Table of Contents
Fact 1: Everyone moves.
Fact 2: Everyone hates to move.
Those are two facts that I’ve really come to understand after being a few years in the moving industry. I’m sure you’ll agree with me on this.
But on one end, where moving brings stress, headache and several hardships with it, on the other end it brings opportunities, freshness and change!!!
Ever since the beginning of time, people have been moving from one place to another, some in search of better opportunities and some to get away from things holding them back. And on the occasion of July 4th (Happy B’day America!!!!) I thought I’ll take a look at the moves our Presidents have made over the years.
As Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton get set for the race to the White House this year, there are so many things voters will consider before making up their minds. In the end, chances are either Hilary or Trump will move to the White House when Obama leaves the Oval Office in 2017.
In the history of the United States, only a few people had actually had the privilege to leave their home and moved into the White House. In fact, only 44 people have ever achieved that feat.
Lets take a walk down memory lane, to find out where people lived before moving into the White House and where they moved to after leaving the historic building.
Cities where US Presidents Moved From And Moved To After Leaving The White House
George Washington, 1789-1797
George Washington lived in New York for 16 months before moving to the President’s House in Philadelphia in November 1790. The District of Columbia was still under construction at that period. He was the only president who never had the chance to live in the White House. After his time as the President of the United states, he moved to Mount Vernon in the spring of 1797.
John Adams, 1797-1801
John Adams was the first US president to move to the White House. In 1800, he moved from the President’s House in Philadelphia to the newly constructed President’s House in District Columbia now known as the White House. After his retirement from public office, John and his wife Abigail moved to their family farm in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Education: Harvard College (graduated 1755)
Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809
Famous for writing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson moved from Virginia to the White House. After his time as the third president of the United States, Jefferson moved to his Virginia plantation home, Monticello.
College of William and Mary (graduated 1762)
James Madison, 1809-1817
James was one of the close allies of Thomas Jefferson and he served as the Secretary of State under the president. James moved to the White house in 1809 after he was elected president of the United States. When he left the White House in 1817, he moved to his family home located in central Virginia, just outside of Orange, Virginia.
Education: College of New Jersey (now Princeton University, graduated 1771)
James Monroe, 1817-1825
After he was elected as the 5th president of the United States in 1817, James Monroe moved to the President’s House now known as the White House. When he retired in 1825, Monroe moved to his family estate in Oak Hill, in Loudoun County, Virginia.
Education: College of William and Mary (graduated 1776)
John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829
John Quincy Adams was the son of the second president of the United States John Adams who succeeded George Washington. John Quincy Adams spent many of his teenage years in Europe and when he was in the United States he spent most of his time in Boston, Massachusetts.
Education: Harvard College (graduated 1787)
Andrew Jackson, 1829-1837
Andrew Jackson was a war hero. He was born in South Carolina, he later moved to North Carolina and then Florida where he was appointed governor of the new Florida Territory in 1821. When he resigned as the governor, he returned to Tennessee. He moved from Tennessee to the White House in 1829. When Jackson retired from active politics, he moved to The Hermitage.
Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841
Martin Van Buren was the first president to be born a citizen of the United States and not a British subject. He moved from New York to the White House when he was elected president of the United States. When he lost his bid for reelection in 1840, he moved back to New York.
Education: Kinderhook Academy (graduated 1796)
William Henry Harrison, 1841
Williams Henry Harrison was born to an elite family in Virginia. His father served three terms as the governor of the state. Harrison was elected president of the United States in 1841 and he moved from Ohio to the White House. Harrison died one month after taking the oath of office. He was laid to rest near his home in North Bend, Ohio.
Education: Hampden-Sydney College
John Tyler, 1841-1845
When President William Henry Harrison died one month after taking the oath of office, his vice John Tyler was sworn in as the 10th President of the United States. John Tyler had earlier moved from Virginia to District of Columbia. John Tyler and his wife Julia returned to their home in Virginia after he lost his bid for reelection in 1845.
Education: College of William and Mary (graduated 1807)
James Knox Polk, 1845-1849
James Knox Polk moved from Tennessee to the White House when he succeeded John Tyler as the President of the United States in 1845. After leaving the White House, he embarked on a tour that lasted for three months before moving to his new estate in Nashville where he died.
Education: University of North Carolina (graduated 1818)
Zachary Taylor, 1849-1850
Zachary Taylor was a war hero who was famous for his victory at Buena Vista. Taylor was born in Virginia. He took the oath of office to become the 12th President of the United States in 1849. Taylor died on July 9 1850 few days after he celebrated The Independence in Washington.
Millard Fillmore, 1850-1853
Fillmore moved from New York to the White House in 1850. He retired to Buffalo after leaving the White House in 1853.
