A House Painter Called Richard Lawrence Made History

Richard Lawrence was a house painter who had immigrated to America with his family at the turn of the 19th century. He was, in many ways, an average person, but as he got older, he became more and more erratic. At one point he told his family he was going back to England, only to return a month later, declaring he had changed his mind because it was too cold. Unfortunately he became obsessed with Andrew ‘Old Hickory’ Jackson, who finally became president in 1829.
The two men’s worlds notably intercepted at a funeral in January of 1835. Lawrence had been following Jackson for some time and was seen to be agitated on the day. As he left a paint shop, he was heard to mutter to himself, "I'll be damned if I don't do it”.

When Jackson was walking away from the funeral gathering, Lawrence stepped out behind the president, raised and fired a pistol. Nothing happened. However Lawrence had been thorough in his plans and raised a second pistol, but this, too, failed to fire. Jackson was a man of action in every possible sense, and on this occasion he showed Lawrence just why he was sometimes called ‘Old Hickory’ as he wielded his hickory walking stick and beat senseless his would-be assassin. Jackson was in his late sixties but still had enough fire in his belly to retaliate against the man who had tried to kill him. This was the first assassination attempt carried out against a sitting President of the United States of America.

In the ensuing court case, Lawrence explained that he associated the president with the loss of his job, and that by killing Jackson, he hoped for a better world. He also informed the court that he was not just Richard Lawrence but Richard III, King of England (who had been dead for some 350 years). Because of such outlandish statements and other testimony about his ever more bizarre behaviour, he was found ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ and institutionalised for the rest of his life.

As crazy as Lawrence was, his plot didn’t fail because he was stupid. When the two pistols were inspected, they were found to be new and in good working order. However, later research suggested that this particular model was prone to misfire in damp conditions, which would have been the case on that late January day in Washington D.C.
Many more attempts would be made on other presidents’ lives - some successful, some not. Like these later attempts, conspiracy theories were linked to Lawrence’s action, but there was never any evidence to implicate anyone else in this assassination attempt.

Putting science to one side, the president had been saved by two misfires from pistols. It felt as if Providence had had a hand. The same divine blessing that had nurtured this young nation through good times and bad had intervened once again and convinced the country that Jackson was the embodiment of everything American.