Myth # 88: John Hanson was the real first president of the United States.

John Hanson

This resilient myth has been around for more than one hundred years, as his descendants have sought to plump up his reputation. In 1959, the director of research at Colonial Williamsburg tried to stamp it out–obviously, he was unsuccessful–by writing about whether Peyton Randolph or John Hanson was the first president of the Continental Congress. “The apparent confusion on this point arises form the fact that the Continental Congress existed first as a revolutionary body and then after the formal ratification of the Articles of Confederation on March 1, 1781 as the congress of the Confederation Government. Most historians, however, refer to this body as the Continental Congress during the entire period of its existence from 1774 until 1788.” He concludes that Hanson was not the first president of the Continental Congress, although he was one of several presidents, none of whom were “president” of the United States. “[Hanson] has sometimes been called the first president of the nation. However, he was in no sense a true executive officer, as were the presidents elected under the Federal Constitution.”

But let’s let Deborah Brower of Maryland, this week’s guest blogger, share her research and set the story straight. Hang on . . . it’s complicated! Or skip to the summary at the bottom.

Most people have never heard of John Hanson. If you know him at all, you probably live in Maryland and are familiar with the highway that bears his name.  It’s also possible you may have read about the recent effort to replace his statue in the U. S. Capitol with one of Harriet Tubman.  (Not a bad idea, interjects Mary) You might have encountered him as a featured article in one of those pocket books on the Constitution.  It is amazing that someone so obscure has such a wealth of misinformation attached to him. Of course maybe that’s why, the more obscure the subject more likely it is to be taken at face value.

We do know John Hanson was born in April of 1721 near Port Tobacco, Maryland.  His family origins are obscure, but by the time of his birth they were established members of the planter class. By the 1770s he’d moved to Frederick, Maryland and was serving as the chief officer of the County’s Committee of Safety, a Revolutionary Era alternative to the British Colonial government of Frederick County.  He kept the County and it’s resources firmly in the control of Maryland’s revolutionaries; he was a master at putting them to the best use.  Hanson is an excellent example of the sort of men who worked to fulfill the obligations of their colonies to the Continental Congress and the army.  These men don’t often get credit because they are in the shadows behind the new state government, Congress and the Military.  Although important, their roles just don’t get much attention.  John Hanson’s obligations kept him in mostly in Frederick until 1779 when he was elected as one of Maryland’s delegates to the Continental Congress.  In late 1780 he was elected to preside over Congress under the ratified Articles of Confederation.

Contrary to the general impression, not everyone thought the Revolution would result in a single nation.  Most thought when the war was over the colonies would go on as separate sovereign nations.  All that was needed was a “league of friendship” to deal with a limited number of common interests. The Articles of Confederation were a statement of how the Continental Congress had been operating thus far.   They enumerated the very minimal powers relinquished by the states.  Any power granted by the document was placed solely in the control of Congress.  There was no executive branch, judicial branch or senate only a single body, the Congress.  The difference between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution are best stated by the documents themselves: The Articles of Confederation, “…, we the undersigned Delegates of the States…”; and the Constitution, “We the People of the United States”.

By June of 1780 when John Hanson finally took his seat in Congress, Maryland was the only colony left who had not agreed to the Articles of Confederation. The competing claims of the Colonies and various land speculation companies to the western territories was at issue.  Some colonies had their boundaries set by charters; others had no set boundaries and claimed they extended all the way to the Pacific Coast. Maryland was the only landless state still holding out.  On the surface Maryland argued all that undeveloped territory would make the landed states too powerful.  In reality Maryland’s motivation was the self interests of some of its leading citizens who were among the investors in land companies that purchased directly from the Indians.  The land in question was within the projected boundaries of landed colonies (mostly Virginia and New York). It was not so much Maryland trying to get the landed states to agree to a set border as it was to get the claims of the land companies recognized.  To make it even more complicated there were some Marylanders that had invested in Virginia based companies.  It is fascinating to follow the dance of Maryland legislators over their competing land claims.   George Mason’s letters referring to Maryland and her “twisted sister” Delaware make it clear that people were aware of what was going on behind the scenes.  The way things played out in Virginia, Maryland and Congress rival any back room dealings going on today.

