As presidential spouses, Sarah and Eliza were tip-top

Sarah Childress Polk and Eliza McCardle Johnson have written their own chapters in American history. They were wives of U.S. presidents, and they helped – big-time – to mold their “rough around the edges” North Carolina husbands into national figures in the1800s. 

James K. Polk served as America’s president from 1845-49, and Andrew Johnson came along 20 years later to occupy the White House from 1865-69. 

This is Sarah’s love story. Sarah Childress was born in 1803 to Capt. Joel and Elizabeth Childress, owners of an estate near Murfreesboro, Tenn. Sarah and her older sister, Susan, enrolled in 1817 at the Moravian Female Academy in Salem, N.C. (now Salem College).

The Childress sisters were duty-bound, however, to return home in 1819, after their father died, to help their mother on the home front. Sarah was introduced to a young aspiring attorney who had recently arrived from North Carolina, James K. Polk, a native of Pineville. He had recently graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

The History.com website credits a famous friend of the Childress family – the famed warfighter Andrew Jackson – as “playing matchmaker.” 

A James Polk-Sarah Childress courtship ensued, and after he was elected to the state legislature in 1823, they agreed to marry on Jan. 1, 1824. He was 28 and she was 20.

They would have no children. Sarah devoted her life to the advancement of James’ political career, “exerting a powerful influence behind the scenes.” Sarah became both a personal and political confidante…and his campaign manager. 

James Polk served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1825-39 and became Speaker of the House on 1835. (Part of his term overlapped with President Andrew Jackson, who served in the White House from 1829-37.) 

Sarah Polk’s biographer said: “Rather than retire to the parlor with the ladies at social gatherings, Sarah was known to remain behind to talk with the men.” 

“Because of her ability to intelligently converse about politics, she was respected and befriended by some of the great politicians of the day.” Franklin Pierce was one who said publicly that “he would much rather discuss politics with Sarah Polk than with James Polk.” 

To everyone’s surprise in 1844, James Polk was nominated out of the blue for president by the Democrats. He was the underdog of underdogs going into the party convention. (Perhaps there was some behind-the-scenes maneuvering engineered by Andrew Jackson, to wrest the nomination away from former president Martin Van Buren, the frontrunner.) 

In the general election, Polk prevailed, upsetting Whig Henry Clay of Kentucky. Again, Sarah handled the presidential campaign. 

Maggie MacLean, author of a blog known as “History of American Women,” commented that Sarah Polk willingly accepted her social duties, but she freely admitted that she would “neither keep house nor make butter.” Rather, she would “always take a deep interest in state and national affairs.” 

MacLean reported that as president,“Polk set five goals, all of which he carried out successfully. He reduced the tariff, established an independent treasury, settled the Oregon boundary, annexed Texas and acquired the California territory.” 

Polk vowed to be a one-term-and-done president. He was true to his word. 

Years later, president Harry Truman would say: “James K. Polk exercised the powers of the presidency...as they should be exercised; he knew exactly what he wanted to do in a specified period of time and did it, and when he got through with it, he went home.” 

On deck: Eliza McCardle Johnson, wife of Andrew Johnson.

‘Tippecanoe and Tyler Too’ struck a chord with voters

With Presidents Day approaching, the pursuit of presidential trivia is infectious. What is the favorite campaign slogan of all time? Most politicos agree that it was the 1840 rallying cry of “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” 

“Tippecanoe” referred to Whig party candidate William Henry Harrison, a great military leader in his day. His running mate was John Tyler. Curiously, both men were natives of Charles City County, Va., and practically neighbors. 

The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought on Nov. 7, 1811, in the Indiana Territory near the confluence of the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers. American colonists commanded by Harrison were attacked by Native American warriors led by the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh. Harrison’s troops prevailed, scoring a decisive victory. 

William Henry Harrison

Harrison went on to serve as governor of the Indiana Territory. In 1840, the Whigs believed that incumbent president Martin Van Buren, a New York Democrat, was vulnerable, as the economy had suffered through the financial Panic of 1837. 

The Whigs were united behind Harrison, and the nomination for vice president was first offered to Daniel Webster of New Hampshire. Webster refused and quipped: “I do not propose to be buried (as vice president) until I am really dead and in my coffin.” 

The Democrats attacked Harrison’s alleged affection for hard cider. Indeed, at Whig rallies, vast amounts of spirits were consumed, but none by the candidate. Sources said Harrison himself was a teetotaler. 

Harrison “performed superbly” on the campaign trail, taking part in the new practice of making “stump speeches” to large audiences. The Whigs portrayed Van Buren as an aristocratic champagne-sipper.

