Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site

 

Visited: July 2024

Nearby city: New York City, NY

"Youth - I want to see you game, boys. 

I want to see you brave and manly

and I also want to see you gentle and tender.

Be practical as well as generous in your ideals

Keep your eyes on the stars and keep your feet on the ground.

Courage, hard work, self-mastery, and intelligent effort are all essential to a successful life.

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and nations alike."

-Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore ("Teddy") Roosevelt was one of the most influential Presidents in American history. Serving from 1901 - 1909, Roosevelt championed what he referred to as the "Square Deal" - an aggressive domestic policy of anti-trust legislation (fostering economic competition and growth), regulation of the railroad industry, improvement of working conditions, and passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act. Roosevelt also focused on conservation and his efforts led to the establishment of many national parks, national monuments, and national forests. In foreign policy, Roosevelt's tactics (summarized by the phrase "speak softly and carry a big stick") led to the construction of the Panama Canal and expansion of U.S. Naval power. His successful diplomatic efforts ended the Russo-Japanese War and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906. Due to his ebullient personality and expansion of executive authority, many historians regard Roosevelt as the first "modern" U.S. president.

Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site celebrates our nation's 26th president. 

The site is actually a replica of Roosevelt's birth home (more on this below). It's a traditional brownstone at 28 East 20th Street in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, New York City. 

Theodore (or "Teedie" as his parents nicknamed him) was born here on October 27, 1858, the second-oldest child and eldest son of Theodore Roosevelt Sr., prominent philanthropist and scion of the Roosevelt family who made their fortune in the plate-glass importing business. His mother was Martha Bulloch, a Southern Belle who grew up in a wealthy planter family in Savannah, Georgia.

Theodore had an older sister, Anna (known as "Bamie"), a younger brother, Elliott (who would later father the famous First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt), and a younger sister, Corinne.    

Theodore was a sickly child who suffered from debilitating asthma attacks. Due to his ill health, his parents were very protective of him and decided to homeschool him. Young Theodore was precocious and inquisitive. He developed an interest in wildlife and zoology at age 7, when he discovered the skull of a seal that had washed up on the beach. Theodore and his cousins would later display the seal's skull, along with other insects they had captured, in his bedroom, which Theodore dubbed "The Roosevelt Museum of Natural History." At age 9, Theodore wrote a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects" in which he documented the size, sex, shape, color, place located, and sometimes even the stomach contents of each insect he had collected over the years.

Roosevelt at age 11

Theodore's family traveled extensively during his youth, and he visited Egypt and Europe in his young teens. These trips broadened his perception of the world and fostered a lifelong love of learning. While hiking in the Alps, he discovered the benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma. After some older boys had bullied him on a camping trip, he took boxing lessons to build strength and stamina. Theodore would box well into adulthood. Even as President, he would box with sparring partners as often as two or three times a week. 

This rigorous exercise regimen developed into a philosophy that Theodore called "the strenuous life." As an adult, Theodore argued that strenuous effort and overcoming hardship were ideals to be embraced for the betterment of the individual and the nation as a whole. Along with boxing, Theodore took up tennis, hiking, rowing, polo, horseback riding, and ju-jitsu. 

Theodore was a voracious reader and had a photographic memory. He became very proficient in biology, ornithology, geography, history, philosophy, French, and German.

The home is only available via a guided tour. Tours are offered throughout the day on a first-come, first-served basis. 

piano in the parlor/sitting room

Roosevelt's home had a chandelier very similar to the one seen here.

In his autobiography, Roosevelt recollected the chandelier in the parlor room as follows:

"The ornaments of that parlor I remember now, including the glass chandelier decorated with a great quantity of cut-glass prisms. These prisms struck me as possessing peculiar magnificence. One of them fell off one day, and I hastily grabbed it and stowed it away, passing several days of furtive delight in the treasure, a delight always alloyed with fear that I would be found out and convicted of larceny."

dining room

fine china

this is the actual crib used by Teddy as an infant

Theodore's family lived in this home until 1872 (he was 14 years old). The neighborhood had become more commercial, and the family moved further uptown. 

