On July 1, 1893, President Grover Cleveland vanished. He boarded a friend’s yacht, sailed into Long Island Sound, and disappeared. He would not be heard from again for five days. What happened during those five days was so incredible that, even when the truth was finally revealed, many Americans simply could not believe it. The episode remains one of the most brazen and bizarre cover-ups in the history of the U.S. presidency.
Author Matthew Algeo tells the full story of this incredible conspiracy for the first time in his book The President Is a Sick Man. It’s 1893 in America and the country is caught up in the Panic of 1893. Until the Great Depression, the Panic of ‘93 was considered the worst depression the United States had ever experienced.
To top it all off, what started out as a sore throat for newly re-elected President Grover Cleveland had developed into a dull aching pain throughout his mouth. Cleveland sought the advice of White House doctor, Major Robert O’Reilly, about soreness in his mouth; specifically the presence of a crater-edged lesion with a bumpy surface on the left side of the roof of his mouth. Samples of the tumor were sent anonymously to the Army Medical Museum. The diagnosis was not a malignant cancer, but instead a lesio epithelioma. Cancerous or not, Cleveland knew immediately that this could be bad. He had been here before.
When first elected President in 1884, he served a four year term before being defeated by Indiana’s own Benjamin Harrison and, in turn, defeating “Lil Ben” for the nation’s highest office in 1892. To this day Cleveland is our nation’s only non-consecutive term chief executive. During his first go-round, the press got hold of a scandal charging that Cleveland, as a young lawyer in Buffalo, had fathered an illegitimate child. Cleveland’s instructions to his campaign staff about the charges were: “Tell the truth.” Cleveland admitted to paying child support in 1874 to the woman who claimed he fathered her child. In truth, the woman was involved with several men at the time, including Cleveland’s law partner, and did not know who was the father. Cleveland assumed responsibility because he was the only bachelor among them.
Cleveland knew any medical revelations must remain secret so as not to panic the already jumpy American people. Not wanting to add undue panic to the financial depression of the country, Cleveland decided to have surgery performed in secrecy. On July 1, under the guise of a vacation cruise, Cleveland and his surgeon, Dr. Joseph Bryant, left for New York aboard a friend’s yacht. The operation was performed aboard the yacht Oneida as it sailed into Long Island Sound. President Grover Cleveland simply vanished. He disappeared and would not be heard from for five days
The invasive surgery was conducted through the president’s mouth, not unlike a dental procedure, to avoid any scars or other visible signs of surgery. Cleveland was sedated with nitrous oxide and ether, while surgeons successfully removed parts of his upper left jaw and hard palate. The size of the tumor and the extent of the operation left Cleveland’s mouth disfigured. In a subsequent surgery, an orthodontist fitted Cleveland with a hard rubber prosthesis that corrected his speech and restored his appearance. All of the doctors and attendants involved in the covert surgery were sworn to secrecy.
In an effort to dissuade any nosy newsmen, a story was released that President Cleveland had two troublesome teeth removed. However, word got out eventually. But even after a newspaper story appeared giving full details of the President’s secret operation, the participating surgeons played it off as no big deal. In 1917, one of the surgeons present on the Oneida, Dr. William W. Keen, wrote an article detailing the operation.
I spoke with journalist and author Matthew Algeo by phone from his Washington, D.C. home. Matthew writes about unusual and interesting events in American history but his lifestyle would seem more conducive to novels of political intrigue and cold war spy stories. His wife Allyson works for the United States government as a Foreign Service officer which leads the couple all over the world together.
Algeo has written three books; Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip, Last Team Standing: How the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles — The “Steagles” — Saved Pro Football During World War II, and The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth.
I asked Matthew how he got interested in the Presidential tumor, he laughed and said, “I don’t really remember when I first heard about the operation itself. I knew about it for awhile because I had a thick book on Presidential facts that I often poked through. But it was a trip to the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia that triggered the book.“
The Mutter Museum contains a macabre collection of medical oddities, anatomical and pathological specimens, wax models, and antique medical equipment. The museum is part of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The original purpose of the collection, donated by Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter in 1858, was medical research and education. The museum boasts a collection of teratological specimens (preserved human fetal specimens) donated to science including a piece of tissue removed from the thorax of Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, the conjoined liver from the famous Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker, a section of the brain of Charles J. Guiteau who assassinated President James A. Garfield, and the malignant tumor removed from President Grover Cleveland’s mouth.
I explained to Mr. Algeo that I too had visited the Mutter and found it intriguing but ultimately had to sit down several times to compose myself. Some of the displays are, well, lets just say intense. Again, Matthew laughed and said, “Yes, it is an eyeful for first-time visitors.“ But it was the sight of that lump of tissue suspended in a jar of murky liquid that spurred his latest book. “I was fascinated with the whole story and it started right there. The people there were very accommodating with the papers of one of the doctors involved, and that led me to the reporter who was dismissed for breaking the story and basically had his life ruined because of it.” Matthew continued, “Besides, it was about medicine, politics and intrigue. What could be better?”
Matthew Algeo is no rookie writer. His previous book, Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure, was named one of the best books of 2009 by the Washington Post. Algeo is also a journalist. Originally from Philadelphia, Algeo has reported from three continents, and his stories have appeared on some of the most popular public radio programs countrywide. Algeo’s writing is real, it speaks to everyone and remains fresh and topical although his subjects, in most cases, are long dead. No doubt Algeo’s life experience as a convenience store clerk, gas station attendant, Halloween costume salesman, and proofreader shape his writing style. Oh, did I mention that he also worked in a traveling circus? Matthew clarified, “As a hot dog vendor; no acrobatics involved.”
I asked him how he decides on a subject, to which Algeo replies, “The Harry and Bess Truman was a sweet story. If you can find a good story, it’s fun to research and fun to write. I retraced the route (the Truman’s cross-country trip) which brought me to Indianapolis several times. Turns out Truman stayed with his friend, former Democratic National Chairman Frank McKinney while passing through. I became friends with McKinney’s daughter and stayed with her family while researching the book. I fell in love with your city and my wife and I came back for a January vacation. We love the museums and restaurants in Indianapolis and in January, we didn’t have much competition.”
I asked if he studied any of the other Presidential illnesses over the years by way of comparison. To which Matthew replied, “Yes, Woodrow Wilson’s stroke and John F. Kennedy’s Addison’s disease were good examples. More recently, when Ronald Reagan had a couple brushes with cancer, Nancy Reagan insisted that the word cancer never be used to describe it.”
It is important to note that years later, in the 1980s, contrary to the doctor’s pronouncement that President Grover Cleveland was never in any danger from the procedure and that the lesion was non-cancerous and therefore not life threatening, analysis of the Cleveland tissue specimen confirmed the tumor to be verrucous carcinoma, a low-grade epithelial cancer with a low potential for metastasis. However, left untreated, it could have spread quickly leading to disastrous circumstances for the President and the country.
In answer to my query about the possibility of another situation like Cleveland’s happening today, Matthew Algeo responds, “Well you know, Air Force One has a fully functional operating room on board and the president travels with a doctor at all times. You never know.“
This column first appeared in April 2011.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