While the other delegates were back in Maryland intriguing, John Hanson sat in Philadelphia, often the only Marylander there.  To break this impasse,  elements in Congress suggested the land claims might have more success in a ratified Congress.  Meanwhile British ships were manacling the Chesapeake and Maryland appealed to the French for protection. The French minister insinuated they were reluctant to place ships in the Chesapeake to shield Maryland because the Articles were not ratified.  If Maryland could see her way to finally sign, the French would be in a better position to help. So Maryland relented, still holding a faint hope for the land claims in a Confederation Congress; which was better than the possibility of being turned into a cinder by the British. We may never know for sure, but it would come as no surprise that John Hanson’s election as president was part of the deal.  On March 1, 1781, the signatures of Maryland’s delegates were added to the Articles of Confederation.  Now the Articles were ratified and took effect with great celebration.

On to the Myths

Beginning the last quarter of the 19th century a series of John Hanson descendants and some others began to slowly reinvent him.  One slight exaggeration was piled on top of another with the result of burying the real John Hanson.

1. John Hanson is NOT Swedish.

Since the publication of an article by genealogist George Ely Russell titled “John Hanson of Maryland, a Swedish Heritage Disproven”, It has been accepted that John Hanson is not Swedish or from the royal Vasa line.  The work of Russell was so compelling that a John Hanson memorial bust and plaque were removed from Gloria Dei (Old Swedes) Church in Philadelphia. The myth was started in the 19th century by George Adolphus Hanson who was trying link his family line to John Hanson.

2. John Hanson is NOT Black. 

3. John Hanson is NOT the first Black President of the United States.

George Russell discovered an indentured servant who came to Maryland by way of Barbados named John Henson/Hanson.  This Hanson might have been the grandfather of John Hanson. For some reason in the 1990s, comedian Dick Gregory took this to mean John Hanson was black.  His proof was a daguerrotype of a John Hanson!  Put aside the fact that photography was invented a long time after Hanson died. The man in the photograph named John Hanson was a senator in Liberia, Africa, during the mid 19th century. On the back of the two dollar is an engraving of the signing of the Declaration of Independence purportedly showing a Black John Hanson. Hanson did not sign the Declaration and was not even in Congress until 1780.

4. John Hanson was NOT a mentor or longtime friend of George Washington.

In spite of claims to the contrary, according to researchers at Mount Vernon there is no evidence of a relationship between George Washington and John Hanson before 1781. There is only one reference in Washington’s journal of a “Mr. Hanson” visiting Mount Vernon in 1772, but it is not John Hanson, according to the editors.

5. John Hanson did NOT solve the Western Land question.

According to Ralph Levering who wrote the most extensive analysis of John Hanson’s political career in his “John Hanson: Public Servant”, there is no record of John Hanson’s stand on the Western land question, let alone documentation that he was responsible for the solution. There is no evidence that anything called “the Hanson Plan” ever existed.

6. John Hanson was NOT elected unanimously.

All the entry for Nov 4th in the Journals of the Confederation Congress records about the election of a presiding officer is that it occurred and John Hanson was elected. Nothing about a vote count.  Representatives for two states, New York and Delaware were not even present that day.

7. Hanson was NOT elected over Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Hamilton or Hancock.

The Nov. 4th entry does not say who (or if) anyone ran against Hanson. Recently it has been asserted that John Hanson was elected over Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and Hancock.  None of them were eligible to be president of Congress Assembled.  According to the Articles (#9) you had to be a member of Congress to be president and none of them were.  In fact Hanson only accepted on the condition that Maryland guarantee his return to Congress following state elections in a few weeks.  If he had not been returned he would not have been eligible to serve.  The entry for the day in the Journal does not say who (or if) anyone ran against Hanson.

