When I grew up in New York we went to our annual Easter Egg Hunt. My dad did when he was young, and I took my kids to their Easter Egg Hunt for many years. We heard about Easter Egg Rolls in Washington and I thought it was some food preparation. Of course as an adult I found out that children would place brightly colored hard-boiled eggs on the grass on the grounds of the White House and use a wooden spoon to propel them across the lawn on the South in what became a race to the finish.
Easter Egg Rolls were in place by the 1850s in Washington, though not at the White House. During Reconstruction, the place for them was on the Capitol Grounds using the large hill that the Capitol was on to provide some excitement to the race. This apparently started during the presidency of Andrew Johnson, who appeared to be very unpopular for almost everything else, but his family hard-boiled the eggs and colored them and distributed them to the children. Ulysses S. Grant did the same, although by 1876 Congress became tired of the yearly unruly gathering of children on its property and outlawed the egg roll. Some Congresspeople said that it was destroying the lawn, others were unhappy with the broken eggs that littered the bushes.
In 1878, Rutherford B. Hayes came upon some children who asked him to reinstate the Easter Egg Roll. Hayes, a Union general during the Civil War, was unfamiliar with this Washington tradition, but he met with his staff and they decided to restore it. Because of the new law, Hayes could not have it at the Capitol and it was instead done at the White House. Hayes opened the South Side of the White House to children on the Easter Monday of 1878. It has been a annual feature of the White House ever since, except for during wars and epidemics.
The day after the Easter Egg Roll, newspapers reported that another Protestant tradition was also being upheld. A a man named Lamphere was up for promotion at the Treasury department but his appointment was heavily opposed by the Order of the American Union because it would introduce Catholic influence into the government. Democrats called this organization the “bigots’ league,” according to the Virginia Free Press, because while Republicans were advocating for reduced restrictions on Blacks, many of them were advocating increased restrictions on Catholics and immigrants. The newspaper the Washington Star said that “the fight against him is taking a religious aspect. He is bitterly opposed by the Protestants who consider that his appointment would be a concession to catholicity. The Order of the American Union (anti-Catholic) is working against him, and a petition signed by , it is stated,at least four hundred thousand persons has been brought to the attention of the President, requesting that he not be promoted.” The Washington Star went on to add; “It should be stated that Mr. Lamphere is not a Catholic. His wife is, however, of that faith, and he is supposed to have Catholic tendencies.” [Washington Star April 23, 1878]
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