Who actually held the title of America’s first president?
Most people would immediately answer: George Washington.
Not quite.
At least, not according to this historical argument.
The distinction, some say, belongs to President John Hanson.
John who?
“There’s no question about it. Chronologically, he certainly was,” says Hanson descendant Peter Michael. “For a nation to be a nation, it has to have a government and a head of state. So the first thing the newly seated government did was elect a head of state. And it was John Hanson.”
So, could that really be true?
The hidden story of John Hanson is told in the second episode of “Crazy American History with Eric Shawn,” now streaming on Fox Nation.
Michael is the author of “Remembering John Hanson, A Biography of the First President of the Original United States Government.”
Watch the surprising tale no one told you in High School on Fox Nation’s new series, “Crazy American History with Eric Shawn.” (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
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And he says even George Washington would have agreed with him that Hanson was number one.
“He said so as president and later. He said so throughout the rest of his life, John Hanson was the first president,” says Michael.
He points out that Hanson had a Cabinet, including a secretary of war, secretary of foreign affairs and postmaster general. It was Hanson who sent Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay and Henry Laurens to Paris in 1782 to negotiate the British surrender in the Revolutionary War.
In addition, the first national bank, census and U.S. coinage were created during Hanson’s tenure. Hanson also established Thanksgiving, issuing the proclamation on March 19, 1782.
Hanson was elected by the delegates of the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation as president of the United States, in Congress on Nov. 5, 1781.
“Every other president since Hanson inherited a functioning government, but he inherited a blank slate, and he had to be a government builder, which he was. So he started appointing his Cabinet, including some big names, and then some of the more minor offices, like postmaster general, and put together a government in his one-year term. That’s all he had. At the end of his year, we had a functioning government. And a functioning nation.”
So, why hasn’t Hanson gotten any credit? Have we really been wrong all these centuries?
The biography of President John Hanson explains why he should be considered the first U.S. president. Its author, Peter Michael, says why in the second episode of Fox Nation’s “Crazy American History.” (Peter Michael)
Should Washington, D.C., be renamed, Hanson, D.C.? Should the $1 bill swap out the image of George… for John?
Find out more about the contention that our first, first president was John Hanson in the new Fox Nation series “Crazy American History with Eric Shawn,” now streaming on Fox Nation.
