(Melchizedek Communique, MC111109) H.L. Mencken wrote a hoax essay, "The Neglected Anniversary," published December 28, 1917, in the New York Evening Mail. The hoax was, "This is the 75th anniversary of a bath tub installed by Millard Fillmore in the White House." (But see subsequent correction, MC111209)

Unfortunately, what Mencken did as a joke became seriously accepted. Even after Mencken, on May 23, 1926, confessed the hoax in a syndicated newspaper column, still the Fillmore bath tub story was believed. A so-called historian enlarged the tale by claiming that our Millard "not only bathed regularly but elegantly, ministering to his senses with Corinthian Oil of Cream and concentrated extract of eglantine."

Harry S. Truman, after he left the White House, used Fillmore bath tub stories in his speeches.

But the entire thing was a hoax, begun by H.L. Mencken during World War I as a way to take people's minds off all the serious news.

Robert J. Scarry, in his most interesting book, Millard Fillmore (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2001), attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery of the White House fancy bath tub.

It is known that Franklin Pierce, in 1853, mentioned being impressed by the White House bath tub when he first came to occupy the Executive Mansion. So this pins down the origin of the tub to before 1853.

Melchizedek Communique is of the opinion it must have been Martin "O.K." van Buren who installed the fancy tub. "Old Kinderhook" is known to have had installed, at his Kinderhook, New York home, a "copper lined bathtub, soldered in five pieces." This propensity for elegant bathing must have accompanied van Buren to the White House, where he logically would have had a duplicate tub installed.

Further details on the mystery of "Fillmore's bathtub" can be found in Scarry's book (op. cit.)

(The Friends Of Millard Fillmore (FOMF) know the deeper truths of Millard Fillmore. More information may be released to the general public when and if the time is deemed appropriate.)