Mrs. Jane Pierce. Photo courtesy LOC archives.
I have previously described the Washington Navy Yard as an entry point to the nation’s capital, but it was also used as a place of departure. It was often simply for day trips down the Potomac and excursions organized by local organizations. But at other times it was used for more formal departures, such as one I came across recently, when it was used for a Presidential trip.
On June 23, 1854, with the city getting as unbearably hot as it tends to at that time of year, President Franklin Pierce and his wife, Jane, (pictured) decided to flee the heat and head downriver. Their destination was Old Point Comfort, just outside Fort Monroe at the mouth of the James River and across from Norfolk. This was a frequent destination for those in Washington seeking relief in the summer, and the hotel where they were to stay, The Hygeia, was run by none other than Caleb C. Willard, brother of Henry Willard, owner of the famous hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The hotel had originally been built for far more mundane purposes– namely, to house the engineers and workers who built Fort Monroe. Over the years, however, it had become a destination all its own, and had been rebuilt and enlarged until it was worthy of a Presidential visit.
The Pierces were not alone on their trip: along came James C. Dobbin, the Secretary of the Navy, as well as General Lewis Cass, then Senator from Michigan, and Sidney Webster, Pierce’s private secretary– presumably official business– while a relative of Mrs. Pierce’s, whose name is simply given as “Mrs. Smith” was along to help out the First Lady.
The party set off from the Navy Yard, boarding the USS Engineer, an elderly side wheel steamer that had been in service since 1836, and was getting towards the end of its career by now. (It would be used by Pierce at least on more time, in order for him to observe the launch of the USS Minnesota the following year)
Detail of a print from early in the Civil War showing the Hygeia Hotel. (LOC)
The President’s visit, which was only for a long weekend, seems to have gone smoothly. Little if no further record of this time exists. And while Pierce lived for another 15 years, neither the hotel that he stayed at nor the ship that he used would last much longer. The USS Engineer was taken out of service in 1857 and sold for scrap, while the hotel survived another five years past that.
With the beginning of the Civil War, the area around Fort Monroe – which remained in Union hands throughout the conflict – was a hotbed for spies, and the Hygeia Hotel was particularly favored, as it abutted directly on the fort. For this reason, it was razed in 1863. Another hotel with the same named was later built on that site, it too was eventually removed and replaced with the Chamberlain Hotel, which is today a retirement community.
But all that was still far in the future when President and Mrs. Pierce spent a quiet weekend there in the hot summer of 1854.