Arthur Sleeps Here
By Diane DeBlois

If you live in New York's Capitol District, there's a local variety of the question: "who is buried in Grant's tomb?" - and that is: "which President is buried in Albany?"

The answer is Chester Allan Arthur (Chet to his friends) who died of Bright's disease a mere year and a half after leaving the White House. He was buried in Albany Rural Cemetery in the Arthur family plot next to his wife, Ellen Lewis Herndon, who had died in 1880 just before he took office as James Garfield's vice-President. (See printed trade card of the Garfield/Arthur campaign)

Arthur sided with the 'Stalwarts' of the Republican Party - an embarrassing situation when Charles J. Guiteau shot President Garfield on July 2, 1881 - exclaiming: "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts... Arthur is president now!"

Arthur began life in northern Vermont (he may even have been born across the border in Canada), and spent part of his childhood in Perry, New York. A delightful reminiscence from a boyhood friend, quoted in 1900: "When Chester was a boy, you might see him in the village street after a shower, watching the boys building a mud dam across the rivulet in the roadway. Pretty soon, he would be ordering this one to bring stones, another sticks, and others sod and mud to finish the dam; and they would all do his bidding without question. But he took good care not to get any of the dirt on his hands."

Fastidiousness became part of his public image - he was known as somewhat of a dandy, and delayed taking up residence in the White House until it could be renovated under Louis Comfort Tiffany to suit his taste. The "Gentleman Boss" known as "Elegant Arthur" reportedly kept eighty pairs of pants in his wardrobe and changed them several times a day.

Educated at Union College in Schenectady, Arthur practiced law in New York City - but his entry to politics was as Collector of the Port of New York under President Grant from 1871-78. He was ousted by President Hayes under a reform banner (see cartoon). Apparently, Arthur acted honorably but he believed in the spoils system.

On the Union College campus there is a nine-foot high bronze statue of Arthur, erected in 1941 but made in 1892 by Baltimore sculptor Ephraim Keyser (who had created the figure on Arthur's tomb). The work was commissioned by John Starin, operator of a large fleet of passenger and freight boats in New York harbor, who was an admirer of Arthur's tenure as Collector of Customs. Once donated to the College, "Chester" as the students called it, awaited a base to be carved of Imperial Blue granite quarried near Arthur's Vermont birthplace. In the words of the Encyclopedia of Union College History (2003): "By the winter of 1942, someone had painted footprints on the sidewalk to suggest that Chester had been sleepwalking - a stunt repeated from time to time; students have also attached beer bottles, balloons on a string, and various scandalous objects to his conveniently posed hand and put pumpkins over his head. Dressing up college statues is common on campuses which have them, but Chester has been spared the practice, perhaps because it is hard to find anything except neckties in his size." 

When he became President, Arthur decided he needed to distance himself from the Stalwarts and other factions within his own party, replacing every member of Garfield's cabinet except for Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln.

As with many Presidents, his record is mixed. We can thank Arthur for a bipartisan Civil Service Commission, but we still suffer repercussions from his immigration policies. We use international standard time thanks to Arthur's International Meridian Conference of 1884. The Democrats excoriated his Tariff Act - which aimed to lower tariffs to avoid surpluses of revenue (a situation devoutly to be wished for now!)

(This article first appeared in the show program for the Albany Book Fair, 2008)

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