Sources:
1. Timothy Hopkins. 1932. John Hopkins of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 1634, and Some of His Descendants. Stanford Univ.
Press, Stanford, CA.
2. Rossiter Johnson, ed. 1904. Twentieth Century
Biographical Dictionary of Notable Ammericans. Vol. 4. The Biographical
Society, Boston MA (online at Ancestry.com; boldface added):
- |
p. 87 |
FILLMORE, Millard, thirteenth president
of the United States, was born in Locke township, Cayuga county, N.Y.,
Feb. 7, 1800; second son of Nathaniel and Phebe (Millard) Fillmore.
His first American ancestor, John Fillmore, is designated in a conveyance
of two acres of land, dated Nov. 24, 1704, as "mariner of Ipswich," Mass.
His son, John, born in 1702, was also a sailor; he was on board
the sloop Dolphin of Cape Ann, captured by the pirate Captain
John Phillips and with three others of the crew did nine months' service
on the pirate when they mutinied, killed the officers, won the ship and
brought her into Boston harbor, May 3, 1724. The court approved the
act and awarded to Fillmore the sword of the captain, which was
thereafter kept in the family. John's son, Nathaniel, was
a lieutenant in the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars. Nathaniel's
son Nathaniel was born in Bennington, Vt., in 1771, and was married
to Phebe Millard, the daughter of a clergyman.
They migrated to the wilderness of New York in 1798 to take |
p. 88 |
up a tract of military land, and built the log
cabin in which Millard, the second son, was born. The title to the
property proving defective, he removed to Sempronius,
afterward Niles,
Cayuga county, and took a
perpetual lease of 130 acres of land covered with timber. As the
boy grew up he worked on the farm nine months of each year and the remaining
three months attended the primitive school of the neighborhood. Until
he was nineteen years old the only books to which he had access were the
Bible and a collection of hymns.
When fourteen years old he was apprenticed on trial for a few months
to a wool-carder and cloth-dresser at Sparta, N.Y., his father determining
to give him a trade rather than have him adopt the hard life of the farmer.
In the fulling mill he experienced all the ills that in those days fell
to the lot of the apprentice in the power of an unjust master. He
escaped corporal punishment on one occasion by defending his manhood with
an uplifted axe, and on the day his time of apprenticeship ended he took
his few belongings in a bundle and travelled on foot and alone one hundred
miles to his home, the most of the distance through dense forests, following
paths marked by blazed trees.
In 1815 he was apprenticed to a Mr. Cheney, a wool-carder.
He purchased a small English dictionary, his only text-book, and diligently
studied it while at the carding machine. In 1819 he purchased one
year of his time, and began to study law in the office of Judge Wood
of Montville, N.Y., working in the office, garden and house to pay his
board. He also taught school in the winter, studied and practised
land surveying, and in 1823 was admitted to the court of common pleas as
an attorney, before he had completed the prescribed law course.
He began practice at East Aurora, N.Y., then the home of his parents.
He was admitted as an attorney of the supreme court of the state in 1827
and as a counsellor in 1829. He removed to Buffalo, N.Y., in 1830
and practised law in partnership with Nathan K. Hall and Solomon
G. Haven. They continued in business together until 1847 and
were retained on most of the important causes that were tried in the Erie
county courts.
He was elected to the state assembly from Erie county in 1828-29-30
and 1831, and while in that body drafted and advocated the bill for the
abolition of imprisonment for debt passed in 1831. He was a representative
in the 23d congress, 1833-35, and in the 25th, 26th and 27th congresses,
1837-43, declining renomination in 1842. He was chairman of the ways
and means committee in the 27th congress, the duties of that committee
at that time including also those of the subsequently created committee
on appropriations. He was largely responsible for the tariff bill
of 1842, and aided Morse to get through congress his appropriation to build
the first telegraph line.
In the Whig national convention of 1844 he was a candidate for the
vice presidential nomination and received the support of the delegates
from several western states, besides his own delegation. At the election
in November he was defeated in the gubernatorial contest by Silas Wright,
and in 1847 he was elected comptroller of the state.
