William Day
Cite this Page
"William Day," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/278.
- Positions
- Messenger
- Doorkeeper
- Years in President's House
- 1845 – circa 1848
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Male
- Race/Ethnicity
- Black or African American
- Presidency
- James K. Polk
- Biography
- Little is known about William Day outside of his employment at the White House for President James K. Polk. (1) In February 1845, just before Polk assumed the office of president, he compiled a list of workers “to be employed at the President’s House” and Day is among them. The list also mentions that Day’s job was to stand by the door to the president’s office, likely to ensure no one bothered the president while he worked and to be close-by in case Polk needed any tasks completed or messages delivered. (2) Three and a half years later, in August 1848, President Polk traveled to Bedford Springs in Pennsylvania, a popular hot springs resort. On the journey, he recorded in his diary: “I should not omit to mention that my faithful servant, Wm. Day, a free man of colour, accompanies me and is very useful to me. I have had him in my employment as a messenger during the whole of my Presidential term.” (3) Day did not accompany Polk back to Tennessee when his term as president ended in 1849, as some of the household workers did. (4) Instead, Day likely remained in Washington, D.C.; city directories in the 1860s list a Black man by the same name working as a messenger for an unspecified employer. (5) No records have yet been found indicating he continued to work at the White House after Polk’s term.
- (1) William Day is a common enough name that it is difficult to distinguish between the WIlliam Day who worked at the White House and the others of the same name who lived in Washington, D.C. around the same time.
(2) Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., James K. Polk Papers, Series 2; General Correspondence, and Related Items, 1775-1849; 1845, Jan. 21 - 1845, Mar. 1, https://www.loc.gov/resource/mss36509.033_0010_0837/?sp=802&r=-1.113,0.161,3.226,1.193,0.
(3) The Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency (Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1910), 4:86.
(4) In his diary, Polk recorded the workers who accompanied him back to Tennessee in March 1849, and Day was not among them. See Diary of James K. Polk 4:377.
(5) See “William Day” in the U.S., City Directories, Washington, D.C., 1863, Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2469/records/1030068936?tid=&pid=&queryId=1ed48a43-c531-4bdf-9d67-f0e3cb56de56&_phsrc=KCT1910&_phstart=successSource, and “William Day” in the U.S., City Directories, Washington, D.C., 1867, Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2469/records/1036681291?tid=&pid=&queryId=8fdca36c-8928-4150-b17e-51eaf9e82891&_phsrc=KCT1912&_phstart=successSource. - Birthplace
- Unclear from context