8.  John Hanson is NOT the first president of the United States of America or the first president of the Confederation Congress.

When the articles of Confederation were ratified on March 4th things did not change, Samuel Huntington continued as president, making him the first Confederation president of Congress.  In July he resigned; there was an election and the next man elected refused to serve.  Another election was held and Thomas McKeon was chosen to finish Huntington’s term.  McKeon is the second president of the Confederation Congress and the first elected, but did not serve a one year term.  On November 4, 1781, John Hanson was elected president of Congress.  This made him the third president of Congress and the second elected, but the first to serve a one year term. 

9. John Hanson did NOT establish the first Thanksgiving or set a precedent for future days of thanksgiving and prayer to be held on the last Thursday of November.

Congress issued proclamations for a day of Thanksgiving every year since 1777.  Most often they chose a day in December. During the first Confederation Congress  a committee (not including Hanson) chose a day in November. In the draft the words “ the last”  written before Thursday are crossed.  They were not trying to establish a precedent for future days of thanksgiving.  They were following a practice already in place. The next year they went back to a date in December. It was not the holiday we think of as “Thanksgiving”.  The day was meant to be spent in church in prayer.

Summary:

While John Hanson was president, he voted in Congress as a delegate of Maryland just like every other  delegate in Congress..  This is an indicator that his real role was closer to the modern Speaker of the House. It is telling that even though he died shortly after he left Congress there is no mention of his being the president of anything but Congress and nothing about “first.”  When John Hanson died in 1783, his obituary in the Maryland Gazette stated, “This gentleman has long been a servant to his country, in a variety of employments, the last of which was that of president of Congress.”  By the time John Hanson’s wife died about thirty years later she was remembered only as the widow of a delegate to the “…old Revolutionary Congress”, not the wife of a President.

John Hanson should be remembered for his contributions to Maryland’s Revolutionary War efforts which took place primarily in Frederick County.  His service in Congress was a post script to his career.  He outlined his misgivings in letters to his family.  He told them it was his duty to stay because if he left there would not be enough attending delegates to do business.  There weren’t even enough to hold another election.  The fact that he was willing continue when he had good reasons to excuse himself, is to his credit.

The continuing efforts to turn John Hanson into something he is not does him a great disservice and corrupts the public perception of history.  I would urge anyone whose curiosity has been peaked to do some searches, you will be appalled.

Sources

Jensen, Merrill, “The Articles of Confederation”, University of Wisconsin Press, 1970

Jensen, Merrill, “The New Nation”, Vintage Books, 1951

Levering, Ralph B. “John Hanson, Public Servant”. Maryland Historical Magazine 71             (Summer 1976): 113–33.

Russel, George Ely. “John Hanson of Maryland: A Swedish Heritage Disproved”. The             American Genealogist 63, no. 4 (October 1988)

John Hanson (1721-1783), Archives of Maryland (Biographical Series)

            http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/000500/000587/html/587sources.html

Journals of the Continental Congress 1774-1779

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwjc.html

Hoffman, Ronald, “A Spirit of Dissension: Economics, Politics, and the Revolution in Maryland”, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973

Myth # 87: People bought their tea in bricks, not loose leaves.

Well, that depends upon which people you’re talking about. Tibetan people, yes. American people, no.

Bricks of tea date from as early as 733 AD, according to a Victoria & Albert publication, Tea: East and West. But that was in China, where bricks of tea were particularly popular in central Asia (Mongolia and Tibet) because they could be carried by porters across the mountains into that region. There, tea bricks were used as a form of currency. “Tea could be bartered against practically anything, and workmen and servants were routinely paid in it.” (p. 60-62) Perhaps this myth got started when people assumed that what they’d heard about the Far East was equally true in the West. 

