H.G. — ‘wealthy wordling’

This is the latest in an occasional series of posts about the 19th century politics of Henry G. Burleigh of Ticonderoga and Whitehall.

About a year after losing re-election to Congress, H.G. Burleigh was back in the news when a whiskey-drinking, self-described “evangelical enthusiast” from Whitehall was arrested three times in Washington, D.C. for disrupting government meetings by singing the Doxology.

“A crank who calls himself a constituent of the agile H. G. Burleigh of Whitehall, whose active step no more rings upon the pavement of the capital, has been vexing this city for a week with high pranks,” The New York Times reported in an article republished Dec. 23, 1887 in The Granville Sentinel.

Patrick H. Dugan of Whitehall was first arrested when he disrupted the opening of proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives by loudly singing the Doxology.

“He got into the police station and out again, repeating the Doxology in several inappropriate places and drinking unsparingly of whiskey when not engaging in his favorite vocal exercise.”

Dugan was arrested a second time at the White House, when he disrupted President Grover Cleveland’s meeting with delegates to the Evangelical Alliance convention, and was arrested a third time at an unspecified location.

A judge dismissed charges against him.

“He describes himself as an evangelical enthusiast,” The New York Times reported. “He says, also, that he lived a long time in Whitehall, and in referring to Congressman Burleigh, said that gentleman was a ‘wealthy wordling’ and had strayed from the ways of the elect.”

Click here to read the most recent previous post in the series.