Terry

The James Polk Papers at the Library of Congress contain a list of staff members “to be employed at the President’s House” compiled in February 1845, just before Polk assumed office in March. “Terry” is included on the list, though no last name is given, and he is identified as the coachman in charge of driving the president and first family in their carriage.¹ Coachmen also usually helped care for the horses in the stable. Documentation proves that Terry did in fact work at the White House in this role. 

On March 15, 1845, President Polk wrote that a man named Thomas Lloyd intended to give him a horse and left it in the White House Stables. Polk declined the gift and wrote that he “ordered the horse to be taken from my stable at the President’s mansion where Mr Lloyd had placed him without my knowledge, and to be returned to him, at his stable in Washington. My Coachman Terry accordingly returned him on the same morning.”² Little else is known about Terry, including how long he filled this role at the White House, since no further documentation has been found at this point.