Frederick Law Olmsted

 It was on this day in 1872 that the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted was nominated in absentia as Vice President of the United States.
 
Banker James McKim and philanthropist Robert Minturn, (who was instrumental in the creation of New York's Central Park), proposed a ticket featuring Olmsted as Vice President and as President, William Groesbeck (a former United States representative from Ohio). The party involved was the national American Democratic-Republicans.

When Olmsted heard the news, he immediately quashed his own nomination. He posted a rebuttal in the New York Post that said,

"My name was used without my knowledge in the resolutions of the gentlemen who met on Friday at the Fifth Avenue Hotel..."

Privately, Olmsted was pleased by the support.  It was one more indication of the esteemed public figure that Olmsted had become.