yesterdaysprint:

The Times, Philadelphia, September 26, 1896

Unless the weather comes off dreary and cheerless in the meantime it is not believed that the Presidential family will resume their residence at the White House before the first week of November.

Cleveland left for Buzzard’s Bay on July 1st and didn’t return until November 1st. I wonder how common Presidential vacations of this length were? Imagine if Obama just up and left for a 4 month vacation.

(In fairness, Cleveland was battling cancer secretly. He was so afraid of anyone finding out, especially Wall Street, which was reeling from a crash, that in 1893 he even had surgery aboard a boat, claiming it was a yachting vacation, so no one would know. On the other hand, if you need to spend a quarter of the year out of the White House maybe you should step down and let someone else take over.)

The Times, Philadelphia, August 31, 1893

Speaking of Cleveland’s cancer, and his surgery on the yacht, the story of his illness was leaked by one paper, in an article written by investigative journalist E. J. Edwards, but very shortly afterwards it was jumped upon as disgusting fear-mongering slander by other papers across the country, and not spoken about until 1917, 24 years after the story first broke, and 11 years after Cleveland died in 1908.