Party Like It's 1895

It's Presidents' Day, and I'm really wishing that my great-grandfather G. Oliver Riggs had kept a journal.  Then I might know more about what it was like for him to party with the Lincolns in 1895.  Instead, I have to rely on accounts from the Mount Pleasant (Iowa) Journal.  

Here's what I know: Abraham Lincoln's daugther-in-law, Mary Harlan Lincoln, (wife of Robert), hired Riggs to provide the musical entertainment for parties held in honor of her daughters, Mary and Jessie, in the fall of 1895 at the family's second home, now known as the Harlan-Lincoln house, on the edge of the Iowa Wesleyan College campus.

Riggs was a professor of music at the Iowa Wesleyan University Conservatory of Music, where he also organized and directed the Cadet Band.  He taught at the school from 1892-96 and from 1910-11. 

This line drawing of Riggs is from the 1893 Mount Pleasant city directory.

Of the party given in honor of Mary Lincoln Isham, the Oct. 17, 1895 newspaper article says:  “The large library was transformed into a tempting dance hall, and the trained and graceful feet of the initiated kept time to the rhythmic movement of Prof. Riggs’ orchestra.”    

Lynn Ellsworth, the college archivist who tipped me off to the Riggs-Lincoln connection, said the newspaper printed an accompanying story about how the Methodist school did not permit dancing, and college students were to leave before the dancing.  But two girls stayed and were expelled from class for one week.

As my dad says, the Riggs orchestra music must have been so good for dancing, people were willing to risk expulsion! 

An article in the Nov. 7, 1895 issue of the Journal describes the party Mary Harlan Lincoln hosted for her younger daughter, Jessie.

“Wed., evening of this week the hospitable home of Mrs. Robert Lincoln was again thrown open to the young people of our city; this time in honor of Miss Lincoln’s birthday.  The guests were bidden to come in Domino and mask, which resulted, as expected, in adding gayety (sic) to the occasion.

The floral decorations of the spacious rooms were of chrysanthemums in great profusion, with vines, palms, and ferns.  The long library with its perfectly smooth and polished floor was used for dancing.  Prof. Riggs’ orchestra in an alcove opening into this room was concealed behind a bower of palms and ferns ...”

 
G. Oliver was born in 1870, and was a contemporary of the Lincoln granddaughters, born in 1869 and 1875, respectively (their brother, Jack, was born in 1873 and died in 1890).  It's cool to know that he played for them, and it's even more meaningful knowing that G. Oliver's father, Jasper Riggs, fought for the Union during the Civil War, as a member of the 45th Illinois Infantry.

I don't have any reason to think the families had any other connection, but it is interesting to note that G. Oliver's grandparents, Harrison Riggs (born 1801) and Juliet Froman (born 1807), were of the same generation as Abraham Lincoln (born 1809), and, like Lincoln, were born in Kentucky and moved to Illinois.  Harrison and Juliet were among the earliest U.S. government-approved settlers of Mercer County, Illinois, and they built the first log cabin in Millersburg Township in 1834.

It would be fun to know more about those parties at the Harlan-Lincoln house.  Did the Lincolns compliment G. Oliver on the music?  Did they have any song requests?  What kind of refreshments were served?  It would also be interesting to know how much G. Oliver was paid for providing the orchestra (he couldn't have been paid in money with Lincoln's face on it; the first $5 bill with Lincoln's portrait debuted in 1914, and the Lincoln cent wasn't minted until 1909).

The moral of the story here is this: write down stories about your life for your descendants.  Even if you don't think it's all that compelling, you never know what they will find interesting.

And now for the Sarah Vowell-Assassination Vacation-inspired postscript:
Robert Todd Lincoln, as you may know, had the misfortune to be at or near the assassinations of three presidents:
• his father's (Robert declined an invite to go to Ford's Theatre and stayed at the White House that fateful evening in 1865)
• James Garfield's (Robert was Garfield's secretary of war and was at the train station when Garfield was shot in 1881)
• William McKinley's (Robert was at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY, where McKinley was shot in 1901)

Turns out, G. Oliver Riggs can be tied to all three presidents, too, in a tenuous, musical way:
• Lincoln: As I've already mentioned, G. Oliver provided music for the parties of the two Lincoln granddaughters in 1895.
• Garfield: Before he became president, Garfield served in the Union Army, and fought in battles at Shiloh and Chickamauga.  In November 1906, G. Oliver Riggs played cornet in the 55th Iowa Regimental Band, which went on a tour dedicating the Iowa monuments at several Southern battlefields, including Shiloh and Chickamauga.
• McKinley: G. Oliver's Crookston Municipal Band played for McKinley when he made a brief stop in Fargo in October 1899.

	I don't know if Robert Todd Lincoln had a connection to John F. Kennedy, the only other U.S. president to be assassinated.  But G. Oliver Riggs did.  One of his former St. Cloud Boys' Band pupils, U.S. Army Band Assistant Director Chester Heinzel, was the officer in charge of a strings group that performed at White House state dinners during the Kennedy administration.  Heinzel also participated in President Lyndon B. Johnson's Inaugural parade.