Education: Six months of grade school; read law in 1822
Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857
Pierce moved from New Hampshire to the White House when he was elected president in 1853. He returned to New Hampshire in 1857 after his presidency.
Education: Bowdoin College (graduated 1824)
James Buchanan, 1857-1861
James Buchanan was elected as a US Senator in Washington before he contested and won the presidential election in 1857. James Buchanan moved from Pennsylvania to Washington and returned to the state after his tenure as the President of the United States.
Education: Dickinson College (graduated 1809)
Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865
Lincoln lived in Springfield for a short while before moving to a boarding house in Washington during his term in Congress. He moved to the White House in 1861 when he was elected President of the United States. Abraham Lincoln was fatally shot by a confederate sympathizer and famous actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865. The president died the following day.
Andrew Johnson, 1865-1869
Andrew Johnson moved from Tennessee to the White House as the Vice of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson succeeded Lincoln after the president was assassinated. As president, Johnson lost the Democratic Party nomination for the 1868 presidential election. However, he completed his term and moved back to his home in Tennessee.
Never attended college.
Ulysses S. Grant, 1869-1877
Ulysses moved from Missouri to the White House when he was elected President of the United States in 1869. At the end of his term in office, he moved back to Missouri before travelling around the world with his wife Julia.
Education:U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York (graduated 1843)
Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 1877-1881
Rutherford moved from Ohio to the White House when he was elected president in 1877. After leaving the White House, Hayes and his wife Lucy returned to their estate, Spiegel Grove, in Fremont, Ohio, and the former president devoted himself to educational issues and prison reform, among other humanitarian causes.
Education:Kenyon College (graduated 1842), Harvard Law School (graduated 1845)
James Abram Garfield, 1881
Garfield moved from Ohio to the White House in 1881 after winning the presidential election. But he never left the White House alive. Garfield was assassinated on July 2, 1881, at 9:20 a.m, by Charles Julius Guiteau, an emotionally disturbed man who had failed to gain an appointment in Garfield’s administration.
Education:Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College), Williams College (graduated 1856)
Chester Alan Arthur, 1881-1885
Chester Alan Arthur moved from New York City to the White House. He became the President of the United States after the death of James Abram Garfield. After exiting the White House in March 1885, Arthur returned to New York City to resume his legal career.
Education:Union College (graduated 1848)
Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889
Grover Cleveland moved from New York City to the White House when he was elected as the president of the United States. After leaving the White House in 1889 he moved to a spacious house in Princeton, New Jersey.
Education:Some common school; Read law (1855–1859)
Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893
Benjamin Harrison moved from Ohio to the White House in 1889. He moved to his home to in Indianapolis when he exited the Oval office in 1893.
Education:Miami University (Ohio), graduated 1852
Grover Cleveland, 1893-1897
Cleveland was elected President of the United States for the second time in 1893. He spent four years in office. After leaving the White House in 1897, Cleveland retired to his home in Princeton, New Jersey, and served as a trustee of Princeton University from 1901 until his death.
Education:Some common school; Read law (1855–1859)
William McKinley, 1897-1901
William McKinley moved from Ohio to the White House in 1897. McKinley was assassinated just six months after his second inauguration. He was fatally shot by Leon F. Czolgosz, age twenty-eight, a Detroit resident of Polish heritage and an unemployed mill worker of anarchist sentiments. He died on September 14, 1901.
Education: Allegheny College and Albany Law School
Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909
Theodore Roosevelt took over the Oval office after Williams McKinley was murdered in 1901. Earlier, Roosevelt had moved from New York to Washington as vice president of McKinley. After leaving the White House, Roosevelt and his son Kermit left for a 10-month African safari and a tour of Europe and Brazil.
Education:Harvard College (graduated 1880)
William Howard Taft, 1909-1913
Taft moved from Cincinnati to Washington after he was elected president of the United States in 1909. When he exited the White House, Taft took a position teaching constitutional law at Yale University Law School until he was appointed Chief Justice of the United States supreme court.
Education:Yale College (graduated 1878), Cincinnati Law School (LL.B., 1880)
Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921
Woodrow Wilson moved to the White House in 1913 after he was elected president of the United States. After leaving office in March 1921, Wilson resided in Washington, D.C. He and a partner established a law firm, but poor health prevented the president from ever doing any serious work.
Education:College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), graduated 1879
Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1921-1923
Warren G. Harding moved from Ohio to the White House when he was elected president in 1921. In the summer of 1923, he embarked on a cross-country tour of the US to promote his policies. During the trip, he became sick, and on August 2 he died of what was possibly a heart attack at a San Francisco hotel.
