Early U.S. presidents loved to fish

In anticipation of the observance of Presidents’ Day on Monday, Feb. 17, we’ll revisit some of the “behind-the-scenes occurrences” associated with U.S. presidents over time. Today’s focus is on Grover Cleveland of New Jersey, the 22nd and 24th president, who served from 1885-89 and again from 1893-97. (He was the first U.S. president to serve nonconsecutive terms.)

Stephen Grover Cleveland was born on March 18, 1837, in Caldwell, N.J., to Richard Falley Cleveland and Ann Neal Cleveland. He was the fifth of nine children.

Cleveland was 47 years old when he entered the White House as a bachelor. His sister Rose Cleveland joined him, acting as hostess for the first 15 months of his administration.

He met Frances Clara Folsom of Buffalo, N.Y., who was a student at Wells College in Aurora, N.Y. They were married on June 2, 1886, in the Blue Room at the White House. Cleveland was 49 years old at the time; Frances was 21. The Clevelands had five children.

 

In its January 1923 issue, Forest and Stream magazine ranked the U.S. presidents on the basis of their interests and abilities as “outdoorsmen.”

Reporter Alexander Stoddart selected Grover Cleveland as the “greatest fishing president,” with Chester Alan Arthur a close second.

In an article for Sports Illustrated magazine, published in 1956, John Durant wrote: “It’s difficult to think of the slow-moving, corpulent President Grover Cleveland, who weighed 240 pounds and loathed exercise (having once said “bodily movement alone...is among the dreary and unsatisfying things of life”), as an active outdoorsman…and a fresh-and salt-water fisherman.”

 

“Yet he was…and spent so much time fishing and hunting – more than any other president – that he was constantly criticized in the press,” Durant commented.

“Cleveland considered the barbs nothing more serious than gnat stings suffered on the banks of a stream. As far as my attachment to outdoor sports may be considered a fault, I am...utterly incorrigible and shameless,” Cleveland admitted.

 

As a fly fisherman, Grover Cleveland learned to tie his own flies.

Cleveland grew up in Fayetteville, N.Y., a village near Syracuse, where he “formed his lifelong fondness for fishing,” Durant said.

One of his loyal fishing buddies remarked: “Grover ‘will fish when it shines and fish when it rains.’” (That’s akin to what we hear from present-day Carteret County, N.C., fishermen who say “the best time to fish is when it’s rainin’ and when it ain’t.”)

Cleveland’s favorite fish was the smallmouth black bass. “I consider these more uncertain, whimsical and wary in biting, and more strong, resolute and resourceful when hooked, than any other fish ordinarily caught in fresh waters.”

Cleveland and his new bride, Frances, began a vacationing tradition in 1887 when they spent their first wedding anniversary in the Adirondacks on Upper Saranac Lake, N.Y., staying in a rustic cabin…and going fishing.

 

One of the local fishing guides told the story that when President Cleveland “first threw his line into the lake, there was quite a commotion among the fish. A great trout stuck his head out of the water and asked, ‘Is that you, President Cleveland?’” Came the reply: ‘Yes, my name is Cleveland.’”

The trout said: “All right, Mr. Cleveland, I am at your service.” The fish leaped out of the water and landed at the president’s feet.

Perhaps a more reliable account was filed in a report published in 1892 in Current Literature magazine. Fishing guide Jake Cronk said: “Mrs. Cleveland made some wonderful catches.” She hooked a big one, and the president asked: “Frances, shall I take your rod and land him for you?”

Frances laughed and muttered: “Many thanks, dear sir, but I’m quite capable of landing him myself.” And so she did. The trout weighed more than 6 pounds.

 

Upper Saranac Lake has a lot of romantic charm. What could be more memorable than a wooden boat wedding?

Fish tales abound among White House occupants

 

President Grover Cleveland’s reputation as the king of the White House fishermen has been reaffirmed by history buffs who believe fishing was “an absolute obsession” for Cleveland.

Cleveland not only loved the sport, he studied the traits and habitats of a plethora of species of fishes.

 

Capt. Sean Williams of Key West, Fla., is a regular contributor to the FishingBooker.com, and he asserts that Grover Cleveland was the nation’s foremost “angler in chief.”

“Cleveland was one of the nation’s loudest fishing advocates,” Capt. Williams wrote. “The critics of the time labeled fishermen as lazy, often inclined toward profanity and dishonesty.”

“President Cleveland would hear nothing of it. He stood up for the American angler, proclaiming him the ‘virtuous backbone of the country.’”

 

President Chester Alan Arthur of Fairfield, Vt. (shown below), the nation’s 21st president (who served from 1881-85), was generally regarded as the second most famous White House fisherman.

 

The archivist at the Jackson Hole (Wyo.) Historical Society reported: “In 1883, President Arthur journeyed on the fishing trip of his lifetime – a visit to the world-class wonders and trout streams of Yellowstone National Park.”

“Arthur had tested northern waters in Canada and those of the American South in Florida. Salmon, trout and bass had all filled his creel. Indeed, throughout most of his life, Arthur found solace and relaxation in plying various waters with line and reel.”

For a time, Arthur held the record for the largest Atlantic salmon catch on the Cascapédia River in Quebec Province, Canada – a 50-pounder.

Among the 20th century presidents, Herbert Clark Hoover of West Branch, Iowa, the 31st president (1929-33) was an impressive sight, according to Capt. Williams. President Hoover’s favorite fishing attire was “a blue-serge suit, double-breasted and with a high collar.”

 

Hoover said: “Presidents have only two moments of personal seclusion. One is prayer; the other is fishing – and they cannot pray all the time!”

 

As a boy in Abilene, Kan., Dwight David Eisenhower would walk seven blocks from his house along the Santa Fe railroad tracks to Mud Creek.

“There, with a willow shoot, a length of string, a 5-cent hook from the general store and the worms that he collected while hoeing the family corn patch, he could catch sunfish, bullheads, carp and drum,” Capt. Williams noted.

 

President Eisenhower, who was born in Denison, Texas, became the 34th U.S. president (1953-61). He often returned to his favorite trout fishing spots in Colorado – on the South Platte River and on Saint Louis Creek. Eisenhower tried to teach his running mate Richard Milhous Nixon of Yorba Linda, Calif., how to fish, but Nixon never got the hang of it.

 

When it was Nixon’s turn to occupy the White House as the 37th president (1969-74), he chose to abandon fishing, opting for bowling. A private, single lane was built under the North Portico of the White House.

A president who deserves an “honorable mention” fishing award was John Calvin Coolidge Jr. of Plymouth Notch, Vt., the 30th U.S. president (1923-29), who preceded Hoover. Coolidge used “gone fishin’” as an excuse for extended, eight-week summer vacations to selected fishing holes. 

 

Author Hal Elliott Wert laughingly said Coolidge “loved to bait his own hook, and when he had finished, there were so many worms on the hook that it was a wiggling mass the size of a golf ball – Cal was not a man to take chances.”

Idaho’s U.S. Sen. William E. Borah mumbled: “No trout in possession of his full faculties would bite at Coolidge’s bait.”

Coolidge and Borah, both Republicans, tangled and wrangled frequently.