In 1876, at age 18, Theodore enrolled at Harvard University. It was there that his classmates started to call him "Teddy". It is documented that Theodore disliked the moniker, thinking it was too boyish. However, once he entered politics, reporters frequently referred to him as "Teddy" in newspaper articles and the nickname stuck. 

While at Harvard, he studied naval history during the War of 1812. Roosevelt would ultimately write his first published book "The Naval War of 1812" which was recognized as a seminal work in its field and was used as a textbook at the U.S. Naval Academy. 

After your guided tour, spend some time in the museum and watch the documentary video about young Theodore's life. Many interesting artifacts are on display.

a "Teddy" bear

As the story goes, in 1902, President Roosevelt was on a bear-hunting trip in Mississippi. Some of his hunting partners had cornered and tied an American Black Bear to a willow tree after a long chase with hounds. They suggested that Roosevelt shoot the bear. He refused, stating that doing so would be unsportsmanlike. The incident became popularized in a political cartoon in The Washington Post. Morris Michtom, a Russian Jewish immigrant living in Brooklyn, saw the cartoon and was inspired to design a stuffed toy and the "Teddy Bear" was born.

 

Theodore's "Rough Rider" uniform

In 1898, Roosevelt was serving as the Assistant Secretary to the Navy in the McKinley administration. When the Spanish-American War broke out, Roosevelt resigned his post and formed the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, known as the "Rough Riders." Roosevelt's brazen horseback charge up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in Cuba made Roosevelt a national hero and a household name.    

The undershirt Roosevelt was wearing when he was shot in 1912.

After years of disappointment with his hand-picked successor, President William Howard Taft, Roosevelt decided to challenge Taft for the Republican nomination in the 1912 election. Although Roosevelt had great success in the primaries (which did not have great influence at that time), Taft was selected to be the nominee by the delegates at the Republican convention. Roosevelt bolted from the GOP and formed the Progressive Party. 

On October 14, 1912, while giving a campaign speech in Milwaukee, Roosevelt was shot by a delusional saloonkeeper named John Schrank, who believed that the ghost of William McKinley had instructed him to kill Roosevelt. The bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest after penetrating his eyeglasses case and passing through a 50-page folded copy of the speech in his breast pocket. Once Schrank was subdued and taken away by the authorities, Roosevelt assured the crowd that he was "fine" and insisted on delivering his 90-minute speech. Only after delivering his speech did he seek medical attention. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave the bullet in instead of attempt to remove it. Roosevelt carried the bullet inside him for the rest of his life. After two weeks to recuperate, he was back on the campaign trail. When a reporter asked him if the injury would effect his campaign, Roosevelt responded that it wouldn't and quipped "I'm as fit as a bull moose." Roosevelt's Progressive Party would go down in history as the "Bull Moose" party.    

notice the bullet holes in the copy of his speech

The original birthplace home was torn down in 1916 to make way for retail space. Before that construction started however, Roosevelt passed away in 1919 at the age of 60. The early demise saddened the nation. This prompted the formation of the Women's Roosevelt Memorial Association. The Association purchased the empty lot and began to build an exact replica of the birth home. The rebuilt home was dedicated in 1923 and furnished with many original pieces donated by Roosevelt's widow, Edith. 

The Association donated the building to the NPS in 1963. 

There is much more to the story of Theodore Roosevelt, and his life is celebrated in many other units of the National Park Service. His political rise, family tragedies and triumphs, presidential accomplishments, and enduring legacy will be discussed in subsequent blog posts. 

For more info on the birthplace home: https://www.nps.gov/thrb/index.htm 

Whitman Mission National Historic Site

Visited: May 2024

Nearby city: Walla Walla, WA

On November 29, 1847, tensions between a Christian missionary and the Cayuse tribe erupted in a shocking act of violence that negatively impacted US-Native American relations in the Pacific Northwest for generations.

