If you ever think politics today is dramatic, let me take you back to 1841, when a defeated President of the United States came to Dayton — for a fishing trip.

Martin Van Buren had just lost the election to William Henry Harrison, and apparently the cure for political heartbreak was ten days of rest in Ottawa with his nephew, the very dignified Judge John V. A. Hoes. (Yes, the same Hoes who later bought up half the Dayton lots without ever living here. Dayton has always attracted interesting people.)

Anyway, after a few days in Ottawa, someone had the bright idea to take the former President down to Dayton for a little fishing and fresh air. And because this was frontier Illinois, the “escort” was not a carriage or a quiet ride.

It was a procession of 150 men on horseback.

Picture it: a long line of riders, dust rising, horses snorting, the whole countryside turning out to watch. And at the head of the Dayton welcoming committee stood John Green, founder of the town, prominent Democrat, and the sort of man who would absolutely organize a crowd for a visiting President.

And then — because Dayton never missed a chance for a little spectacle — someone decided to fire a cannon.

Not a big cannon. Not a military cannon. A little cannon. A sort of “frontier noisemaker” cannon.

It was perched on a hill, ready to give the President a rousing salute.

What happened next is the reason this story has survived for 180 years.

The cannon went off. The horses panicked. And the Secretary of the Navy — James K. Paulding, a blunt, plain‑spoken man — nearly lost his mind.

His horse bolted. He started shouting. And according to the newspaper account, he threatened that if someone didn’t stop that “infernal idiot” firing the gun, he would “get down and lick him himself.”

This is, without question, the only time in American history that a Secretary of the Navy threatened to fistfight a man with a toy cannon in a town of a few hundred people.

The fishing trip, by the way, was a complete failure. Not a single fish. The locals blamed the Secretary’s swearing for scaring them off.