Americans, however, used tea in its loose-leaf form. They stored it in tea chests or canisters at home, sometimes under lock and key, because it was so costly. At stores, it was sometimes sold from canisters like the ones above. It was shipped from China in large chests that were often lead-lined and held about 360 pounds of tightly packed tea. (Rumor had it that Chinese peasants packed the tea with their bare feet, but this may well be another myth!) Half-chests and quarter-chests were also shipped.   

A corollary to this myth is the one about the Boston Tea Party, a myth you will read in history texts and hear in many historic houses, that the tea thrown into Boston Harbor was brick tea. Not true, say several historians. The tea that was thrown overboard in Boston was loose-leaf, mostly Bohea tea, crated, from China.  According to Benjamin Woods Labaree’s The Boston Tea Party, the men who tossed the tea took care that no one made off with any of it. “One fellow had surreptitiously filled the lining of his coat with loose tea, but he was spotted by the others, stripped of his clothing, and given a severe beating.” According to historians at the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, the three ships that were raided that night contained 240 chests of Bohea, 15 of Congou, 10 of Souchong (all black teas), 60 of Singlo, and 15 of Hyson (both green teas)–all in loose-leaf form. 

And by the way, it was stale! The Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum historians say: “Certainly, all the teas tossed overboard would disappoint a modern tea drinker because they were way past their prime. The Boston teas were plucked [in China] in 1770 and 1771, transported by ship to London warehouses where they sat for a couple of years, and finally placed aboard ships bound for the colonies in October 1773.”

This myth about tea bricks keeps surfacing at historic sites and in textbooks. Would someone please kill it?

Thanks to Sara Rivers Cofield for submitting this myth, which she has heard on more than one historic house tours.

Myth # 86: Paul Revere rode through the countryside shouting, “The British Are Coming!”

Thanks to guest blogger Ceci Flinn for busting this week’s myth. Ceci recently received her PhD in history and has been giving tours of Boston for twenty years, so if anyone knows the truth about Paul Revere, she will! And how appropriate–this week is the 237th anniversary of that famous ride.

Standing at a library counter at a university in Canada, I explained what I had been looking for when the e-catalog failed. I gave the person working the front desk increasingly specific information – U.S. History, Early American History, Revolutionary War/War of Independence – until I reached my final description: Paul Revere’s ride. “Oh!” he said, “The British are coming!” When I told the retired history professor I was visiting about this, she said: “That’s all we know about it.” (“We” referring to ordinary Canadians, of course, not herself.) Americans are often the same. It is an amazing example of the strength of historic myth, that this simple phrase could be so prevalent and so . . . wrong. 
 
When Paul Revere, William Dawes, Dr. Samuel Prescott, and others, rode to warn rebel leaders in Lexington and Concord that soldiers were heading their way, looking mainly for the stores of ammunition that were being stockpiled by rebel colonists and an excuse to arrest the leaders, they would never have shouted “The British are coming!” because, simply put, they were all still British. Imagine someone running down a road in Concord, MA today shouting “The Americans are coming!” and you’ve got the idea. 
 
In April of 1775, there was plenty of agitation, and many historians argue that the first shots of the revolution had already been fired in New Hampshire the previous December. But one thing had not yet changed: the colonies were still British. They were still overseen by a faraway king and his parliament, and the composition of the “Declaration of Independence” was over a year in the future. So, what did Revere and his compatriots actually say? In their depositions they stated that they had warned residents “the Regulars are out.” British soldiers, such as those stationed in Boston under General Gage, were referred to as “Regulars,” or colloquially as “Redcoats” or “the King’s men”, or even derogatorily as “Lobsterbacks.” But they were certainly not called “the British.” Nor were colonists yet referred to generally as “Americans,” more often terms like “Yankees” or “provincials” were used.
 
