Presidential Coachman

In the 19th century, the men who drove the carriages of U.S. presidents were well-known public figures. So when President Grover Cleveland’s longtime coachman, William Willis, was suddenly stricken with paralysis, the story made national news. Willis died just a few days later, in July 1895. 

The following October, the Washington Evening Star announced the selection of a new coachman for President Cleveland: William Beckett was now in charge of the White House stables. The newspaper proclaimed, “He wears a mustache and dark ‘Dundreary’ whiskers and will undoubtedly make a distinguished appearance on the box of the presidential coach.” And the president himself was said to have chosen Beckett, “on account of his generally excellent reputation as a man and as a driver.”

Continue William Beckett’s story →

Family album photograph of a man with a beard. Handwritten caption says that this is William Beckett, and that was a coachman for Presidents Cleveland and McKinley.

William Beckett (Francis A. Gregory Genealogical Collection, The Peoples’ Archive, DC Public Library)

Grover Cleveland’s first coachman, William Willis, drove the president to his second inauguration in 1893, but died two years later. (U.S. Senate Collection)

19th-century newspaper illustration of a horse drawn carriage.