While researching the First Ladies I began wondering about the 43 sitting Presidents and what kind of lives they had lived, so I went digging. There are 137 named and known mistresses of presidents and again, only 43 presidents!

Four months before his marriage to Martha, George Washington wrote a letter to neighbor Sally Fairfax that confirmed his feelings for her. Forty years later in another letter to her he wrote "I still look back on my days in your company as the happiest in my life." The Washington scholars believe this was not a platonic relationship.

Thomas Jefferson, if he were alive today, would be labeled a "dirty old man." Long before his affair with slave Sally Hemings while still in college, he’d tried to seduce the beautiful wife of his neighbor and close friend. He had two known affairs with married women while serving as a Diplomat in Paris, then the two children, proven by DNA with Sally Hemings.

Andrew Jackson kept his affair a little closer to home, in this case the White House and with Peggy O’Neal Eaton, the wife of his Secretary of War. The public labeled Jackson as a "homewrecker."

President Garfield’s paramour, Mrs. Calhoun, was a young reporter for the New York Times. She was but 20 years old at the time.

Grover Cleveland admitted that he fathered a child with a New York prostitute while he was serving as the mayor of Buffalo. Not seeming to learn from this, his next mistress Maria Halpin had a baby that Cleveland supported even though it was just assumed the child was his. Cleveland’s wife Frances was 27 years younger than he was and I don’t know how old the mistress was.

Woodrow Wilson also kept busy. Not only was he twice married but his second wife Edith made him end his affair with Mary Peck. After all, Edith won him by having an affair with him while his first wife was ill.

Warren Harding’s wife Florence had pursued and won him, but he wasn’t much of a prize. His first named affair was with Carrie Phillips, a known German sympathizer during the war. When the affair ended the Republican party paid her hush money. His next known affair was with Senator Gamaliel’s wife and Harding was favored as the father of her child. Some men never learn and he was one. His last affair, ending at his death, was with Nan Britton. Nan was 30 years his junior and was given a job in Washington, D.C., in order to remain close to him. Their favorite meeting place was the Oval Office. Harding died while in San Francisco on a trip with his wife and the general consensus was that Florence poisoned him, it caused him to have a heart attack, and she was slow summoning help for him. It was never proven or unproven.

Calvin Coolidge was next in the White House in 1923 and the rumors abounded but the rumors were about Grace, his wife and the Secret Service Guards as they were called then. I guess what’s good for the gander, etcetera.