James
Abram Garfield was born on November 19, 1831 in Orange, Ohio.
His father was Abram Garfield and his mother was Eliza Ballou
Garfield. He was the last President to be born in a log cabin.
He graduated from Williams College and served as our 20th
President from March 4, 1881 to September 19, 1881.
Mr. Garfield was a schoolteacher. He went on to serve as a
public official. He was a State Senator in Ohio and was later
elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1880, he was
elected to the United States Senate – the same day he was
elected President… and, he was a sitting U.S. Congressman at
the time! A brilliant scholar, President James Garfield could
write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other. He was the
first President to campaign in two languages – English and
German.
James Garfield married Lucretia Rudolph in 1858. They had
seven children: Eliza, Harry, James, Mary, Irvin, Abram and
Edward. On July 2, 1881, Mr. Garfield went to the train
station in Washington, D.C. to meet some important guests who
were arriving in town. It was there that Charles Guiteau, a
lawyer who had sought an appointment in the Garfield
administration but had been turned down, shot him. The
gunshot, itself, was not fatal but doctors made many
unsuccessful attempts to remove the bullet.
President James Garfield died on September 19, 1881 in
Elberon, New Jersey. The cause of death was blood poisoning. |