’Enfant and Washington discussing the location of the Capitol (AOC)
While Abraham Lincoln may not have been President when he lived on Capitol Hill – he was a Representative from Illinois at the time – his time on the Hill certainly memorable. He lived at Mrs. Sprigg’s boarding house, and it was here that he had a front row seat to one of those many tragic tales that slavery engendered. Thankfully, in this case, it had a happy ending.
And finally, one of our least-memorable Presidents also lived on the Hill: Chester Arthur. Arthur, who is mainly remembered for his facial hair (Seriously: Look at the picture above) decided, when he took over the presidency from the murdered James Garfield, that the White House simply was not up to snuff. He decamped elsewhere during the long renovation process and lived with Senator John P. Jones of Nevada in the latter’s house just south of the Capitol.
The one thing that connects all of these stories is that none of the houses that these Presidents were connected with still stand today. All have been torn down and replaced with either House office buildings, the Library of Congress, or, in the case of Washington’s houses, a park.