From Days Gone By Jan 7, 1922

January 7, 1922.

    This is part one of some interesting, and little known facts about the first twenty-six presidents of the United States.
    George Washington was thought to be old as president, but he was 13 years younger than Ronald Reagan and 10 years older than Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama.
    John Adams successfully defended British soldiers against murder charges in the Boston Massacre. He believed everyone deserved their day in court.
   Thomas Jefferson opened the door and personally greeted guests at the White House, often in his bedroom slippers. Even before term limits he believed two terms was enough for any president.
    James Madison was the first president to ask Congress for a declaration of war, and the first sitting president to lead American troops to the Battle of Bladensburg.
    James Monroe was the first president to tour every region of the country and the last to wear a ponytail.
   John Quincy Adams took the oath on a constitutional law book and not a Bible. The only president to serve in the House of Representatives after he lost re-election as president.
    Andrew Jackson was the first president to be a target of assasination and repeatedly called for an amendment to eliminate the Electoral College.
    Martin Van Buren inherited a slave as a teenager, who ran away, thus the first northern president to have been a slave owner. Created the Democratic Party and the first to be nominated by that party.
    William Henry Harrison was the first presidential candidate to go state to state campaigning, served the shortest time in office (30 days) and gave the longest inaugural speech that lasted 2 hours. First president to die in office.
    John Tyler was the first president to have a veto overridden by Congress, named no vice-president after assuming the presidency from Harrison's death, first to lose a wife while in office. Hail to the Chief was first played for him and adopted for future presidents. First to be threatened with impeachment by his own party. He narrowly escaped death when a cannon explosion occured during a demonstration. The result would have been two presidents to die in office in a 3 year period.
    James Knox Polk was the only Speaker of the House to win the presidency and the first to promise to serve only one term.
    Zachary Taylor was the first to call his wife the First Lady. His daughter defied him by marrying President Jefferson Davis.
    Millard Fillmore appointed the only Whig Supreme Court Justice. (Whig was a political party at that time). While presiding over the Senate as Vice-President, watched as Senator Foote of Mississippi pull a pistol on Senator Benton of Missouri on the Senate floor.
    Franklin Pierce at 49 was the youngest president before U. S. Grant was elected. Only president born in New Hampshire.
    James Buchanan was only president to never marry and last to be born in the 1700s.
    Abraham Lincoln was the only president to hold a patent. He was not even on the list of original candidates for the 1860 Republican nomination. His depression was so bad he joked to friends not to allow him near a knife. First president to be assassinated.