Martin Van Buren

Harrison won the election, becoming the ninth U.S. president. He was 68 when he took the oath of office on March 4, 1841.

The weather at Harrison’s inauguration was miserable – cold and windy with the temperature estimated to be in the 40s. Harrison stubbornly chose to not wear an overcoat, hat or gloves for the ceremony and then proceeded to deliver the longest inaugural address ever, clocked at an hour and 45 minutes, containing 8,445 words.

Within weeks (on March 26), Harrison came down with a severe cold. It was attributed directly to his exposure to the foul weather at his inauguration. Despite doctors’ attempts to treat him, Harrison died on April 4, 1841, just one month into his term as president.

Dr. Thomas Miller listed the cause of death as “pneumonia…of the right lung, complicated by congestion of the liver.” 

Harrison was the first president to die in office. His presidency remains the shortest in American history. 

In 2014, Dr. Philip A. Mackowiak of the University of Maryland School of Medicine challenged the long-accepted diagnosis. 

Looking at the evidence, “through the lens of modern epidemiology, makes it far more likely that the real killer lurked…in a fetid marsh not far from the White House,” he and co-author Jane McHugh wrote. Their article was published in The New York Times. 

In the 1840s, the nation’s capital had no sewer system. Dr. Macowiak and McHugh reported. “Sewage simply flowed onto public grounds a short distance from the White House, where it stagnated and formed a marsh,” they stated.

“The White House water supply was just seven blocks downstream of a depository for ‘night soil,’ hauled there each day at government expense.” 

The scientists said: “That field of human excrement would have been a breeding ground for deadly bacteria that would have devastating effects on the gastrointestinal system. Harrison had a history of dyspepsia, or indigestion, which potentially heightened his risk of infection by gastrointestinal pathogens that might have found their way into the White House water supply.”

 They conclude that Harrison most likely died of enteric fever, another name for typhoid fever.

 John Tyler

Vice President John Tyler was elevated to become the 10th U.S. president. He wound up as the “president without a party,” disavowed by the Whigs in 1843 for supporting a political agenda that seemed to favor ideals and principles espoused by the Democrats. Critics referred to Tyler as “His Accidency.”

Politics can be so cruel. 

‘Wolfpack nation’ enjoyed sweet taste of victory in 1974

Satisfaction. North Carolina State University’s Wolfpack men’s basketball team outmuscled and outhustled UCLA in a NCAA tournament semifinal tilt in 1974 to dethrone the mighty Bruins. 

The hoops team from the University of California, Los Angeles was on the doorstep on invincibility. UCLA had won seven straight national collegiate titles, from 1967-73. 

Legendary UCLA coach John Wooden had built a program that many labeled a dynasty. He was known as the “Wizard of Westwood” (the neighborhood where the campus is located). 

N.C. State coach Norm Sloan was determined to “pull the rug out from under UCLA” in 1974. His squad obliged, escaping with a thrilling 80-77 victory after two overtime periods. 

That outcome was major front-page news all across the land. 

One photograph captured the essence of the game and the significance of N.C. State’s accomplishment. It appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated showing 6-foot-4 David Thompson of N.C. State “jumping over the top” of 6-foot-11 Bill Walton of UCLA to control the basketball. 

Both players’ arms were well above the rim, but Thompson’s hand was about 6 inches higher than Walton’s. (Sloan claimed it was at least 8 inches higher.)

David Thompson’s greatness as a “college basketball phenomenon” was validated during that 1974 Final Four. Teammate Monte Towe said: “David was one of the greatest of all time to be in the air and adjust his body, being able to catch the ball (above the rim) and lay it in.” (Dunking the ball was prohibited from 1967-76.) 

Tim Stoddard, one of the Wolfpack forwards, said Thompson was “pretty much able to do anything on a basketball court. You would constantly see things that were amazing. To see how high he jumped was kind of phenomenal. He was such a tremendous athlete.” 

Larry Brown of the University of North Carolina, who coached Thompson for a time as a professional, said David Thompson was “Michael Jordan before there was a Michael Jordan.” 

Jordan said he was 11 years old in 1974 when N.C. State won the national title, and “I was in love with David Thompson.” Jordan thought so highly of Thompson that when Jordan was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009, he invited his boyhood hero to be his presenter. (Thompson had been enshrined in 1996.) 

David Thompson blocks a shot by UCLA’s Keith Wilkes, who had a stellar professional career as Jamaal Wilkes.

But that 1974 Wolfpack team wouldn’t have done what it did without Tommy Burleson. “He was 7-foot-2, incredibly mobile and fierce,” wrote JD King, a Duke basketball historian. 

