Dead Presidents

Chris White is touring the gravesites, birthplaces and homes of the U.S. presidents. Here are his notes from those visits, which he probably means to be funny. Eh.

17. Andrew "Big" Johnson

Johnson Historic Site and Johnson National Cemetery, Greeneville, Tennessee; Mordecai Park, Raleigh, North Carolina

Historic Site / Grave (August 23, 2006)

From humble beginnings, he became one of our country's greatest trivia answers ...

His dad dies of pneumonia when he is 3. His mom signs him and his dear brother into apprenticeship, shipping them off to live with a tailor in North Carolina. Someone threated to sue the Brothers Johnson, so they said Get the Funk Outta My Face and ditched. The tailor actually offered a $10 reward for their return. After a series of misadventures (not entirely unlike an episode of "Smurfs," but with more tailoring and less magical blue pixies) he collects his mom and takes a donkey cart west to Greeneville, gets married and opens his own tailor shop (all by the age of 18, I believe). His wife teaches him to read better, his shop becomes a center for town gossip, and he gets elected town alderman, mayor, state rep, state senator, U.S. house, state governor, and U.S. Senator. He opposes secession so Lincoln names him military governor of Tennessee; then he becomes vice president. Lincoln dies and Johnson finishes the term, getting impeached along the way in squabbles over the Reconstruction process (he avoids removal from office by one vote). Bounced from D.C. he returns to Greeneville, runs for senator, loses; runs for the House, loses; then runs again for senator and wins, becoming the first former president elected to the Senate. He dies of a stroke months into his term.

The historical site itself has a fine video narrated by Fred "Law and Order" Thompson, the original tailor shop (complete with "Hang In There" kitty cat poster), two of Johnson's Greeneville homes and the hilltop cemetery where he now rests, rising only on full moons to seek out and kill the descendants of those who voted to remove him from office. He kills them by choking them with a wadded up copy of the Constitution. With airport security delays being what they are, it's kind of tough for him to kill anyone before the moon wanes these days. Zombie vengeance ain't what it used to be.

Greeneville itself has about five churches per resident and a bombed out tobacco warehouse. Cute.

The great unanswered question: Was he a racist? He owned slaves, but he also freed the slaves in Tennessee, but he also vetoed the Civil Rights Act, but ... and so on. Hard to say. He once called himself the "Moses" of black people. I don't know if that's racist, but I would pay $1 gazillion to see any white politican say that today, just to see what the reaction was. I'm totally good for the gazillion, I swear.

  • As a master tailor, Johnson is the only U.S. President who could successfully compete on "Project Runway." Let's go, time travel! MAKE IT WORK!
  • Johnson is buried next to his wife, wrapped in the American flag, with his head resting on a copy of the Constitution, and wearing a beer helmet and sunglasses.
  • Johnson, anticipating John Denver, vetoed Colorado statehood.
  • Johnson waited weeks and weeks following Lincoln's death to move into the White House, because Mary Todd Lincoln had some serious old lady smell going on.
  • His most defining characteristic as a politcian was his steadfast belief in states' rights ... TO PARTY!
  • Republican Sen. Edmund G. Ross of Kansas cast the deciding vote to leave Johnson in office, effectively ending his political career but cementing his right to bang Johnson's daughter at will.
  • Though elected to many offices, Johnson never figured out who you had to blow to become Greeneville's dogcatcher.

Here's our 17th President, who upon his death was cast in iron and placed on a pedestal in downtown Greeneville.

Update: Johnson Birthplace (12/7/07)

Johnson house

The Chris White 2007 Tour of the Birthplaces of Presidents Who Were Former Apprentices is now over. We'll have the t-shirts availble for sale soon. Stop one: Summerhill, NY, the birthplace of Millard Fillmore. Stop two, Raleigh, NC, the birthplace of Andrew Johnson. Our tour motto: TASTE THE SQUALOR!

Sure, you can get the life story at the Johnson sites in Greeneville, Tenn. But it's nice to actually see the alleged place where it all began. Alleged because they don't keep great records for the dirt poor (and what records they do keep are often on the back of used pizza boxes), so they had to lean on oral histories to figure out in which structure the magic happened. It was the kitchen of an inn in downtown Raleigh -- the family worked downstairs (his mom a weaver, his dad taking care of the horses at the inn) and lived in a tiny loft upstairs. The loft is where Johnson came into the world on December 29, 1808.

The demand for inns with stables dropped off somewhat over the decades, so the (alleged) birthplace has been shuffled around a bit. The building is now sitting at Mordecai Historic Park, which is a lot like a zoo, but instead of animals they have historic North Carolina buildings. They're fed on a regular basis, and while attempts to breed the buildings have been largely unsuccessful, they do seem comfortable.

The building itself is underwhelming, but isn't that what America is all about? People of humble origins rising up to lead their fellow man? Assuming those people are white males, of course?

As for the original site of the building, it's now an alleyway two blocks from the State Capitol. There's a rock with a plaque in it. Dogs probably pee on the rock. Good stuff.

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