Jim!

Get my bags!

Can I help you I need a room and a history lesson I think we can accommodate that It’s funny how people think that history is boring but do we even know what’s going on inside these pages?

It’s still being written, and it’s packed with wild stories and unexpected twists.

I’m here to tell you the stories behind the history.

It’s complicated, messy, and oftentimes, bizarre, and strange.

You are bound to learn that this is not your average history lesson.

I’m Christine Darrow, but you can call me.

(Music Playing) "Christine The History Queen" Theme Song Before I visited Ogdenburg, New York, other super famous people visited here, too And the owners here at the Sherman Inn have a way of telling guests all about them Jim and Donna Reagan have transformed this historic school into an inn where each guest room is a tribute to a presidential visit So this is a picture of what the Sherman Inn looked like when it was first built 130 years ago.

As you can see, there was a fire in 1949, and this is the fire department battling the fire And we’ve actually had guests stay with us who were among the children, who were evacuated from the building at the time of the fire.

And they’ve told us that the origin of the fire was traced to the sixth grade boys’ bathroom.

So they built a new school inside the brick exterior.

And that’s why We have these double thick walls, which helps keep it warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.

to get the deets, I visited my friend Julie.

How many presidents visited the city of Ogdensburg?

There are nine, believe it or not Nine U.S.

presidents visiting the city of Ogdensburg Yeah, there’s gonna be a lot of surprised people We have parties, Cleveland, Monroe, Grant, Harrison, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Van Buren and Hoover Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Van Buren, and Hoover For me, the jewel of the Sherman Inn is their vast research library where I can access information about our local history Now, this is our library, and guests are encouraged to curl up with a book here in our library.

We have a lot of Ogdensburg history, a lot of U.S.

history, a lot of children’s books from 100 years ago.

We have Ogdensburg Yearbooks, and we have books like the President’s Daughter which helped tell the story of Warren G. Harding, who’s one of the presidents we’re going to talk about in a few minutes Harding was here in 1918 because he was on the shitakwa circuit.

And so back then, if you were somebody who wanted to be somebody, you would do these talks, and you would go on the train and they would take you to these different communities.

You would do these speeches.

And that’s how people got to know you, because there’s no internet, there’s no television.

So the only way to get to really know somebody was through a newspaperpaper or through seeing them, actually seeing them in person.

While he was at it, he thought he would bring his girlfriend, Carrie Phillips.

And he and Carrie had had a relationship for a really long time.

She was married to someone else.

He’s married but they carried on all over the place.

They went to Europe together.

They were everywhere And so he brought her here.

And that was not the only girlfriend that he traveled with at various times.

Harding was kind of a scoundrel.

He had a number of girlfriends.

He was involved in a number of scandals.

He was part of the Ohio gang and this was kind of the Tammany Hall of Ohio.

And they basically got him elected.

And once they got him elected, they expected things in return.

One of the biggest scandals was the Teapot Dome scandal with Albert Fall, Secretary of the Interior, who basically was allowing these companies to go under government land and drove for oil illegally.

So that was just one of the scandals.

And Harding claimed to know nothing about any of these scandals but he was very well aware of what they were doing.

And so when he came to Ogdensburg, supposedly he was just doing this shitakwa tour and bringing the girlfriend along for fun.

But we’ve long moved past presidential scandals President Harrison’s visit was way less sleazy, but still managed to throw some shade Now, President Benjamin Harrison got the memorial upstairs closet, ’cause he’s the only president I found who came to Ogdensburg.

He came on the passenger train back when we had passenger service but he didn’t come out of the train.

He didn’t wave to the people, he didn’t go to the caboose and say hi.

But when he got to Malone, 60 miles down the track, he came out and gave a big speech now for a more wholesome trip to Ogdensburg.

Jim filled me in on Grant’s visit So this is our Ulysses Grant suite, and Ulysses Grant came to Ogdensburg in 1876 and dedicate what’s now our U.S.

Post Office over on State Street, which in those days was also the U.S.

courthouse, the U. US.

Marshal’s Office, the U.S.

Attorney’s Office the U. US.

Magistrate’s Office, the U.S.

Customs Service, it had jail cells in the basement, which got a lot of use during Prohibition, because Ogdensburg was a major smuggling center all during Prohibition And this is a map of some of the battles that Ulysses Grant was involved in during the Civil War.

These were old school maps.

