Richard Nixon, Hoosier President?
When I ask about US Presidents who have ties to the Hoosier state, the obvious come to mind: Harrison 9, Harrison 23, Lincoln and Nixon.
Tricky Dick Nixon?
No, that was not a typo. Nixon.
A few years ago, I was catching up with a friend, a park ranger at the Herbert Hoover National Historic site in West Branch, Iowa. He made a reference to Nixon’s family coming through Indiana. That made me curious, and after returning from that trip, I got online and started to look at Nixon’s background in the Hoosier State.
My friend was correct. The Milhous family did settle in Jennings County in the 1850s. Hannah Milhous Nixon, who is President Richard Nixon’s mother, was born just outside of the southern Indiana community Butlerville. The 1884 census has a pretty substantial plot deeded to JV Milhous, who is presumably Joshua Vickers Milhous, Hanna Milhous Nixon’s grandfather. That plot is now a farm east of and next to Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge, and is private property
Armed with that information, I drove to Jennings County where my first stop was a marker off US 50 and North County Road 550. It was here in June of 1971, then President Nixon came from DC to dedicate this marker. It is unknown whether he visited the cemetery where quite a few of his ancestors were buried nearby. Anyone buried in Indiana passed away before the post-1890 Society of Friend’s exodus to Whittier, Calif., of which the Milhous family would have been a part.
About a mile and a half southeast of the marker is Hopewell Cemetery, a rural cemetery out in the country at a crossroads with cornfields flanking it. Here lies many members of the Milhous family. In the center of the cemetery is the patriarch of the family, Joshua V. Milhous. His son Franklin was the father of Hannah Milhous Nixon.
As a side-note: Joshua Milhous’ sister Hannah Milhous-Hough, is the namesake for Hannah Milhous Nixon. Her grave is at the entrance of Earlham College Cemetery in Richmond.
Anyone researching the Society of Friends, often called Quakers, will find that they are very insular communities that keep thorough records, which is not much different in terms of structure than today’s Amish. Hannah Milhous Nixon’s mother, Franklin’s mother-in-law Jane, is buried about three miles east of Hopewell Cemetery, at Grove Burials Grounds. It’s on private property, so after checking in with the farmer, I hiked about 300 yards up the hill through thicket and briars to get to a clearing. At the back of the cemetery, near the drop off, is a fallen marker to Jane Malmsburgy Hemingway Burdg. Her daughter Almira married Franklin Milhous and that’s where the family trees merge.
Side-note: If the Hemingway in Jane’s name sounds familiar it’s because Richard Nixon and Ernest Hemingway are eighth cousins once removed. Jane’s mother Hope married into the Hemingways.
One of the quotes that stuck out when I started this series was President Coolidge’s quote that we’re drawing our presidents from the people. In that we see Richard Nixon. Far from being just “Tricky Dick” who’s scandals inspired a new phrase: -gate. His lineage is an American story of hard-working people who settled in Indiana and eventually crossed a continent. Without Indiana, we wouldn’t have Richard Nixon.