Millard Fillmore's Bathtub

[Swede_Hollow]

From a recent article by Cecil:

Many people today believe that Fillmore’s greatest accomplishment while in office was the installation of the first bathtub in the White House. Alas, this turns out to have been a cruel hoax, perpetrated by newspaperman H.L. Mencken. On December 28, 1917, he included the Fillmore yarn in a column he wrote for the New York Evening Mail. So many people believed the column, a bogus history of plumbed bathtubs, that Mencken was forced to write a second and third column denying the first one. Unfortunately, people preferred the hoax to the truth, and to this day trivia books and even a few encyclopedias perpetuate the error. Cecil is glad to set the record straight here. The Fillmore legend has no need of embroidering.

Well, that’s all well and good to try to eliminate an historical error, but who DID put the first bathtub in the White House and when?

[cdhostage]

I dunno, but the Taft story is much more interesting. President Taft was a rather large fellow. There’s a rumor that he once got stuck inside a diner train that he barely made it into, and had to wait a few hours to digest before being able to come out. Rumor, remember.

Anywhoo, this is a fact - his brother started a school, the Taft School. It’s been in Watertown, Connecticut, for quite some time now. I don’t believe it started there, but while President Taft was in office, it was in Watertown. Anyway, Headmaster Taft deicded to put in a few bathtubs that would accomodate President Taft’s size. And he DID visit once in a while.

This I know is true because I have seen one of these giant honking bathtubs.

Then again, it’s just a reasonable size. I’ve never taken a bath successfully because I’m far too long, and have very little clearance on the sides of a standard tub.

[Arnold_Winkelried]

As occurs all too often, it seems that there is no definitive answer.
White House Plumbing
(First published in July 1989, P & M [Plumbing and Mechanical] magazine; the site says “we have received written permission to reprint”)
The article mentions several theories:[ul][li]James Madison (1809-17) installed a bathtub in 1814 but water had to be carried to it by a bucket.[/li][li]James Monroe (1817-25) purchased the first tub—a tin cylinder—for $20 or $30.[/li][li]Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), Martin van Buren (1837-1841) are also likely suspects.[/li][li]The Portsmouth Ohio Times, in 1932, gave credit to Abraham Lincoln (1861-65).[/li][li]Perhaps Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881) - his wife is supposed to have insisted on a bathtub.[/li][li]White House Chief Usher Ike Hoover, in a 1934 Saturday Evening Post article, gave credit to Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885).[/ul][/li]Additional information can be found in the article.

[Arnold_Winkelried]

The article also says

William Howard Taft (1909-13), who at 330 pounds was too hefty to fit into a standard-sized tub, had a custom tub built for his extra-large frame. After it was manufactured, four men fit inside the tub for a photograph.

[John_Bredin]

“I dunno, but the Taft story is much more interesting. President Taft was a rather large fellow. There’s a rumor that he once got stuck inside a diner train that he barely made it into, and had to wait a few hours to digest before being able to come out. Rumor, remember.”

Another funny Taft story: when Taft was younger (but still fat) and a practicing lawyer, he was sent to handle a case in some podunk town. When the case was done, he wanted to get home as fast as he could, but the next train to serve the little town wasn’t going to be for hours. He knew from the schedule that a fast train was due through the town in an hour or so, but it wasn’t going to stop there. He had a brainstorm – he asked the station agent if that train would stop for a “large party”. The agent thought he meant a tour group or the like, so he wired for the fast train to stop in the town. When it did, there was Taft on the platform. The conductor asked where the large party was, and Taft said that he WAS the large party and the train could leave now.