It is easy to see why the myth came about since in hindsight, we refer to the parties involved in the Revolution that created a new country as “British” and “American” to identify the two sides. The expression was apparently used as early as the 1820s. For example, a man called Elias Phinney published a book in 1825 about the events of April 1775, and in his descriptive text he used the term “British.” Yet looking further to his appendices, where he reprints the depositions of colonists, the text quite clearly says “Regulars.” These depositions are available today on the Massachusetts Historical Society’s website. Still, the myth is persistent,and not even the respected historian David McCullough did enough to prevent further perpetuation: in the HBO mini-series dramatizing his book John Adams, a messenger rides up to Adams, working outdoors at his farm, and shouts “The British are marching on Lexington!” Another history “fail”, though admittedly, for clarification’s sake, perhaps an understandable failure.
 
 
References:
David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 1994 (p 56, 109)
Elias Phinney, History of the Battle of Lexington, 1825 (p 15, 33)
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=gZch0tpbLtMC&redir_esc=y
Massachusetts Historic Society:  http://www.masshist.org/revolution/lexington.php
Revere’s deposition:
http://www.masshist.org/revolution/image-viewer.php?item_id=98&img_step=1&tpc=&mode=transcript&tpc=#page1

Myth # 85: Prostitutes were so common around Gen. Joseph Hooker’s army that they became known as “hookers.”

General Joseph Hooker

According to this myth, there were so many prostitutes working around Union General Joseph Hooker’s army that they became known as “Hooker’s Division” or “Hooker’s Brigade” or simply “hookers.” The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang calls this story “popular fiction.”

The fly in the ointment is that the term was in use before the Civil War. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this word had its origins as early as 1567 when it meant petty thief or pickpocket. (Other definitions include a person who fastened his clothing with hooks, like the Amish, a two-masted Dutch finishing vessel, and a rugby player, but we’ll ignore those.)

In America this synonym for prostitute dates back at least as far as 1845. It probably evolved from the conventional sense of hook, to lure and take or rob, qualities associated with prostitutes. John Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms of 1859 defines a hooker as a strumpet and says it comes from the New York  neighborhood known as Corlear’s Hook, where there were lots of prostitutes. That’s probably another myth. 

Since “hooker” already meant prostitute by the time of the Civil War, it was an obvious joke to refer to the prostitutes around General Hooker’s army as Hooker’s Brigade.   

(An interesting aside: in French, the man who solicits patrons to come to a whorehouse is known as an accrocheur, or hooker, from the verb accrocher, to hook.) 

Myth # 84: The tune “The World Turned Upside Down” was played as the British surrendered in Yorktown.

(Thanks to this week’s guest blogger, Deborah Brower, who wrote to debunk one of her favorite myths.)

In case you missed it, the story goes like this: when the British surrendered at Yorktown, they played a tune called “The World Turned Upside Down.”  

The problem is no one who was present at Yorktown said that at the time. It’s not until an 1828 memoir by a man named Alexander Garden that it appears in print.  Only one other veteran agreed but he was in his 80s by the time it came up.  He was speaking years after the memoir had been published and by then it had already entered the public imagination.  Also problematic is the fact that there are several melodies that are associated with that title.  Even if it were true, which one would it be?  In the end there is no reliable evidence that it happened.

I play historic music with a group called Tasker’s Chance.  When we were first putting music sets together, one of my band mates said, “We just have to play ‘World Turned Upside Down.’ It’s the tune they played at Yorktown and everyone asks for it.” It became a regular part of our performances. Then came an excellent article in the Williamsburg Journal (Oct/Nov 1999) by Dennis Montgomery: “If ponies rode man and grass ate the cows?”: Just What Tune was un the Air when The World Turned Upside Down? With a heavy heart, I shared it with the group.  We all liked the tune and were reluctant to toss it out.  All that was left was to make lemonade out of the lemons.

From the article I learned that the roots of the tune we play go back to the first part of the 17th century and a truly cataclysmic event in British history, the English Civil Wars.  The tune is catchy and was used with different sets of words.  Two sets of lyrics really appealed to me.  “When the King Enjoys His Own Again” is a hopeful vision of the return of Charles I to the English throne.  The other is a complaint about the banning of Christmas customs by the Puritans also titled the “World Turned Upside Down.”  The last line of the first verse of the song is “…old Christmas is kickt out of town.” Who could resist that?