For hundreds of years, the Cayuse peoples lived on the Columbia Plateau along the Snake River in what is now southeastern Washington. Starting in the late 18th century, the Cayuse interacted and traded with fur trappers/mountain men from France, Britain, and eventually, the United States. Lewis and Clark passed through the area on their celebrated expedition to the Pacific Ocean. 

In 1835, Samuel Parker, the famous Presbyterian minister and missionary, traveled throughout the region to scout potential locations for missions to convert Native Americans to Christianity. Accompanying him was a Marcus Whitman of New York. Whitman had aspirations to become a minister, but was unable to afford the schooling. Whitman studied medicine instead, and practiced medicine in Canada for a few years before traveling west with Parker. 

Parker and Whitman met with the Cayuse tribe and negotiated the building of a mission on Cayuse lands known as Waiilatpu (meaning "place of the rye grass"), about six miles west from the site of the present-day city of Walla Walla. In exchange for allowing the mission to be built on Cayuse land, Parker promised that, each year, the mission would receive a large shipment of goods, a portion of which would then be given to the tribe at no cost. Additionally, Whitman would teach the Cayuse tribe agricultural techniques, cultivation, and the Christian faith.  

A year later, in 1836, Whitman returned to the area with his wife, Narcissa Prentiss Whitman, a teacher from Plattsburgh, New York, and they built the mission. They traveled west with two other Presbyterian missionaries, Henry and Eliza Spalding, who settled a mission among the Nez Perce tribe near what is now the city of Lewiston, Idaho. Narcissa and Eliza were likely the first Anglo-American women to travel to the Pacific Northwest overland.

The mission consisted of two homes, a gristmill, and a blacksmith shop. None of the original buildings are standing today, but their footprints are still visible. 

Relations between the Whitmans and the Cayuse tribe became rocky almost immediately. An economic downturn in the fur trade led to much less supplies delivered to the mission as Parker had originally promised. The Cayuse tribe's requests for payment in exchange for materials used to construct the mission and the missionaries use of land were rebuffed by Whitman.

The Cayuse found Marcus and Narcissa to be haughty and unwelcoming. The Whitmans would not allow the Cayuse to attend worship services in the mission. As Narcissa wrote: 

"[The Natives] are so filthy they make a great deal of cleaning wherever they go. We could not have them worship there for they would make it so dirty and fill it so full of fleas that we could not live in it. We have come to elevate them and not to suffer ourselves to sink down to their standard."

-Narcissa Whitman, in a letter to a Mrs. H.K.W. Perkins, May 2, 1840 

Marcus also objected to the Cayuse's practice of mixing elements of their indigenous beliefs with Christianity. Eventually, Marcus felt that any further proselytizing was hopeless and wrote to a Rev. Greene on October 15, 1840 that the Cayuse were in a "lost, ruined, and condemned state" and that he did not believe that any amount of worshipping would "save" them.

An 1841 incident, in which horses belonging to a Cayuse chief destroyed Whitman's maize crop, further exacerbated tensions.

Relations continued to deteriorate when the Whitman mission became a popular stop along the Oregon Trail from 1843-1847. Thousands of settlers heading to the Willamette Valley stopped to rest at the mission on their journey further west. Marcus would sell wheat and other goods to the passing immigrants, gestures he would not extend to the Cayuse. The Whitmans opened their home to the pioneers, with some staying for extended period of times, or even settling on Cayuse lands. These encroachments led the Cayuse to greatly distrust the Whitmans and the ever growing number of settlers.

the Oregon Trail passed through the mission site

Things came to a breaking point in autumn of 1847, when a measles outbreak decimated the region. Marcus, as a doctor, treated both settlers and the Cayuse for the disease, but the Cayuse (who had never been previously exposed to measles and therefore, did not have natural immunity) succumbed to the disease at a much higher rate than the white settlers. This led to rumors that Marcus was deliberately poisoning the Cayuse. The tribe's laws and customs called for the slaying of a medicine man who gave bad medicine. 