Former television commentator Packer said: “Burleson was a senior. You don’t see that much in college basketball anymore. Players like that go early to the pros.” 

Barry Jacobs, noted sports writer and author, once reported on coach Sloan’s love affair with the 5-foot-7 Towe as a player. “The sawed-off point guard was the heart of our team,” Sloan remarked. 

The N.C. State basketball media guide lauded Towe’s ability to “pass or dribble opponents dizzy on occasions.” 

“Stoddard, a 6-foot-7 forward, was a big man with soft hands and a solid, all-around game,” Jacobs wrote. “Moe Rivers, a transfer to N.C. State, was a smooth combo guard, and Raleigh’s Phil Spence offered rebounding and defensive help off the bench.” 

Two days after toppling UCLA, the Wolfpack took on Marquette University in the final game and cruised to a 76-64 victory and the tournament crown.

ACC hoops tourney title ‘meant everything’ in 1974

Some sports analysts say the greatest men’s college basketball game of all time was played at the Greensboro (N.C.) Coliseum Complex in 1974. 

It was the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) tournament championship game between the University of Maryland and North Carolina State University. 

In those days, the ACC tournament winner was the only team from the league that got its ticket punched to advance to the “big dance” – the NCAA tournament. 

Going in, N.C. State was ranked No. 1 in the nation in the Associated Press poll. Maryland was No. 4. The Wolfpack had beaten the Terrapins twice during the regular season, but would the third time be a charm…or a jinx? 

Chip Alexander, a sportswriter with The (Raleigh) News & Observer, noted that television commentator Billy Packer “was courtside with Jim Thacker, broadcasting the game in 1974 for the C.D. Chesley Company.” 

“At some point,” Packer said, “I looked at Jim and said, ‘I don’t want this game to end. Someone is going to have to lose it, and I don’t want either one of these teams to lose.’” 

“It was the finest college game I’ve ever seen,” Packer said. 

N.C. State won an overtime nail-biter, 103-100. This was in an era with no three-point shot line, no dunking and no shot clock. 

The Wolfpack’s 7-foot-2 senior center Tommy Burleson, who scored 38 points and hauled down 13 rebounds, was magnificent.

Gracious in defeat, Maryland coach Lefty Driesell shook Burleson’s hand and said, “Son, that’s the greatest game I’ve seen a big man play.”

 Bill Brill, the sports editor at the Roanoke (Va.) Times, agreed with Packer’s assessment of “the greatest game.” That ACC championship game had “so many great players,” Brill said. Burleson clearly outplayed Maryland’s Len Elmore in the post.

 

“David Thompson, perhaps the finest player in ACC annals, Monte Towe, the little guard with the fancy passes, and Tim Stoddard, who would pitch for more than a decade in the big leagues – played for State.”

Maryland also had John Lucas, Tom McMillen and Mo Howard. “The Terrapins shot 61% and lost,” Brill said.

“Maryland had a chance to win in regulation,” Brill said. Driesell called a timeout with 9 seconds left to set up the final shot. The play was set for Lucas, who would be guarded by Moe Rivers (N.C. State’s defensive specialist).” 

“Lucas was a left-hander and Rivers played him strong on that hand. Lucas drove, Towe pinched in, and the Maryland star passed the ball to a wide-open Howard,” Brill said. 

“There were 4 seconds left. Howard had made 10 of 13 shots, and there he was, 18 feet from the basket with a good look. He who hesitates is lost. Howard didn’t shoot. Towe jumped back at him, and the long-armed Burleson came running his way.” 

“Howard passed, back to Lucas, who simply threw the ball at the goal as the horn sounded. It wasn’t close.”

“In overtime, State led 101-100 with 1:16 to play, and Driesell gambled on a final shot,” Brill said. Lucas threw an errant pass toward Elmore that sailed over his head and out of bounds. 

“Towe wrapped it up with 6 seconds left when he made two free throws,” Brill said. 

The “second greatest” college basketball game ever is yet to come…a few weeks later…also in Greensboro.

Wolfpack hoops stars ruled basketball world in 1974

When Tommy Burleson of Newland in Avery County, N.C., appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine on Nov. 29, 1971, he was 19 and yet to play a varsity basketball game at North Carolina State University. 

The 1971-72 college season was being touted by the magazine as “the year of the new giants,” with Burleson, measuring 7-foot-4, expected to lead the way. 

Burleson said his actual height was 7-foot-2, but Wolfpack coach Norm Sloan “stretched” him two more inches so Burleson could be listed as the tallest player in American basketball. “It would bring a lot of good exposure to Tommy and the school,” Sloan said. The ploy worked.

