The Female Crusader Who Set Out To Corner The President With His Pants Down Literally

By the time the 1820s rolled around, the families of War vets were pretty much getting screwed by the government when their spouse, who had fought in the war died and his pension was taken away. That meant they were left with nothing to support them and back then women were not allowed to work. Her only options might be to take in washings and sewing (which paid very little), rent out rooms in her home (if it was big enough, which it likely wasn't), or become a prostitute or a beggar on the street unless she had family that could afford to take her and her children in.  They needed that pension money to survive.

Anne Royall began a crusade to have the government continue to pay the pension money to the widows of war vets until their deaths. It was a cause near and dear to her heart as she was one.  She wrote dozens of letters to President John Quincy Adams but received no reply. She tried to get in to see him at the White House, but his aide wouldn't let her in (back then it was possible to get in to see the President, even if you were just a regular person).

But Anne wasn't about to give up that easily. She read up on Adams and discovered that he enjoyed a daily swim, naked, in the Potomac every morning.  So she hatched a plan to go see him there and corner him while he was in the water.  When she showed up he yelled from the water to go away he wanted nothing to do with her.  That wasn't going to stop her, as you might have realized by now.  She went to the rock where his clothes were and sat on them. When he saw this, he capitulated and she went to the water with his clothes and he listened to what she had to say and agreed to do what he could to get Congress to pass a law to let war widows continue to get the pensions.  With Adams' backing, the bill does indeed become a law and many war widows are saved from a bleak fate. All due to a creative crusader.

Anne was a journalist and author and a thorn in many other people's side for her causes. For more information on her or to read her writings go here: https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0001/royall.html