The Event that Put Plymouth on Touring Maps
By Jennie Shurtleff
A century ago, tourists were flocking to Vermont. The explosion in popularity of the automobile, made remote places accessible, and many people spent their time touring - driving from one scenic location to another. One of the main Vermont destinations in 1923 was the remote town of Plymouth, Vermont.
Plymouth had been catapulted from relative obscurity into the national spotlight with the sudden and unexpected death of President Warren Harding from a heart attack, that left his Vice President, John Calvin Coolidge Jr., as the 30th President of the United States.
Coolidge, who was born and grew up in Plymouth, Vermont, was actually in his hometown visiting his family when he learned of Harding’s death. Since the Coolidge’s home lacked both telephone and electricity, the news came by messenger in the middle of the night. Calvin Coolidge’s father, a notary public and justice of the peace, administered the oath of office to his son, at 2:47 AM on August 3, 1923, in the family parlor which was illuminated by just a kerosene lamp.
Above: President John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.
Notman Studio, Boston. Restoration by User:Adam Cuerden, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The day after Coolidge took the oath of office, he returned to Washington, DC, and he was quietly administered the oath for a second time, this time by one of the Supreme Court justices. This was likely done to remove any doubt that Coolidge had legitimately been sworn into office in case the legitimacy of his presidency was ever questioned.
Within days, the small New England village of Plymouth, Vermont, became a point of interest for tourists who wanted to see the Coolidge home and the town where the new president had been born and raised. It appears that the old-time, homey mystique of the swearing-in ceremony had captured people’s attention, and they wanted to learn more about their new President.
The Coolidge home in Plymouth, Vermont.
Magicpiano, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The August 3, 1923, issue of the Vermont Standard states:
“Plymouth has been put on the tourists’ map since Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office as President of the United States in the farmhouse there, where he passed his boyhood and where his father now resides. Everybody wants to see the President’s home and the cross-roads hamlet has seen more automobiles in the last two weeks than have appeared in years in the place all together. Traffic that formerly came north from Manchester through the valley of the Otter now climbs Peru mountain and goes up to Plymouth via Ludlow, and northbound traffic from Boston and White Mountain points detours through the Black River Valley at Ludlow instead of coming to Rutland.
Thousands of rolls of film have been used in taking photographs of the Coolidge house since the day the wires flashed the news that President Harding had died. But it is the postcard vendors who are reaping a rich harvest out of the fact that Calvin Coolidge was in the place of his birth when he received words that he was to ascend to the nation’s highest office. One firm in Rutland is printing a thousand picture postal cards a day for the Plymouth trade and others are filling large orders regularly to fill the demand created by Tourists who want as souvenirs evidence as to what the camera saw on the occasion when Coolidge qualified as the nation’s chief.”
Above: A 1923 postcard printed in Rutland, Vermont, that shows the hamlet of Plymouth.
While tourists do not flock to Plymouth as they did during the opening days of Coolidge’s presidency, the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site in Plymouth Notch provides visitors with a variety of opportunities to see the historic village, which looks much the way it did while Coolidge was alive. The hamlet also boasts a Museum and Education Center that has exhibits that shed light on both Coolidge’s personal and political life and the momentous event of Coolidge’s swearing-in that took place 100 years ago.