McKinley National Memorial

At a glance

Overview

The McKinley National Memorial is the domed granite tomb of William McKinley, the 25th president, his wife Ida Saxton McKinley and their two small daughters, set on a 75-foot hill in Canton's West Lawn Cemetery. McKinley came to Canton as a young lawyer in 1867, married a Canton banker's daughter in 1871, and in 1896 ran for president from the front porch of his North Market Street house while delegations were brought to town by train. After his assassination in Buffalo in September 1901 his body was returned to Canton and held in a cemetery receiving vault while a national association raised money, including pennies from schoolchildren, for a permanent tomb. Architect Harold Van Buren Magonigle designed the mausoleum and a long reflecting pool to read as a sword, and President Theodore Roosevelt dedicated it on September 30, 1907. The memorial passed from the association to the state in 1943 and to the Stark County Historical Society in 1973, which runs the McKinley Presidential Library and Museum at its foot; Ida's childhood home downtown is now part of the First Ladies National Historic Site.

The name

Named for William McKinley (1843-1901), 25th President of the United States, who lived and practiced law in Canton and is buried in the memorial. The National Register lists it as the William McKinley Tomb. The city's own name, given by founder Bezaleel Wells in 1805, was likely a tribute to Captain John O'Donnell, whose Maryland estate was named for the Chinese port of Canton (Guangzhou). (source)

Native American history

Nothing Native American is recorded at the memorial hill itself. The 1881 History of Stark County said the county had 'a noticeable lack of ancient remains' compared with the Cuyahoga valley to the north and the lower Tuscarawas and Muskingum to the south, and guessed that it had been neutral ground between peoples. It did describe a mound of earth and stone about 60 feet across on the David Yant farm in Bethlehem Township, with a told-and-retold tradition that it covered forty warriors who fought to settle a feud (the story is legend, and the mound had not been opened), a possible mound in Congress Lake, and old Indian trails and village remains that settlers found across the county. The same history places the Delawares (Lenape) on the Tuscarawas and Muskingum in the mid-1700s; the Tuscarawas, into which Canton's Nimishillen Creek drains, runs just west of the city. Under the 1795 Treaty of Greenville the Native nations gave up their claims to all land east and south of a line running up the Cuyahoga, across the portage and down the Tuscarawas to the crossing above Fort Laurens, which put the Canton area on the United States side of the line; the 1881 history notes that Greenville confirmed the earlier boundaries of the Fort McIntosh (1785) and Fort Harmar (1789) treaties.

• Treaty of Greenville boundary (Cuyahoga-portage-Tuscarawas line): treaty, West of Canton along the Tuscarawas River; land east and south of the line ceded, 1795
• Yant farm mound: mound, Southeastern Bethlehem Township, Stark County, Unknown, pre-settlement; described 1881
• Congress Lake mound: mound, West side of Congress Lake, northern Stark County (natural or artificial not determined), Unknown; described 1881

Stories

The front porch campaign of 1896

William McKinley declined to match William Jennings Bryan's train tour and stayed in Canton, where he was available every day but Sunday from his nomination until the election. The railroads sold excursion tickets so cheap that the free-silver Cleveland Plain Dealer complained a trip to Canton was 'cheaper than staying at home.' Delegations of railroad men, steelworkers, farmers and commercial travelers were met at the depot by a mounted Canton escort troop, marched up North Market Street under a plaster McKinley arch, and crowded his lawn to hear a carefully prepared reply from the porch. On the night of his nomination more than fifty thousand people heard him speak, and on one late-September Saturday special trains brought over twenty thousand visitors from thirty-odd towns. By the end, souvenir hunters had picked the fence and grape arbor clean, and the lawn had been trampled to bare earth that turned to mud in the autumn rain. The votes were cast on November 3, and McKinley won. (source)

A tomb paid for in pennies

Within weeks of McKinley's death his advisers George Cortelyou, William R. Day and Mark Hanna formed the McKinley National Memorial Association, and President Roosevelt named its first trustees with advice from Ida McKinley. They picked a West Lawn hilltop McKinley had once suggested for a Stark County soldiers' and sailors' monument, and by October 10, 1901, asked the public for $600,000. Governor George Nash made McKinley's 1902 birthday a day of observance in Ohio schools, and children brought in their pennies; money also came from abroad, notably Great Britain. By June 1903 the fund held $500,000, enough to open a design competition. (source)

The sword on the hill

Harold Van Buren Magonigle's winning design laid the memorial out as a cross-hilted sword: the tomb sits where blade, guard and hilt meet, and a long reflecting pool called the Long Water, with the main stairs, formed the handle. The design joined the cross of a martyr to the sword of a wartime commander in chief. Builders added more than 35,000 cubic yards of soil to shape four terraces matching the four flights of steps, 108 in all from the ground to the tomb. The pool did not last: the state filled in the Long Water in 1951, during its rehabilitation of the memorial for the 50th anniversary of McKinley's death. (The 1974 National Register nomination instead says the pool was replaced by a sunken lawn during the 1930s.) (source)

The receiving vault and Ida McKinley's last years

Ida McKinley returned to Canton with her husband's body but, for reasons the Park Service calls unknown, did not attend his funeral. The casket went to a receiving vault at West Lawn Cemetery to wait for a permanent tomb. Ida moved back into the former campaign house, visited the vault every day, and supervised the building of her husband's memorial. After two years of deep mourning she resumed visits to her sister's family and the Canton theaters. She died, likely of flu, on May 26, 1907, a few months before the dedication, and she, William and their daughters Katherine and Ida now lie together in the tomb. (source)

