Margaret, the name she apparently preferred over “Peggy,” was born at those lodgings in 1799, the oldest of six O’Neale children. The tavern was especially popular with congressmen, senators, and politicians from all over the growing United States. She was the daughter of William O’Neale, an Irish immigrant and owner of a commodious Washington, D.C., boardinghouse and tavern, the Franklin House on I Street. the cause of the turmoil was the young and vivacious Margaret “Peggy” Eaton, although she was still Margaret Timberlake when Jackson initially made her acquaintance. For the imbroglio to which he referred–involving the young wife of the secretary of war, a woman much favored by Jackson but snubbed by Washington’s gentility for her outspokenness and allegedly sordid past–did ultimately help decide the fortunes of two powerful rivals eager to follow “Old Hickory” into the White House. world, is producing great political effects, and may very probably determine who shall be successor to the present chief magistrate.”Īlways eloquent, in this case Webster also proved prophetic.

“It is odd enough,” Senator Daniel Webster wrote to a friend in January 1830, “that the consequence of this dispute in the social. It was true that the situation had taken on a life of its own. President Andrew Jackson was irate, convinced that he was the victim of “one of the most base and wicked conspiracies.” For him, the scandal known as “the petticoat affair” was a social matter that his enemies had exploited and blown out of proportion. When President Andrew Jackson defended the honor of the wife of his secretary of war, the resulting scandal broke up his first cabinet and threatened to make his administration a laughingstock. Andrew Jackson and the tavern-keeper's daughter: June '99 American History Feature Close

Tavern keeper woman