Burleson told Chip Alexander of The (Raleigh) News & Observer: “I was in 4-H and grew up in Future Farmers of America. I had the agricultural background. I knew I was going to N.C. State.” 

Burleson was the only senior starter on the Wolfpack’s 1974 NCAA championship team. The other four starters were juniors – Monte Towe, Tim Stoddard, David Thompson and Moe Rivers. 

“Thompson was everybody’s All-American, the national player of the year, a great leaper but so fluid and explosive at 6-foot-4,” Alexander wrote. “Burleson was a tower of emotion and energy in the post, and Towe was a 5-foot-7 dynamo point guard.” 

“People called us a circus team,” Thompson said. “We had the midget, the giant and the high-flying guy.” 

Burleson gets credit for “recruiting” Thompson out of Crest High School in Shelby, N.C. Burleson said he and Thompson had formed a personal “pact” to play together for the Wolfpack.

“(North) Carolina was after him, but David didn’t want to play ‘four corners,’” Burleson told Alexander. “He wanted more freedom in the offense.” 

(The “four corners offense” was popularized by Dean Smith, coach at the University of North Carolina. The “Basketball for Coaches Guide” says: “Four corners was commonly used as a delay offense before a 45-second shot clock was introduced in the 1985-86 season. In fact, offenses like this one are the main reason that the shot clock was introduced to the game of basketball.”)

Thompson and Towe came up with their own “special play,” called the “alley-oop.” It was far more exciting for the fans to watch than “four corners” dribbling. Towe would lob the ball toward the basket, and Thompson would soar out of nowhere to snatch the pass above the rim and tenderly lay it into the basket.

Dunking the ball was illegal in those days, but no one could guard Thompson on an alley-oop, with his vertical leap of 44 inches – to match his jersey number. (Sloan said Thompson’s jump was 46 inches).

If the opposition would overplay Towe, forward Tim Stoddard would take on the chore of setting up the high-flying Thompson.

“He jumped as high as it was necessary,” Wolfpack assistant coach Eddie Biedenbach told sports columnist Ron Morris. “I swear, sometimes, in practice and in games, it was remarkable how high he would get up and control the ball. His equilibrium was even more fantastic. You’d sit there and just shake your head thinking, how did this happen?”

 The no-dunk rule might have cost Thompson “some creativity when it came to completing the alley-oop, but it also enhanced the artistic nature of what became ‘a mid-air’ ballet,” Morris wrote.

 “He became the basketball version of the ‘Flying Wallendas’ of circus fame.”

Thompson was nicknamed “Skywalker” as a professional player in Denver. CBS broadcaster Brent Musburger coined the term.

Wolfpack men’s hoops team lit it up in 1974

Players from the North Carolina State University 1974 men’s basketball national championship team are senior citizens now; all are approaching age 70. 

Yet, each year, the arrival of the Atlantic Coast Conference basketball season continues to light them up…brighter than their coach’s jazzy, plaid sports jackets. 

Coach “Stormin’ Norman” Sloan had an outlandish, flashy wardrobe and a fiery temper, but that was all part of the aura he created.

 As a player, Sloan was one of the many “Hoosier Hotshots” recruited from Indiana in 1946 to come to Raleigh to play college basketball at N.C. State under coach Everett Case. 

Case had spent 23 years as a high school basketball coach in Indiana before taking the head job in Raleigh. 

Sloan played on three Wolfpack teams that won Southern Conference championships (1947-49). 

After college, Sloan moved up the college basketball coaching ladder at Presbyterian College, Memphis State University, The Citadel and the University of Florida. He returned to Raleigh as the Wolfpack’s head basketball coach in 1966. 

The Indiana pipeline brought Sloan top recruits Monte Towe and Tim Stoddard, who enrolled at N.C. State in 1971 – nearly a half-century ago. 

Dick Dickey, a teammate of Sloan’s, had recommended N.C. State give serious consideration to Towe of Converse, Ind. The Wolfpack’s assistant coach Eddie Biedenbach paid a visit. Towe was 5-foot-7 and looked about 14 years old. 

Biedenbach told his boss: “Norm, he’s awfully small.” Sloan replied: “Dick Dickey knows what he’s doing.”

 Biedenbach also spent a lot of time recruiting in East Chicago, Ind., pursuing a trio of hotshots who led Washington High School to an undefeated season and the state basketball title. The stars of the team were Pete Trgovich, Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman and Tim Stoddard.

What tipped the 6-foot-7 Stoddard to select N.C. State was his desire to play both basketball and baseball at the college level. Former Chicago White Sox infielder Sammy Esposito, also an East Chicago native, was the head baseball coach at N.C. State as well as a basketball assistant on Sloan’s staff.

