HOLY COW! HISTORY: The President’s Potty-Mouthed Pet – Inside Sources

We’ve all experienced mortifying moments. Like a bad case of hiccups in the middle of a wedding service. Or an uncontrollable outburst of the giggles at a high school graduation. Situations that spoil a special moment.

Such an unfortunate incident occurred 181 years ago this spring, marring a former president’s sendoff. And the horrified mourners couldn’t believe the culprit responsible for it.

For decades, Andrew Jackson had seemed indestructible. The Tennessee soldier, planter, and politician wasn’t nicknamed “Old Hickory” for being soft and cuddly. He was fond of bellowing, “By the Eternal!” for emphasis. (It was considered less blasphemous than the alternative phrase.)

Yet if anything, he was even more hard-headed and uncompromising in real life than legend suggests. Consider the duel that nearly killed him.

An argument over a horse-racing bet led to bad blood between Jackson and a man named Joseph Erwin. Things seriously escalated when Erwin’s friend Charles Dickinson jumped in. He and Jackson trash-talked each other in person and in the press. But when Dson insulted Jackson’s wife, he went too far.

In Andrew Jackson’s eyes, the sun rose and set around Rachael Jackson. By impugning her, Dickinson signed his own death warrant.

When the two met across the state line (and thus out of reach of the long arm of the law) in Kentucky on May 30, 1806, Jackson got his revenge.

Dickinson was known to be a superb shot. To everyone’s amazement, Jackson calmly stood in place and intentionally allowed his rival to fire first, the bullet hitting him very near the heart. Jackson swayed for a moment, but stayed on his feet. Witnesses said Dickinson’s face turned white; he knew he was a dead man. Bleeding profusely (although it’s believed the full extent of his wound was concealed because he wore a loose-fitting coat), Jackson slowly and deliberately took aim and squeezed. The trigger stopped at half cock.

Under the Code Duello, which governed such affairs of honor, Dickinson had to stand there and watch Jackson reload and fire a second time without responding. He subsequently bled to death. Jackson’s doctors said the lead ball had lodged too close to his heart to operate, so he carried it in his chest, causing great pain at times, for the next 39 years.

So, when we say he was tough, take our word for it.

He was also rough around the edges. A true log cabin guy, who was celebrated by his fellow frontiersmen for his social shortcomings, he was more at home with a jug of corn liquor and a plate of country ham than a crystal decanter of French wine and a serving of glazed roast pheasant in the White House.

After two terms as president, he returned to his cherished Hermitage plantation just outside Nashville, Tenn. When the end finally came on June 8, 1845, Jackson was 78 and simply worn out from a long life overflowing with monumental events.

A statesman’s passing is always major news. This one was marked with all the decorum and dignity the early Victorian era could muster. Nashville’s shops and stores were closed. Church bells tolled, and guns were fired in tribute for two hours. Newspaper accounts reported “throngs” of people flooding out of the city for the Hermitage on June 10 in a farewell to the former president. It was a warm Tuesday, and many people were packed inside the home.

And then it happened.

Just before the solemn ceremony began, words suddenly burst forth loudly from a nearby room. Not human words, but those spoken by a bird. And not just way words either, but dirty words.

Very dirty words. Like Marines-undergoing-basic-training-at-boot-camp dirty words.

It was Poll, Jackson’s pet parrot.

William Meneffee Norment was 15 at the time and was one of the last survivors of the funeral’s attendees. He later wrote, “Before the sermon and while the crowd was gathering. A wicked parrot… got excited and commenced swearing so loud and so long as to disturb the people and had to be carried from the house.”

In another description of the incident, Norment claimed the loud mourning cries coming from Jackson’s slaves had set off the bird, triggering “perfect gusts of cuss words” to the shock and horror of everyone.

No one knows for sure who taught Poll his X-rated vocabulary or what happened to him later.

But one thing is certain: the incident would have immensely tickled Old Hickory, by the Eternal!