If you need something to binge-watch on this Presidents’ Day, you’ll love “Death by Lightning” on Netflix, which follows the political rise and assassination of President James A. Garfield (with a scandalous cameo from Rhode Island First Lady Kate Chase Sprague).

But it was Garfield’s predecessor who made what might have been the most important visit by a sitting president to Rhode Island in American history.

As the story goes, President Rutherford B. Hayes visited Rocky Point Park in Warwick on June 28, 1877 to attend a clambake for Civil War veterans.

It was at the Rocky Point Hotel where Hayes became the first president to speak on a telephone when he took a call from Alexander Graham Bell, who was 13 miles away at the City Hotel in Providence, according to the Rhode Island Historical Society.

“Please, speak a little more slowly,” Hayes told Bell on the call.

Rhode Island has a rich history of presidents visiting the state, from George Washington to Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower regularly complained about the windy conditions at Newport Country Club ruining his score.