Dedication day, September 30, 1907

The dedication was one of the most memorable events in Canton's history. President Theodore Roosevelt reviewed a grand parade from a stand on Public Square before going to the hill. Supreme Court Justice William R. Day of Canton, president of the memorial association and a former member of McKinley's cabinet, told how the memorial came to be. The poet James Whitcomb Riley read a poem he wrote for the occasion, and Roosevelt gave the main address on McKinley's career. Charles Henry Niehaus's bronze statue on the steps was modeled on a photograph Frances Benjamin Johnston took of McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition the day before the shooting. (source)

The house that survived: Saxton-McKinley House

Of the Canton buildings tied to the McKinleys, only Ida's childhood home still stands. Her grandfather George Dewalt built its rear section in 1841, and her father (John Saxton on this Park Service page, James Saxton on the Park Service's biography of Ida) added the front in 1870. After their daughters died, the McKinleys gave up their newlywed house and lived in the Saxton house from 1878 to 1891, and it stayed their real home even during 1896, when the North Market Street house served as the stage for the front porch campaign. The house left the family in 1919, was restored by the National First Ladies' Library, and opened in 1998 with Rosalynn Carter at the dedication. The Park Service calls it the last remaining home in Canton with direct ties to Ida and William McKinley. (source)

Timeline

• 1795: At the Treaty of Greenville the Native nations cede all land east and south of the Cuyahoga-Tuscarawas line, which includes the future Canton area. (source)
• 1805: Surveyor Bezaleel Wells records the plat of Canton at New Lisbon on November 15. (source)
• 1809: Stark County is split from Columbiana County and Canton becomes its county seat. (source)
• 1841: George Dewalt, Ida Saxton's maternal grandfather, builds the rear section of what becomes the Saxton-McKinley House on Market Avenue. (source)
• 1847: Ida Saxton is born in Canton on June 8, daughter of banker James Saxton and Kate DeWalt. (source)
• 1861: The first burial is made on January 1 in the Canton Cemetery, incorporated that year as West Lawn, the cemetery where the memorial would later rise. (source)
• 1867: Admitted to the bar, Civil War veteran William McKinley opens a law office in Canton. (source)
• 1869: McKinley is elected prosecuting attorney of Stark County, an office usually held by Democrats. (source)
• 1871: William McKinley and Ida Saxton marry in Canton on January 25; their daughter Katherine is born on Christmas Day. (source)
• 1873: A second daughter, Ida, is born and dies within months; Katherine dies in 1875, and both girls are now entombed in the memorial. (source)
• 1876: McKinley defends striking Stark County coal miners without fee, winning acquittal for all but one, and is elected to Congress that fall. (source)
• 1878: The McKinleys make the Saxton house their Canton home, living there until 1891 while he serves in Congress. (source)
• 1891: McKinley wins the first of two two-year terms as governor of Ohio. (source)
• 1896: Nominated at St. Louis in June, McKinley stays in Canton and receives delegations daily except Sunday from the porch of his North Market Street house until the November 3 election. (source)
• 1896: In September the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company films McKinley on his Canton lawn, the short known as McKinley at Home, Canton, Ohio. (source)
• 1900: Canton is again the home base of McKinley's re-election campaign. (source)
• 1901: Shot at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo on September 6, McKinley dies on September 14. (source)
• 1901: About 100,000 people file past the casket at the Stark County Courthouse on September 18; after a funeral at First Methodist Church on September 19 the body is placed in the receiving vault at West Lawn Cemetery. (source)
• 1901: The McKinley National Memorial Association issues a public appeal for $600,000 by October 10. (source)
• 1902: Governor George Nash makes McKinley's birthday a school day of observance, and Ohio children bring pennies for the memorial fund. (source)
• 1903: With $500,000 raised by June, the association opens a design competition; more than sixty designs arrive and Harold Van Buren Magonigle of New York wins. (source)
• 1905: Magonigle turns the first shovel of soil on June 6 and the cornerstone is laid on November 16 with Ida McKinley present. (source)
• 1907: Ida Saxton McKinley dies in Canton on May 26, months before the tomb is finished. (source)
• 1907: President Theodore Roosevelt dedicates the McKinley National Memorial on September 30, after a parade through downtown Canton. (source)
• 1937: The McKinleys' North Market Street house, stage of the front porch campaign, is destroyed by fire. (source)
• 1943: On October 20 the association, no longer able to keep up the grounds, transfers the memorial to the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. (source)
• 1951: The state fills in the Long Water reflecting pool and rededicates the memorial on September 16 for the 50th anniversary of McKinley's death. (source)
• 1963: The Hoover-Price Planetarium, privately funded, opens in July beside the memorial. (source)
• 1970: The William McKinley Tomb is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 10. (source)
• 1973: The memorial returns to local control under the Stark County Historical Society. (source)
• 1975: The tomb is designated a National Historic Landmark. (source)
• 1992: After five years of restoration the memorial is rededicated on September 29. (source)
• 1998: The restored Saxton-McKinley House opens as home of the National First Ladies' Library, with former first lady Rosalynn Carter at the dedication. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: McKinley National Memorial
• en.wikipedia.org: William McKinley
• en.wikipedia.org: William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum
• en.wikipedia.org: West Lawn Cemetery
• en.wikipedia.org: Canton, Ohio
• en.wikipedia.org: Ida Saxton McKinley
• en.wikipedia.org: McKinley at Home, Canton, Ohio
• npgallery.nps.gov: 1fe79d12 35ea 4149 a5cf 0959df47dae5
• nps.gov: mckinley tomb
• nps.gov: saxton mckinley house
• nps.gov: ida mckinley life
• remarkableohio.org: 6 76 the mckinley national memorial
• remarkableohio.org: 18 76 william mckinley
• americanheritage.com: front porch campaign
• archive.org: historyofstarkco00perr djvu.txt
• avalon.law.yale.edu: greenvil