While no one from Alabama has ever hung his hat in the Oval Office, the state can boast some curious and colorful ties to the highest office in the land, not to mention the No 2 slot.

In honor of Presidents Day, Feb. 16, here are some fun facts about some folks – from this state and elsewhere – who connect Alabama to the presidency and vice presidency of the United States, with thanks primarily to the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

William Rufus King

William Rufus King was a native of North Carolina but moved west, settling in Dallas County. As the running mate of Franklin Pierce, in 1852 he was elected vice president of the United States – the highest political office in the nation to be held by an Alabamian.

Unfortunately, after spending more than 30 years representing Alabama in the U.S. Senate, King died of tuberculosis barely six weeks after taking the oath of office for vice president.

King, who helped found the city of Selma, was perhaps best known during his Senate career as one of the architects of the Compromise of 1850, which ended a lingering conflict between free states and slave states regarding territory gained during the Mexican-American War. King’s willingness to seek such accords was one of the reasons he was chosen to team with New Hampshire native Pierce on the 1852 Democratic ticket.

“He tended to be a conciliator in national politics,” said historian Ed Bridges, director emeritus of the Alabama Department of Archives and History. “He was not one of the Democrats from Alabama who was aggressively pressing for secession. That’s one of the things that helped earn him the nomination. With the loss of his voice, more hard-liners began to emerge, leading to the Civil War.”

Despite King’s brief time as vice president, he did leave his mark on the office in two ways, one official and the other speculative . First, because he was already being treated for tuberculosis at the time of his inauguration and needed to be in a warm climate, King actually took the oath of office while in Cuba. It is the only time that a nationally elected U.S. official has been sworn in while on foreign soil.

In addition, there is considerable speculation that King was gay. He never married, and for 15 years he and James Buchanan were roommates. Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States, was also a lifelong bachelor. In a 2010 interview with the Tuscaloosa News, Selma attorney JL Chestnut said, “I don’t think there’s any question that King was a closet homosexual. That is why (President) Andrew Jackson called him ‘Miss Nancy’ and why others mocked him.”

Photo courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

George Washington and Andrew Jackson

Under the 1790 Treaty of New York, the still-young U.S. government entered into an agreement of “peace and friendship” with the Creek Nation of Indians of Alabama and Georgia. The treaty was so important to President George Washington that he personally delivered the treaty to the U.S. Senate for consideration.

Photo courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

At the signing, six peace medals were handed out by Washington to the Creek Nation chieftains in attendance. Only one is known to still exist, and it is on display at the state archives. Bridges said the medal “may be the most important thing we have here in terms of national significance.”

The peace medal has existed far longer than the actual peace. Less than a quarter century after the treaty signing, Gen. Andrew Jackson was leading U.S. forces against the Creek Nation. Several clashes took place in Alabama, including the decisive battle at Horseshoe Bend on March 27, 1814.

Jackson drew national attention from the battle, and his popularity peaked in 1828 when he was elected president.

Because he resided in Alabama for several months during the Creek War, Jackson holds the unofficial distinction of being the U.S. president who has spent the most time in the state. Over the years he also made frequent trips to the Masonic Lodge in Huntsville.

Aaron Burr

Vice President Aaron Burr’s time in Alabama was far briefer than Jackson’s, and certainly less celebrated in his time. Two years after leaving the vice presidency, Burr was arrested in Wakefield on Feb. 19, 1807 on charges of treason. He was accused of plotting to annex Spanish territory in Louisiana and Mexico that would be used to establish an independent republic.

Burr was traveling with a group of well-armed colonists toward New Orleans at the time of his arrest. He was briefly held at Fort Stoddert along the Mobile River before being sent for trial to Richmond, Va., where he was ultimately acquitted.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

James Monroe

The first president to visit Alabama while in office was James Monroe, who arrived unannounced in Huntsville on June 2, 1819. Monroe spent three days in what at the time was still known as the Alabama Territory, in advance of the state’s ascension to statehood on Dec. 14, 1819.

“Nobody knew he was coming. He just popped into town,” Bridges said. “He had just made this long, arduous trip from Washington, D.C., and now the people in Huntsville had to entertain him and his travel party. It had to be extraordinarily difficult.”

According to a 1984 story in The Historic Huntsville Quarterly of Local Architecture and Preservation, Monroe was honored at a public dinner at the Huntsville Inn. The affair was attended by “more than 100 of the most respected citizens of Madison County.”

Mary Todd Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, had two half-sisters – Martha Todd White and Elodie Todd – who lived in Selma during the Civil War and sided with the Confederacy. In fact, the sisters even created a battle flag for Company C of the 4th Alabama Infantry. The story is chronicled in the book, “House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, a Family Divided by War,” by University of Georgia history professor Stephen Berry.

Booker T. Washington and Teddy Roosevelt

Not long after Theodore Roosevelt became president in September 1901, following the assassination of William McKinley, he invited Tuskegee Institute leader Booker T. Washington to dine with him at the White House. The event marked the first time an African-American met with a U.S. president in the White House for a social occasion, and it was highly controversial.

During the meeting, Washington recommended that Roosevelt appoint former Alabama Gov. Thomas Goode Jones to be a federal judge. “Jones was viewed as being progressive for the times on racial matters,” Bridges said. Roosevelt accepted Washington’s advice, and later that year Jones was named to a seat on the U.S. District Court for Alabama, a position he held until his death in 1914.

George Wallace

The four-time governor of Alabama ran for president four times. And while he never came close to winning, his influence in presidential elections and national politics was significant. As the American Independent Party candidate in 1968, he received nearly 10 million popular votes – about 13 percent of the total. He carried five states and won 46 electoral votes.

In 1972, Wallace ran for president as a Democrat and carried five states during the party’s primaries. But his campaign effectively ended after he was gunned down and left paralyzed by 21-year-old Arthur Bremer while stumping for the office in Maryland.

His final run for the presidency came in 1976, but that campaign never really took off. He ended up endorsing fellow Southerner Jimmy Carter, who won the November general election. Wallace remains the last third party candidate for president to be awarded votes in the Electoral College.

–Cary Estes