Ulysses Grant came in 1872 because we had just built the federal courthouse, which today is the post office, still standing on State Street, and that housed all kinds of federal offices.

So it had customs, the post office, there were jail cells, there was a courthouse.

And so he was here to dedicate that building He came with General Sheridan, which I thought was pretty cool from a Friend of his from the Civil War They came by a steamer called the Ada and there was a 21 gun salute when he came and all the tugboats were tooting their horns.

when they got off of the steamer there was a carriage waiting for them.

So they get in the carriage and they come down the street, down down Ford Street, and there are flags everywhere.

And people who didn’t have flags had buntings And the people that didn’t have buntings had these rolls of flannel in red, white, and blue from every single building, building, every window.

Apparently, the streets were just covered in flags So this is the Franklin Roosevelt Suite and Franklin Roosevelt came to Ogensburg at least four times that I know of He came the first time in 1920, and he gave this speech about the need for the League of Nations.

He came again when he was running for governor, he came again when he was governor, and then he came again in August of 1940, and he met with Mackenzie King, the prime minister of Canada.

In August of 1940,, England and Canada, were war with NAZI Germany.

The U.S.

was still trying to stay neutral in the war in Europe There was a lot of concern Hitler had begun daily bombings all through England, and there was a lot of concern that England could fall The British had a secret plan to evacuate the royal family in the Gold reserves and bring them to Canada and continue the war from Canada if England fell to the Germans.

So during the meeting here at Ogdensburg Roosevelt and Mackenzie King reached what they called the Ogdensburg Agreement that said, if either nation was attacked, the other nation would come to their defense.

That led after the end of World War II to the establishment of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

That led to the distant, early warning system, the DU Line, which was radar installations along the Arctic Circle to track Russian bombers coming over.

That led to NORAD, the North American air defense system to track intercontinental ballistic missiles coming over the North Pole And that, that led to our ability to track Santa Claus when he comes down from the North Pole.

Now there are people who are like, come on, Jim.

Santa Claus, Ogensburg Agreement.

Isn’t that a bit of a stretch?

Well, all I know is if you check, you’ll find that National Public Radio did a story with the same chain of events, so it’s not just me.

The Ogensburg Agreement Fill us in, what Did that entail Okay, so he met with the Prime Minister of the Prime Minister of Canada, and they met in a railroad car, and this was at the beginning of World War II.

Roosevelt and the Prime Minister of Canada could see that war was coming And so they wanted to make sure that the the Western hemisphere was going to be protected.

in case war did come And so They made an agreement on this train car.

There’s some dispute about where they actually were on the train car.

They were on the tracks, but local historians are kind of arguing over how close close were they to Ogdensburg or how close were they to Heuvelton So the Heuvelton people think it should be called the Heuvelton Agreement, and the Ogdensburg people think it should be the Ogdensburg Agreement.

So there’s a little bit of a rivalry going on there But what they did was they formed this basically defense board so that if problems did come that they would be protected.

Everything would go before this board and they would work for the common defense So let’s go back to the Ogdensburg agreement.

What was the climate at the time?

Like, there must have been stuff that led up to the need for FDR to come visit Ogdensburg to hash all this out The U.S.

government could see like the Germans are taking control of Europe.

And If we don’t do something now, that’s going to continue.

They’re going to keep going.

And the other thing is, is the Japanese, were starting to go into into China they also were on the move.

And so, you know, they could read the writing on the wall that bad things were happening, and we’d better get ahead of it.

And so that’s the reason for the Ogdensburg agreement Why Ogdensburg?

Like, why didn’t FDR visit Canada?

Why didn’t the Prime Minister come to Washington, DC?

Well, he had been governor here and had visited here before.

We were a major port town at that time and our proximity to Canada really was just the perfect place for him to go If you’re looking for a more classical feel, the Monroe Suite is dedicated to the President’s 1817 visit.

This is the James Monroe suite, and James Monroe came to Ogdensburg in 1817.

He was one of the founding fathers.

He helped write the Constitution.

He was ambassador to France.

He was Secretary of War during the War of 1812, when Ogdensburg was captured by the Canadians and the British when they came across the frozen St.

Lawrence in 1813.

So as president, four years later, he came up here on horseback as part of a tour of the northern border in order to figure out how to do a better job of protecting the northern border in case we got into another war with the Canadians and the British.