Several years later I had a conversation with some musicians who were indignantly complaining their group NEVER plays the tune. If anyone asks about it, they set them straight in short order.  That’s a valid approach, but I look at it differently, especially since I like the tune.  I play it, but I also explain its story. I think it interesting that the story endures.  Maybe it’s because it sums up prevailing emotions in a single phrase anyone can understand. Perhaps it’s because the English Civil War and American Revolution have something in common, both fundamentally caused the British to rethink who they were.  In both cases, their world really was turned upside down.

 For more detail, read the article by Dennis Montgomery, editor of Colonial Williamsburg’s Journal, at http://www.americanrevolution.org/upside.html

Myth #83: It’s called a toaster because you stirred it with your toe.

This myth is almost too embarrassing to post on my blog. Surely, no one could take this canard seriously! Alas . . . 

Ron Cofield, Director of Interpretation at Historic London Town and Gardens, dealt with this myth so succinctly a couple years ago that I cannot do better than to quote his words. 

“Find a dictionary, look up the definition for toaster, then toast, then the suffix -er. If you still feel that the above saying is correct, stop leading tours or talking about history.” 

It shouldn’t be necessary to say, but note that you don’t turn the toaster with your toe, the handle is meant to be moved with your hand. 

Myth # 82: Signs saying “No Irish Need Apply” were common.

Rachel Sims wrote “I’m not sure if this is myth or fact because I’ve heard that its a myth and then I’ve heard its a fact. You know when Irish immigrants came to the United States and tried to find work? Were there truly signs in the store windows that say, “No Irish need apply?”

At St. Patrick’s Day on March 17, everyone in American enjoys being a little bit Irish. With the day fast approaching, it seems a good time to address this myth.

This myth has a core of truth to it, although it is exaggerated in collective memory. There were many nineteenth-century newspaper advertisements like the one above that stipulated “No Irish Need Apply.” But according to historian Richard Jensen in a 2002 article in the Journal of Social History, signs on businesses saying “No Irish Need Apply” were rare or nonexistent.

“The fact that Irish vividly ‘remember’ NINA signs is a curious historical puzzle. There are no contemporary or retrospective accounts of a specific sign at a specific location. No particular business enterprise is named as a culprit. No historian,  archivist, or museum curator has ever located one; no photograph or drawing exists.  No other ethnic group complained about being singled out by comparable signs. Only Irish Catholics have reported seeing the sign in America—no Protestant, no Jew, no non-Irish Catholic has reported seeing one. This is especially strange since signs were primarily directed toward these others: the signs said that employment was available here and invited Yankees, French-Canadians, Italians and any other non-Irish to come inside and apply. The business literature, both published and unpublished, never mentions NINA or any policy remotely like it. The newspapers and magazines are silent. The courts are silent. There is no record of an angry youth tossing a brick through the window that held such a sign. Have we not discovered all of the signs of an urban legend?”

Jensen, in my opinion, overstates his thesis here. Certainly there were signs on businesses saying “no colored allowed” and “no Chinese,”or more often, “whites only.” This photo from the Library of Congress collection shows a bar with a sign on the wall that reads, “Positively No Beer Sold to Indians.” But there’s a difference between serving and employing. Many whites-only establishments that refused to serve certain ethnic groups still hired them as laborers. 

Why were the Irish discriminated against? They were Catholic, a religion that frightened many Protestants, and the stereotype that they were lazy, dirty drunks was widespread. Some thought of them as a separate, inferior race, one that caused poverty. Their biggest crime, perhaps, was that they took jobs from native-born Americans because they would accept lower wages–the perennial anti-immigrant lament we still hear today. Employers were often eager to hire Irish because they cost less. Sure, some employers refused to hire Irish, black, or other minorities; some establishments refused to serve them. Anti-Irish sentiments were strongest in the middle part of the nineteenth century, when this song,”No Irish Need Apply,” was popular. Listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXkgUqD4_EY

Conclusion: The Irish Catholics faced discrimination. “No Irish Need Apply” newspaper advertisements existed. Workplace signs were not common, but Irish were effectively barred from “better”occupations and shunted into low-paying factory work and domestic service.