Stoddard said: “With Sam Esposito having a part in both sports, it made it an easier decision and an easier transition from the basketball court to the baseball field.” Stoddard became the ace in Esposito’s pitching rotation.

 

Sports statisticians have determined that there are only two American male athletes to play in the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament and baseball’s World Series. 

Both men are graduates of East Chicago’s Washington High. They are Tim Stoddard (Class of 1971) and Kenny Lofton (Class of 1985). 

As a collegian, Stoddard was a key contributor on N.C. State’s 1974 championship basketball team, as was Towe. (Some of their teammates were Tommy Burleson, David Thompson, Moe Rivers and Phil Spence.) 

Lofton was a reserve guard on the 1988 University of Arizona team that made it to the Final Four but lost to the University of Oklahoma in the semi-finals. 

As a professional baseball player, Stoddard was on the roster of the Baltimore Orioles for the World Series in 1979 and again in 1983. The Orioles were victorious in 1983, defeating the Philadelphia Phillies, 4 games to 1. 

Lofton, a center fielder, also played in the World Series twice, in 1995 with the Cleveland Indians and in 2002 with the San Francisco Giants. 

Timothy Paul Stoddard is the only person ever to win a championship ring in both the NCAA basketball tournament and the World Series. (We’re just getting warmed up here.)

Printing trade is haunted by ‘inky ghouls’

A ghostly typesetter with an odd name once cast a long shadow over the Dolores (Colo.) Star, an obscure weekly newspaper. 

The same mysterious specter also haunted big city dailies, including The New York Times. 

For nearly a century (up until the 1970s) a spirit known as “Etaoin Shrdlu” – pronounced “Etta-juan Sherd-loo” – was everywhere – wafting about the newspaper composition departments with great frequency, casting curses on lines of “hot type” that spewed forth from the mechanical Linotype machines. 

The legend has been passed along by folks like Ellis Miller of Dolores. His uncle, the late Tommy Johnson, once owned the Star. Miller told his story to Rob Carrigan of the Colorado Community Media group. 

Miller said: “The first two vertical columns on the left side of the Linotype board contained the 12 lowercase letters of ‘e-t-a-o-i-n’ and ‘s-h-r-d-l-u,’ respectively.” Ottmar Mergenthaler, who invented the Linotype in Baltimore in 1886, arranged the keys based on the frequency of their use in the spelling of English words. 

When the Linotype operator hit the wrong key by mistake, Miller said, “it wasn’t easy to go back to make a correction. You had to finish the line before re-keying a new one.” 

“Because the bad line was going to be tossed back in the melting pot, the industry practice was to do a ‘run down,’ creating this nonsense phrase – etaoin shrdlu – to signify the error,” Miller said. 

“It was supposed to be easy to see a ‘run down’ by those putting the pages together”…but sometimes, “etaoin shrdlu” got into print, and some readers found great sport in collecting the gibberish. 

The Readex Microprint Corporation’s digital collection of American newspapers has detected some 2,416 instances where “etaoin shrdlu” appeared in print. One of the most amusing popped up in an advertisement for Doan’s Pills from a 1928 edition of the El Paso (Texas) Evening Post. 

“Doan’s Pills, a stimulant diuretic, increase the activity of the kidneys and thus aid in the elimination ofswtae…ETAOIN SHRDLU ETAOIN SHRDLU UU…of waste impurities.” 

Typesetters and proofreaders should just shake off any typographical glitches, miscues, goofs and bobbles that make it into print, advises Nicol Valentin, author of a recent online essay. 

“Don’t take it personally; heck, don’t even take blame for it. You didn’t do it – it was Titivillus, patron demon of medieval writers,” she said. 

He first reared his ugly head in the scriptoriums of the European monasteries around 1285, “causing the scribes to make mistakes.” Not only that, “Titivillus collected those mistakes in a sack and carried them to the devil himself,” Valentin said. “On judgment day they were read aloud as evidence of the monk’s carelessness.” 

“Hopefully, none of us secular writers will have to deal with that when our end comes,” she wrote.

It was hard work being a medieval scribe, noted historian Victoria Lord. “Scribes wrote in bitter cold and searing heat. They worked as long as the light was good enough to see by,” she said. Candles and the warmth of wood fires were not allowed anywhere near the scriptorium, for obvious reasons.

 

Most scribes were probably young teenagers, because excellent eyesight was vital to the task.

Much has been learned from their comments in the marginalia of their manuscripts. Here are two notations that Victoria Lord uncovered:

“Let me not be blamed for the script, for the ink is bad, the vellum defective and the day is dark.”

“A curse on thee, O pen.”