I just finished reading New York's Secret Subway: The Underground Genius of Alfred Beach and the Origins of Mass Transit by Matthew Algeo. This book is not at all about presidents, so I thought I could skate by without making or sharing any doodles.

I should have known better.

In no particular order and with no spoilers (and frankly, without even touching any of the main points of the book), here are some doodles and tangents. More tangents than doodles, if I’m being forthright.

“The poorest public speaker in America”

That’s how Horace Greeley referred to himself. I dug a doodle of him out of another sketchbook and (coincidentally), it was about public speaking. He praised Abraham Lincoln’s oratory skills saying “their inevitable effect is to delight and electrify as well.”

Lincoln, by David Herbert Donald

Abner Doubleday rode in the first pneumatic railway in the country

He also participated in both Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant’s funeral processions, but that’s neither here nor there.

The President Is Dead! The Extraordinary Stories of Presidential Deaths, Final Days, Burials, and Beyond, by Louis L. Picone

Boss Tweed was a firefighter

And chased rivals around with an ax. Hard to imagine him chasing anything; he seems quite immovable.

Booth & Lincoln

Last week I learned from my new friend and fellow presidential nerd that Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth both visited Albany at the same time, along with Clara Harris (who was there when Lincoln was shot).

That's not in this book.

But there is a reference to Lincoln staying at Albany’s Delavan House in 1861 and that’s when they were all in town at the same time! (If you’re curious what Lincoln ate when he there, here’s the silk menu.)

Tilden was rich from getting people high

Samuel Tilden’s family made their money from Tilden’s Extract, a cure-all that promised to take care of anything from hysteria to gout but in reality just got everyone “very, very high.”

NYC mayors

I just learned that only two mayors ever went on to become president. This book mentions former New York City mayor John Hoffman, who was elected New York governor in 1869. Not a single NYC mayor has been elected to a higher office since.

The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President, by Edward F. O’Keefe

Columbus tried to come back but was foiled by ship-sinking mollusks

Christopher Columbus’ last trip to the Americas was cancelled because shipworms (“termites of the sea”) sank two of his ships.

Three hundred years later the same mollusks* inspired Marc Isambard Brunel to develop a tunneling machine. This guy was also knighted by Queen Victoria and was buds with Alexander Hamilton holy crap how are all of those things possible with one guy?

*Not the literal same ones that sank Chris’ boats; I’m sure you knew that.

New York fake “unratified” the 15th Amendment

The Amendment allowing men to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” passed in 1869. New York ratified it in April. When power shifted in January 1870, they “unratified” it … which isn’t even a thing.

A century later (in 19-freaking-70!) they re-ratified it.

Dan Sickles: back for a 4th time

This guy keeps popping up on me lately. Not how he popped up on Francis Scott Key’s son though…

Sickles murdered U.S. District Attorney Philip Barton Key (in broad-freaking-daylight) ‘cause Key was sleeping with his wife.* For the first time in the U.S., not guilty by reason of temporary insanity was used as a successful defense.

Every time I look into him, I find another unexpected surprise. I’m going to save it for a future post. I have an idea percolating.

*Lest you judge his wife too harshly, it seems that perhaps he was up to some extracurricular chicanery himself.

Ignore any and all typos in this doodle, including but not limited to “sergeant”.

Centrifugal bowling

Alfred Beach, the main guy in this book who I’m only just now mentioning, invented an indoor bowling game allowing at-home play. Beach found bowling “one of the most entertaining as well as hygienic amusements” and thought the exertion needed to play was “particularly beneficial” for “young people of both sexes.”

I recently went off on a tangent about bowling and was delighted slap this doodle at the end. It was a most hygienic amusement for me. (I was about to ask what an unhygienic amusement might be; I suspect Daniel Sickles and his wife know.)

Not the father

I drew a little doodle of Condé Nast, confused that someone so young with the too-modern shirt collar he’s sporting could have drawn Abraham Lincoln’s attention, but never mind that. Moments later, LearningPlunge posted that it (November 29) was the anniversary of Horace Greeley’s death. That piqued my interest because Greeley showed up in this book. The post mentioned that Thomas Nast’s cartoons discredited Greeley and that’s when I realized I’d drawn the wrong Nast.

That’s fine. I’m a professional mistake-maker. I’ll just add a little something about Condé and Thomas’ relationship and fool everyone into thinking I drew him on purpose.

Well, Thomas Nast is believed by some to be the “Father of the American Cartoon” but he’s not the father of Condé Nast. No relation. They were both involved in publishing. They overlapped. But were not related.

In any case, Abraham Lincoln once said that Thomas Nast was “our best recruiting sergeant” because of his Civil War illustrations. (See also: Santa Claus)

His political cartoons were a BFD because 20% of the population was illiterate at the time.

Slippery Dick Connolly

… was New York Comptroller and in cahoots with the Tweed ring and I only drew him so I could add him to my selection of Richards.

I’ll always remember the time Henry destroyed a dinosaur

Henry Hilton maybe destroyed a life-sized hadrosaurid plaster model because the Paleozoic Museum that was proposed would compete with the new Museum of Natural History that his patron (Alexander Stewart) was into.

Hilton lived and died in Saratoga Springs, New York (part of his property is now Skidmore College campus). When I looked him up in Find A Grave to see if he’s buried in Saratoga, I found a funny little box asking me to add a memory of Henry with the prompt: “What’s one thing you’ll aways remember when you think of Henry?”

That made me giggle. I resisted the urge to share “I’ll always remember the time he demolished a plaster dinosaur skeleton to squash a competing Paleozoic museum from existence.”

Turns out I was looking at Henry G. Hilton Jr.’s grave. Oops. His story seems quite fascinatingly scandalous and involves being disinherited because of an affair with “The Girl with the Poetical Legs.” But I digress…

Here’s the Henry Grahm Hilton’s grave I was looking for. (It’s not in Saratoga.)

And, in conclusion, Boss Tweed with a moneybag head… as portrayed by Thomas Nast: