The White House has been the home of some of the most powerful people on Earth… as well
as a bunch of rugrats running around and getting in trouble. These are the presidential children,
grandchildren, and other babies who were born in the White House.
The first child believed to have been born in the White House was
enslaved and considered the property of the current president of the United States,
Thomas Jefferson. After Jefferson was elected, he brought along with him 14-year-old enslaved
girl Ursula Granger. He intended to have her study under the White House's French chef,
so that his Monticello plantation would have someone trained in cooking fancy food.
However, this didn't quite work out, as Granger gave birth to a boy named Asnet sometime before
March 22, 1802. The father was Wormley Hughes, who remained back at Monticello. The two became
married at some point and went on to have another 12 children together. However, Asnet was not well.
Jefferson was away from Washington when his steward wrote him a letter on August 17,
1802 that contained the sad news that Asnet had died on the 14th.
Ursula returned to Monticello shortly afterwards.
Often claimed to be the first child born in the White House, James Madison Randolph was
actually the first white child born there. His mother was Martha Jefferson Randolph,
eldest daughter of Thomas Jefferson and his late wife Martha. The younger Martha
was pregnant when she and her husband and their children moved into the White House
in 1805 to provide company and perform hostess duties for the widowed president.
James was born on January 17, 1806. He was named in honor of Jefferson's fellow Founding Father
and future president James Madison. He would go on to attend the University of Virginia,
which had been founded by his grandfather, before deciding to become a farmer. However,
he lost that farm within a few years. He was living with his parents when
he suddenly became ill and died on January 23, 1834 at the age of 28.
Thomas Jefferson brought more than one enslaved girl from Monticello to train under the resident
French chef, including 15-year-old Edith Hern Fossett, who also went by "Edy."
"So for seven years,
she'd be trained and eventually come back here and return to Monticello."
Edy was pregnant when she arrived in Washington in 1802. The father, Joe Fossett, was also enslaved,
and the couple endured a forced separation for most of the next six years. In January 1803,
Jefferson recorded a payment to the doctor who attended when Edy gave birth.
In July 1806, the child became ill, most likely with whooping cough. News of the illness seems to
have reached his father at Monticello, at which point he ran away from the plantation to be with
his wife and child in Washington, though he was eventually caught. He wasn't punished,
possibly because Jefferson felt sympathetic when the child died.
While they rarely saw each other, Edy and Joe managed to have two other children while she
was in Washington. They were named James and Maria. Both lived to adulthood after being born
at the White House. Edy and Joe had more children once she returned to Monticello; eight survived,
including Peter Fossett. After Jefferson's death, only Joe was freed, while Edy and their children
were sold. Eventually, Joe managed to buy freedom for Edy and five of their children.
In 1806, enslaved 18-year-old Frances Gillette Hern, known as "Fanny," was brought to Washington
by Thomas Jefferson to assist her sister-in-law Edy Fossett in the kitchens. Fanny's husband David
Hern stayed at Monticello, which evidently put a strain on their marriage. However,
they did see each other twice a year when he brought carts of supplies to the White House,
and it's believed that she had two children in the servants' quarters of the building.
Almost nothing is known about these children, though,
beyond correspondences indicating that at least one of them died at a young age. On November 7,
1808, Jefferson wrote to Edmund Bacon, the overseer of Monticello,
asking him to inform David that his child had died of whooping cough three days earlier.
In 1828, John Quincy Adams was president, and his son John Adams II was recently married.
His wife Mary Catherine Hellen ended up getting pregnant almost immediately. John Quincy's wife
Louisa Adams was worried because Mary refused to get any exercise and complained endlessly.
But the younger couple lived in Washington with the president and first lady until Mary
gave birth to a daughter named Mary Louisa Adams in the White House on December 2, 1828.
"Oh, see the baby. Again with the baby."
Alas, Mary Louisa's mother didn't seem particularly interested in her daughter,
though she was doted upon by her grandparents. Louisa took on much of the mothering role in
the girl's life, even comforting her through the night while she was teething. And John
Quincy bought her everything from toys to Bibles to a silver cup for her christening
that's now in the Smithsonian collection. The Smithsonian is also home to a portrait
commissioned when Mary Louisa was about 7 years old. John Quincy also regularly tutored
his granddaughter in math and languages. In 1853, Mary Louisa married a man named William Johnson,
and they had two children before she died on July 16, 1859 at the age of 30.
Mary Emily Donelson was a grand-niece of President Andrew Jackson through his marriage to his wife
Rachel. Recently widowed when he entered the White House in 1829, Jackson brought his nephew Andrew
Jackson Donelson with him to act as his private secretary. His wife Emily and their young son,
who was also named after the president, moved into the White House with them.
Shortly after settling in, Emily discovered that she was pregnant with her second child.
Born on August 31, 1829, Mary Emily Donelson would claim for the rest of her life that she was the
first baby ever born at the White House. She had shown that she wasn't concerned with accurate
details of her birth from an early age. According to the book Emily Donelson of Tennessee, she
changed her own name to "Mary Emily" from "Mary Rachel," which is what she'd been christened as.
Mary Emily eventually became involved in Washington politics, as she talked regularly with
various presidents and was appointed to positions in the Postal Service and the Treasury. In 1900,
she published a book about Christmas at the White House, including a story about
convincing President Jackson to hang his first-ever stocking on one Christmas Eve.
"Santa!"
John Samuel Donelson was born in the White House on May 18,
1832. He was both a grand-nephew and godson of President Andrew Jackson, and he was also the
second child of the Donelson family that was born there. He would also go on to be the only one of
his siblings present when President Jackson died in 1845 and the only one to attend his funeral.
John Samuel was lucky to survive his first year, as Washington, D.C. was suffering from a
major cholera epidemic at the time. President Jackson actually reportedly wrote that John
Samuel became ill around his first birthday, although this was only due to teething issues.
In 1854, John Samuel graduated from Yale University. When the Civil War began,
he joined the Confederacy and served with a Tennessee regiment. In September 1863,
they fought at Chickamauga. The Confederates won the battle,
but it ended up being the second-deadliest clash of the war, with John Samuel among the casualties.
Born on April 11, 1835, Rachel Jackson Donelson was the last of Emily Donelson's four children,
and the third of those children to be born in the White House. In addition to being a
grand-niece of Andrew Jackson, she was also goddaughter of future president James Polk.
While Rachel was a robust baby, her mother's health was quickly
deteriorating. After being unwell for many months, Emily Donelson died on December 19,
1836. She was 29, and her youngest child was not yet even 2 years old.
Later in life, Rachel moved to Texas, where she married, became widowed,
and then married again. She lived quietly, despite her association with the late president,
and had no children. Like her mother, she also ended up being sick for a long
time. Her condition eventually became so serious that she decided to risk having
an incredibly dangerous operation. She died soon afterwards, on March 22, 1888 at the age of 52.
Martin Van Buren was president when former First Lady Dolley Madison played matchmaker
for his son by introducing Abraham Van Buren to Angelica Singleton. She was a beautiful heiress
from a prominent family, the perfect match for the eldest son of the president. They married in 1838,
and after a honeymoon in Europe, they moved into the White House. Abraham served as his
father's private secretary, while Angelica acted as hostess for the widowed president.
"Her thorough, elite education would've prepared
her quite well for making intelligent conversation."
By 1839, Angelica was pregnant, and then on March 4, 1840, Rebecca Van Buren was born. Tragically,
though, both Angelica and Rebecca fell sick shortly afterwards. Angelica was able to recover,
but little Rebecca didn't make it. There's a bit of historical disagreement about the details,
as some sources record that she was six months old when she died,
while The National First Ladies Library says she was only five days old.
Despite this painful loss, Angelica became pregnant again almost immediately. Singleton
Van Buren was born in June 1841, three months after his grandfather left the White House.
When the Southern states officially decided to become the Confederacy in Alabama in 1861,
a journalist recorded the scene by writing,
"All Montgomery had flocked to Capitol Hill in holiday attire. Bells rang and cannon boomed,
and the throng [...] stood bareheaded as the fair Virginian threw that flag to the breeze."
The "fair Virginian" at the center of this display of treason was Leititia Tyler,
granddaughter of former president John Tyler. She'd been born in the White House
19 years earlier. Her father was Robert Tyler, a good friend of Edgar Allen Poe,
and her mother was a former actress named Elizabeth Priscilla Cooper.
John Tyler's wife Letitia Christian Tyler was an invalid. So when Robert moved with his father to
the White House to work as his private secretary, Priscilla took on the role of first lady. It was
during this time, on April 13, 1842, that the younger Letitia was born. She lived to be 82,
dying on July 22, 1924. She's buried alongside her youngest brother in Montgomery, Alabama,
the same place where she raised the first Confederate flag.
A grandson of John Tyler, Robert Tyler Jones was born in the White House on January 24,
1843. As a young man, Jones joined the Confederate side during the Civil War. He saw
action at Gettysburg and was part of the infamous Pickett's Charge during that infamous battle.
According to an account published in the magazine Confederate Veteran in 1894,
fellow soldier James T. Carter remembered Jones acting valiantly during the charge,
picking up the flag of the regiment after the man holding it had been killed.
Amazingly, Jones survived and was honored for his gallantry. He was later present at
Appomattox when General Robert E. Lee surrendered in 1865. He died on May 18, 1895 at the age of
52. His obituary incorrectly stated he was the only male child ever born in the White House.
When James K. Polk became president in 1845, he brought a close male relative with him to
the White House to serve as his private secretary, just as many presidents had before him. In Polk's
case, it was his nephew, Joseph Knox Walker. And it was in the White House on March 15,
1846, that Joseph's wife Augusta gave birth to their fourth child, Sarah "Sally" Walker.
Sally wrote about herself as a young girl in an article for the newspaper St. Louis
Republic. She called herself "a little queen" who was devoted to the president so much that
she would tend to get in the way. She admitted to a habit of infiltrating cabinet meetings and
also claimed that the president would try to find someone that he could hand the little girl off to.
When another child was born at the White House decades later, Sally sent a letter
to that child's mother, First Lady Frances Cleveland, essentially as a hello from one
White House baby to another. She hoped that the tradition would continue and that the
latest child would live on and eventually send greetings to another future White House baby.
"You gotta see the baby. When are you gonna see the baby?"
The second child of Joseph Knox Walker and Augusta Adams Tabb to be born in the White House during
President James K. Polk's administration was a son named Joseph Knox Walker Jr.,
who went by "Knox." He was born on December 9, 1847. In an article about her childhood,
Joseph's sister Sally explained that while she might have been a little queen, her younger
brother was a "baby king." She also noted that among all of their parents' 10 children,
"Knox was the pet lamb of the fold."
Sally also stated that some people said that Knox was the first boy born in the White House,
a claim that was repeated in several other sources. And just like when that claim was
made about President Tyler’s grandson, these “sources” are complete bunk.
On August 9, 1857, the Memphis Daily Appeal reported that Knox had recently died after
falling off a horse. While that obituary placed his age at 12 and a half, in reality,
he was only 10 years old. Sally wrote that her mother Augusta never recovered from the death of
her beloved boy, and that the tragedy contributed to Augusta's own death less than two years later.
Being able to say that you were born in the White House is certainly a fun fact,
but only one person in that group can also say that she went on to become an actual princess.
Julia Grant was born to President Ulysses S. Grant's son Frederick and his wife Ida on June 7,
1876. Her parents had been living with the president since their marriage two years earlier.
In her memoir My Life Here and There, published in 1921, Julia wrote of her White House birth,
"In a quiet room, its windows looking out under the great portico of the President's mansion,
a first child was born, an unusually large girl, 13 pounds of chubby health — myself."
"That's me!"
During President William McKinley's administration, Julia returned to the White House,
and the president showed her the location where she'd come into the world. Julia wasn't old
enough at the time to remember much about her experience living in Washington. But she was
able to recount the time that President Grant brought her to an official event,
with dignitaries greeting the large baby in the receiving line and even kissing her hand.
Julia lived in Europe when her father held a diplomatic post, and it was there that she
met the Russian Prince Michael Cantacuzene. They married in 1899, had three children,
and divorced in 1934. According to her obituary in The New York Times,
Julia remained involved in politics and society, attending events regularly,
even after losing most of her eyesight. She died on October 4, 1975 at the age of 99.
Grover Cleveland is the holder of several unique presidential accolades. He was the
first and thus far only president so far to be married in the White House,
as well as the first and only one to serve two non-consecutive terms. While
the inter-term birth of his eldest child Ruth might have been a more famous event,
it was his second daughter Esther who was and still is the only child of a sitting
president to be born in the White House. When her younger sister Marion arrived two years later,
their father was still president, though her birth happened in Massachusetts. And though Jackie
Kennedy also gave birth while she was the first lady decades later, she did so in a hospital.
Esther would remain famous for her place of birth, as it was mentioned in many newspaper
articles about her, including the one in The New York Times about her social debut when she
was 19. But she almost wasn't even born there in the first place. A few months before she arrived,
the president had a secret operation and was recovering away from Washington with
his family. They reportedly arrived back at the White House on September 1, 1893, and First Lady
Frances Cleveland gave birth exactly one week later. In 1918, Esther married a British Army
officer at Westminster Abbey in London. She lived to be 86, dying on June 25, 1980 in New Hampshire.
Francis B. Sayre Jr. was born in the White House on January 17, 1915. His mother Jessie was the
daughter of President Woodrow Wilson. As a young man, Sayre went to divinity school and became an
Episcopal reverend. That led to him serving as a chaplain on a ship during World War II. In 1951,
he became dean of Washington, D.C.'s National Cathedral, a position that he held for 27
years and which gave him an important, though unofficial, voice in U.S. politics.
While Woodrow Wilson is infamous for his racism, his grandson at least attempted to make up for it
with his emphatic and demonstrative opposition to segregation. He participated in the 1965 voting
rights march in Alabama that Martin Luther King Jr. organized, and he was also on the
President's Committee on Equal Employment during the John F. Kennedy Administration. Sayre was also
an early and loud critic of Senator Joseph McCarthy. As he put it during a 1954 sermon,
"There is a devilish indecision about any society that will permit an impostor like
McCarthy to caper out front while the main army stands idly by."
"Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”
A decade later, Sayre spoke out against the Vietnam War. He also served for three years
as the head of the United States Committee for Refugees. He retired in 1977 and lived
another three decades, passing away at the age of 93 on October 3, 2008.