He had lunch at what’s now the Frederick Remington Art Museum, which was the parish mansion back then.

James Monroe visited in 1817 on horseback, which I think is pretty cool This was a three month long tour If we’re looking at the 1817 date, this was not too long after the War of 1812.

So he was checking out the lay of the land.

He wanted to see this part of the country Canada was still a colony of Britain, and Britain was, you know, the big bad wolf, and they’re sort of on our doorstep still.

And so he wanted to Basically set up defense along the border so that Britain couldn’t attack us again or we would know He wanted to promote prosperity.

He wanted to strengthen national security at that time.

And at that time, sectionalism was really becoming prominent.

And I think he kind of wanted to see, well, what’s up with the Northeast what kinds of things do they need from a central government?

And I think that’s part of his tour as well.

Just kind of seeing what this area was like The other thing about Monroe is that he did visit the parish mansion, which today is the Frederick Remington Art Museum.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

And there were everybody who was anybody turned out in town to see him because he was a sitting president at the time And Louis Hasbrook, who was one of the earliest settlers of Ogdensburg He later was elected to the assembly He was was the county clerk.

He was the first, one of the earliest village presidents in Ogdensburg was there to greet him.

So that was a pretty big deal for Ogdensburg If you are staying in Ogdensburg, chances are you’re an avid outdoorsman just like Teddy Roosevelt So this is our Teddy Roosevelt suite, and this is one of my pride and joys.

This is an actual copy of a drawing of Teddy Roosevelt speaking at the Ogdensburg Fair in 1899.

Harper’s magazine sent an artist up here and shows very various scenes of things that were happening that day at the fair.

And this is a copy of the speech that Teddy gave during his visit here A lot of people don’t realize that Teddy Roosevelt was friends with Frederick Remington, the artist.

Teddy had a ranch in the Old West Frederick Remington had a ranch in the Old West.

Neither one of them were any good at ranching in the Old West, but together, they did this book and Remington did 83 illustrations for this book and it helped solidify his reputation as an artist of the Old West, and it helped solidify Teddy’s reputation as a rough and ready man of the Old West, even though Teddy grew up in Manhattan, went to Harvard, and was the New York City Police Commissioner when he ran for governor.

The But Teddy also led the charge of the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill during the Spanish American War and won the Medal of Honor.

Frederick Remington just happened to get the commission to do the painting of that historic event, which happened to come out a year before Teddy ran for governor.

Now, these bedss were made by local Amish community.

They were made of hickory, and I thought I was going to die carrying them up the stairs.

So, Jim, I see here that you have an autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt.

Cool thing.

This is actually originally belonged to somebody from my hometown in Gouverneur.

Dated December 25th, 1913.

This was somebody’s Christmas present.

Yeah.

And you just let guests go ahead and read antiques.

Oh, yeah.

The- that’s one of the charms of the Sherman Inn is a lot of our guests who come and stay with us.

If you read the reviews that they leave, they say they sort of felt like they were staying in a museum during their visit, but it’s a museum where they feel very much at home, and many of them say they came as strangers, but left as friends, and that makes us very proud.

certainly have a lot of knowledge of Teddy Roosevelt.

Well, we have actually several books on Teddy Roosevelt in this room, and, you know, Teddys spent a lot of time in the Adirondacks.

In fact, when he found out he was president after McKinley died, he was in the Adirondacks, and he had to rush to the train station in Newcomb, New York, and in Newcomb, New York, they still celebrate Teddydy Roosevelt Day to remember when Teddy came to the train station to catch the train to go to Buffalo to be sworn in as president So Teddy Roosevelt came here in 1898, and that’s during the time of the Spanish American War.

So he’s here in October.

The Spanish American War began in April, and so the war basically had just gotten over.

It was a very short war.

He spoke at the Opera House.

So the Opera House is located where City Hall is today.

And it was a political meeting for the Republican Party.

There were 137 men who escorted him back to the city.

And the Rough Riders were part of that crew.

So I thought that was neat that the Rough Riders were actually here in Ogdensburg, too.

So there was a crowd, a huge crowd at the depot waiting for them.

And when he got off the train, there were fireworks.

There were electric cars back in 1898 that took him to the Seymour house Now, this is our globe in which our guests put pins where they’re from, and they’ve come from all over the world, all seven continents, including Australia.