Myth # 81: Thomas Jefferson invented triple-sash windows when he was in France to avoid the French door tax.

Virginia Mizel, Director of the Edmondston-Alston House in Charleston, SC, asked: “Was there ever a door tax in the South as there was in France? We have heard Thomas Jefferson invented the triple sash window to avoid a door tax while he was ambassador to France. Some southern tour guides state the door tax was also in place in here, which is why many homes from the 1800s have triple sash exterior windows serving as both door and window.”

Thomas Jefferson invented many things–a clothes rack, a clock, a folding ladder, an improved swivel chair, and a revolving bookstand, to name a few–but he did not invent the triple-sash window. The original sash window originated in the 1600s. Jefferson did incorporate triple-sash windows on the first floor of his home, Monticello. These could be opened like a window or used as a door. 

(Another problem with the statement is that, although Jefferson did live in France for several years, he did not build any houses there.) 

So any relevance to French door taxes is moot. If there were a tax on doors in France, would someone please let us know? I have it on good authority that there is no such tax today. 

As for door taxes in America, see Myth #1 on closet taxes, #11 on wardrobe taxes, #30 on mirror taxes, #75 on window taxes, and #78 on second-story taxes. If any tour guide mentions a door tax, ask him/her to specify the colony or state and point to the legislation. I cannot find any examples. 

Myth # 80: Slaves were made to whistle as they walked between the kitchen and main house carrying food, to make sure they didn’t sample the food.

Tuckahoe Plantation kitchen and walkway

The “Whistle Walk” story is related at many Southern plantations where the kitchen is located apart from the main house. It is an imaginative tale, and one with some logic to support it but no actual documentation.

One historian who spent her life researching topics involving women’s work and home life wrote in 1986 that she had never found any contemporary references to the walkways connecting outside kitchens with inside dining rooms being called “whistle walks.” The earliest known written reference comes in 1954 in the book, Shadows in Silver: A Record of Virginia 1850-1900 in Contemporary Photographs, where a picture of a plantation kitchen from the 1890s carries a caption that mentions the story. 

“I suspect the story is apocryphal,” wrote late Patricia Gibbs, “or perhaps depicts a mid-to-late nineteenth-century practice. Certainly if it really occurred, it was never so widespread as interpretations in many southern historic house museums imply. On the other hand, I think it is quite likely that food en route to the dining rooms was occasionally sampled. Since there is much reliable information to convey about foods and serving practices, I would discourage repeating this story.” 

Good advice.

Bill Backus, Historic Interpreter at Ben Lomond Historic Site/Bristoe Station Battlefield Heritage Park in Prince William County asked about this story.

Mary Todd Lincoln Hoax

a portrait that isn't Mary Todd Lincoln

This seems more hoax than myth, but either way, it’s one that has been going on for almost a hundred years. The New York Times carried this story a few days ago.

The painting was purported to be one Mrs. Lincoln had made of herself as a surprise gift for the president, but before she could give it to him, he was assassinated. Turns out it’s another woman’s likeness, and the painting was retouched by a vaudeville actor, no less, in the 1920s and sold to Lincoln descendants along with the heart-wrenching story. The forger changed the hairdo to look more like Mrs. Lincoln’s and added a brooch that showed a picture of Abraham Lincoln. The scam earned him a couple hundred bucks. Art conservators who cleaned the painting discovered the over-painting and realized it wasn’t Mrs. Lincoln at all. For the whole story, see 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/arts/design/portrait-of-mary-todd-lincoln-is-deemed-a-hoax.html?nl=todaysheadlines