Education:Ohio Central College (graduated 1882)
Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929
On August 3, Vice President Coolidge was sworn in as America’s 30th president in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, where he was vacationing. Earlier, he had moved from Vermont to the White House as the Vice of President Warren Gamaliel Harding. After departing the White House, Coolidge moved to Northampton, where he occupied himself by writing his memoirs.
Education:Amherst College (graduated 1895)
Herbert Clark Hoover, 1929-1933
Herbert Clark Hoover moved from California to the White House after he was elected president of the United States in 1929. After departing the Oval Office, Hoover moved to his home in Palo Alto, California.
Education:Stanford University (graduated 1895)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-1945
Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved from New York to the White House when he was elected president in 1933. He spent more than 12 years in the Oval office and on April 12 1945, while sitting for a portrait, he collapsed and died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Education:Harvard College (graduated 1903), Columbia Law School
Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953
Vice President Harry Truman took the oath of office on April 12, 1945 the same day President Franklin Roosevelt died. Earlier, Truman had moved from Missouri to the White House. After leaving office, Truman spent his remaining two decades in Independence, Missouri, where he established his presidential library.
Kansas City Law School
Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953-1961
Before moving to Washington DC, Eisenhower was a war hero who spent several years in Europe. He was elected President of the United States in 1953 and famous for ending the Korean war. After leaving office in January 1961, he moved to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Education:U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York (graduated 1915)
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-1963
Before he was elected President, Kennedy spent some of his years in England when his father was appointed the ambassador of the United Kingdom. Kennedy moved to the White House when he was elected United States President in 1961. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Education: Harvard (Law School) 1940
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969
Lyndon Baines Johnson moved from Texas to the White House as the Vice of President Fitzgerald Kennedy. He took the oath of office in 1963 following the death of President Kennedy. After exiting the Oval office in 1969, Johnson moved to his Texas ranch, where he spent the next few years establishing his presidential library (which opened in 1971
Education:Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now Texas State University-San Marcos),
Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-1974
When he was elected President of the United States in 1969, Richard Milhous Nixon moved from California to the White House. Nixon resigned in 1974 as a result of the Watergate Scandal. After leaving the Oval Office, Nixon and his wife Pat moved to their home in San Clemente, California.
Education:Whittier College (1934); Duke University Law School (1937)
Gerald Rudolph Ford, 1974-1977
Ford moved from Michigan to Washington when he was appointed the vice president by President Nixon. Following Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Ford was sworn in as the 38th president of the United States. Following his defeat in the 1976 presidential election, Gerald Ford moved to Rancho Mirage, California.
Education:University of Michigan (1935); Yale University Law School (1941)
James Earl Carter, Jr., 1977-1981
Jimmy Carter moved from Georgia to the White House in Washington DC when he was elected president in 1977.
Education:Georgia Southwestern College, 1941–1942; Georgia Institute of Technology, 1942–1943; United States Naval Academy, 1943–1946 (class of 1947); Union College, 1952–1953
Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-1989
Ronald Wilson Reagan moved from Los Angeles to the White House when he was elected United States president in 1981. When he exited the Oval Office in 1989, Reagan and his wife Nancy moved back to their home in Los Angeles.
Education:Eureka College (1932)
George Herbert Walker Bush, 1989-1993
George Herbert Bush moved from Houston Texas to the White House in 1989 after succeeding Ronald Reagan. Bush and his wife moved back to Houston Texas after four years at the White House.
Education:Yale University, 1948
William Jefferson Clinton, 1993-2001
Bill Clinton moved from Arkansas to the White House in Washington after he was elected president in 1993. After Bill Clinton left the White House in 2001, he moved to Chappaqua, New York.
Education: Georgetown University (1968), attended Oxford University (1968–1970), Yale Law School (1973).
George Walker Bush, 2001-2009
George W. Bush moved to the White House from Texas after serving as a two-term republican governor. Following the January 2009 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama (1961-), Bush left office as a polarizing figure. He and first lady Laura Bush returned to Texas, where they divided their time between homes in Dallas and Crawford.
Education:Yale (B.S., 1968), Harvard (M.B.A., 1975).
Barack Hussein Obama, 2009-Present
Barack Obama moved from his home in Chicago to the White House in Washington after his victory at the 2008 presidential elections. Obama is still the current president of the United States and will remain in office until 2017. However the current buzz is that the Obamas will remain in DC for the next two years before moving back to Chicago.
Education:Columbia University (B.A., 1983), Harvard (J.D., 1991)
You too can have an epic move!
Chances are you’re not moving to the White House next year, but where ever you’re moving to, you can have a epic move. Start your move by finding moving companies thru MoverJunction. You’ll get up to 6 free moving quotes so you can compare costs before hiring any moving company.