We’ve had guests from across the US This is our Grover Cleveland suite, and Grover Cleveland came to Ogdensburg in 1883.

And this is a copy of the speech that he gave during his visit here A lot of people don’t know that Grover was also the father of an illegitimate child when he ran for president It was brought up that he had fathered a child out of wedlock, which, in the 1880s, was a serious issue in a campaign.

and the opposition party would chant at rallies, " pa pa, where’s my pa?"

And after the election, at he won, Grover’s supporters would chant, "Gone to Washington, ha ha ha.

They were snarky back then, right?

Oh, people think that, you know, campaigns got ugly in this day and age.

In those days, they were much more vicious.

Now, this is a map of St.

Lawrence County in 1896.

And if you look very closely, you can see the names of the families that lived on the rural roads.

And a lot of our guests come here and they say, "Oh, my gosh, there’s my great grandfatherather’s farm And it’s something that a lot of our guests really enjoy between that and our library, they can do it a lot of research about their family history right here at Sherman Inn.

What year is this map 1896.

That’s really impressive.

And you’re not worried about people touching the map or anything?

It’s been up for five years.

It’s almost like staying in the night in a museum.

People People have been are very respectful about what we have here.

And you know, they really have been very good about appreciating what we have to offer.

And one of the things that Don and I are proud of is that they feel there’s a lot to look at when they go into the rooms, and they spend a lot of time just looking at what we have and what is featured here.

Enough about wealthy, powerful men.

Let’s hear about the notable women who visited Ogdensburg.

These are some of the famous women who either lived in Ogdensburg or visited Ogdensburg, like Anna Howard Shaw, who was a famous suffragette, who gave an important speech here in Ogdensburg about the rights of women, Helen Keller, who was a very important figure in the fight for the Rights of the Disabled.

She She was blind and came came to Ogdensburg and spoke here.

Mary Williamson Averell Harriman was, at one time the richest woman in America, and she was from Ogdensburg.

And she was very generous to Ogdensburg.

After her husband died, he left his fortune to her, and she was responsible for saving many of the national parks and state parks here in New York, and just did a great deal for charitable purposes and was one of the big funders of the Earth early Boys Club movement, which became the Boys and Girls Club movement If you didn’t learn enough about Ogdensburg history in your guest room A visit to the dining room should do the trick The last battle of the French and Indian War, which was fought off the shore of Ogdensburg In 1760, the British were able to capture Fort La presentation, but they also fought a naval battle off the shore.

This is a painting in which the person who painted it was a soldier on one of the British gunboats, and he painted it from memory after the war.

And the French had a island fortress downstream on what we now call Chimney Island, which was Fort Lévis, and served as an unsinkable battleship for the French, and a last stand for the French during the French and Indian War.

300 Frenchmen stood off 12,000 British colonials and natives in one of the last the last battle of the French and Indian War.

And unfortunately, everyone has forgotten it because the British and the colonials wrote that the history, and they really didn’t care about these French heroes who stood in their path for 12 days.

This is a drawing of old Otensburg in 1876, which shows how much growth there was during that almost 100 year period with so much of America’s history centered in St.

Lawrence County, I caught up with the chamber to see how they’re promoting their cultural resources So this is an exciting time for us to be talking about the history of St.

Lawrence County and its connection to current society in that the 250th anniversary of the nation is coming up and we, of course, have a lot of connection to the formation and the foundation of the country and going back past the Revolutionary War to the War of 1812 and pioneering eras So Across St.

Lawrence County there is going to be a huge push to bring together all of the historical assets that we have here, all the great sites, all the great activities, events.

I think the reenactments, you’ll see more of the reenactments here as reenactments of the Civil War and the French and Indian War and other conflicts are presented in reenactments.

You’ll see a lot of thematic activity happening across the many museums and historical sites across all 38 communities of St.

Lawrence county the historic sites such as Fort de la Fort de La Présentation, which was the site of many interactions during the French and Indian War, in our relation to Canada to understand what our role is in national history with the Canadian border in our place here on the St.

Lawrence River as these things become aware to us, as we come to understand them, we can better understand why this place is so unique and has such, had such a dramatic effect on the development of our society, not just here in St.

Lawrence County and northern New York, but across the whole world Whether you’re looking for a presidential retreat or just checking out the fights around Ainsburg, I’m your host, Christine Darrow, checking out.

(Music) "Christine The History Queen" Theme song