On November 29, 1847, a group of Cayuse men ambushed Marcus at the mission, killing him. A young Mary Ann Bridger (daughter of famed mountain man Jim Bridger) survived the attack. She later recounted that the Cayuse lured Marcus out of the mission by asking for medicine. As Marcus was distracted, a Cayuse struck him in the head from behind with a hatchet. Other Cayuse men waiting outside then rushed the mission and other outbuildings, attacking men and boys who were working at the shop and in the fields. In all, fourteen settlers were killed by the Cayuse that day: Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, 11 other adults, and one child.

The Cayuse took 54 settlers (who were residing at the mission at the time) captive and held them for ransom. The Cayuse held them prisoner for one month (some of the prisoners died in captivity, most from measles or other illness). On December 29, Peter Skene Ogden, a high-ranking official of the Hudson's Bay Company, arranged an exchange of blankets, shirts, handkerchiefs, rifles, ammunition, and tobacco for the return of the 49 remaining prisoners. 

As news of the incident (dubbed the "Whitman massacre") spread, shocked settlers in the Willamette Valley sought protection from the federal government. Although the US had settled its disputed claim over the region with Great Britain a few years prior, the US government had yet to establish an official presence or jurisdiction in the area. That quickly changed in light of the events, and Congress officially organized the Oregon Territory on August 14, 1848. 

The large territory covered the entirety of the present-day states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and portions of Montana and Wyoming. The territorial Governor and provisional legislature immediately authorized the raising of companies of volunteers to fight the Cayuse. These militias were later joined by the regular US Army and they waged war against the Cayuse. Many Cayuse fled and hid in the Blue Mountains south of the mission. 

In 1850, two Cayuse chiefs (Tiloukaikt and Tomahas), who had been present at the attack, and three other Cayuse men consented to go to Oregon City (the capital of the territory) to be tried for the murder of Marcus Whitman. After a two-day trial, all five men (referred to as "The Cayuse Five") were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. The Cayuse Five were executed on June 3, 1850. It is reported that Tomahas' final words were: "Much like your savior Jesus Christ gave himself to you, we are giving ourselves up for our people in order to stop the war."

The Cayuse War would continue for another five years when finally, in 1855, the Cayuse surrendered and signed the Treaty of Walla Walla. The Cayuse ceded their ancestral homeland and agreed to move to a reservation shared with the Umatilla and Walla Walla tribes near the present-day town of Pendleton, Oregon. Approximately 300 Cayuse peoples live in or near the reservation to this day.

In the decades that followed their deaths, the Whitmans were venerated by Anglo-Americans as martyrs. The incident was used by the government to justify policies of manifest destiny and military hostilities against Native American Tribes throughout the American West for the rest of the 19th century. 

Stop at the Visitor Center to learn about these events and watch the interpretive video. Take your time as you walk the grounds (about a 2-mile walk). 

an obelisk was placed on the hill overlooking the mission on the 50th anniversary of the incident, November 27, 1897. Seven of the survivors attended the ceremony. 

In 1839, Marcus and Narcissa's daughter, Alice, died from drowning at 2 years old.

"The Great Grave"

Burial grounds of those killed in the attack

Learn more about the Whitman Mission National Historic site here: 

https://www.nps.gov/whmi/index.htm

After our visit, we went to Palouse Falls. It's about an hour-drive north of Walla Walla. 

An impressive sight. Palouse Falls plunges nearly 200 feet, about four miles upstream of the confluence of the Palouse River and the Snake River. 

the canyon at the falls exposes a large cross-section of basalt

the upper falls, about 1,000-ft north of the main drop

We had a enjoyable time visiting and exploring the Walla Walla area.