In the Whig national convention of 1848 he was nominated for vice-president
on the second ballot, Abbott Lawrence of Massachusetts leading on
the first, when the southern states rallied to Fillmore. Gen.
Zachary
Taylor had been nominated for President, and at the succeeding election
the ticket received 163 of the 290 electoral votes, and a plurality of
139,557 of the popular votes. Mr. Fillmore resigned as comptroller
in February, 1849, and on March 4, 1850, was inaugurated Vice-President
of the United States. As president of the senate he gave universal
satisfaction and his impartial rulings were never questioned during the
seven months of stormy debate over the "Omnibus bill" of Henry Clay.
President Taylor died, July 9, 1850, and Mr. Fillmore
was inaugurated President of the United States at noon, July 10, 1850,
being sworn in before both houses of congress assembled in the hall of
representatives, by Chief Justice Crouch of the circuit court of
the District of Columbia. The official family of President Taylor
promptly resigned, and President Fillmore made Daniel Webster
of Massachusetts secretary of state; Thomas Corwin of Ohio secretary
of the treasury; William A. Graham of North Carolina secretary of
the navy; Charles M. Conrad of Louisiana secretary of war; James
A. Pierce of Maryland secretary of the interior;
John J. Crittenden of Kentucky attorney-general; and Nathan
K. Hall of New York postmaster-general. Changes occurred
in his cabinet Secretary Pierce being succeeded by Thomas M.T.
McKennan of Pennsylvania to the interior department, and he in turn
by Alexander H.H. Stuart of Virginia in 1850; Daniel Webster
died Oct. 24, 1852, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts succeeded
him as secretary of state; William A. Graham |
p. 89 |
resigned the portfolio of the navy the same year to accept the
nomination of vice-president on the Whig national ticket with Gen. Winfield
Scott as President, and John P. Kennedy of Maryland succeeded
to the navy department; and Post-master-General Hall resigned in
1852 to accept the judgeship of the U.S. court for the northern district
of New York, and was succeeded in the post-office department by Samuel
D. Hubbard of Connecticut.
President Fillmore defended New Mexico from invasion by promptly
sending a military force to the Mexican border. Before signing the
compromise measures passed by congress, including the fugitive slave act,
he submitted them to the attorney-general to determine their constitutionality,
and to his entire cabinet for unanimous approval, notwithstanding which
caution he was afterward severely criticised for his act, and his administration
failed to receive the support of a large portion of his party in the north.
The majority in both houses of congress being opposed to him, his recommendations
received scant attention and many of them failed of adoption. In
spite of this opposition he gave to the country cheaper postage, an enlarged
and beautified national capitol and the benefit of a new market with Japan.
In dealing with foreign powers he maintained the principle of non-intervention,
applying it equally to Cuba and Hungary without obtaining disfavor with
the struggling peoples anxious to throw off the yokes of Spain and Austria.
In his last message to congress Dec. 6, 1852, he regarded the advice of
his cabinet by suppressing the portion in which he recommended a scheme
of gradual emancipation, African colonization and full compensation to
owners of slaves, the members of his cabinet fearing that such recommendations
would precipitate civil war.
He retired from the presidency March 4, 1853, leaving the country
at peace with all other nations and prosperous in all lines of trade and
commerce. The Whig national convention of 1852 approved the policy
of his administration by a vote of 227 against 60, and he was a candidate
for nomination as President, but when the ballot was taken he received
only twenty votes from the free states. He was nominated by the American
party for President in 1856 while he was absent in Europe, but the canvass
as it proceeded narrowed down to a contest between the Democratic and Republican
parties, and the respective friends of each party, seeing no hope of electing
Mr. Fillmore, divided their electoral vote, Maryland alone remaining
loyal by giving him its eight electoral votes. He received however
21.57 per cent of the popular vote, Frémont receiving 33.09
per cent, and Buchanan 45.34 per cent, his exact vote being 874,538
against 1,341,264 for Frémont and 1,838,169 for Buchanan.
He was married Feb. 5, 1826, to Abigail, daughter of the
Rev. Lemuel Powers. She was born March 13, 1798, and died
March 23, 1853. Their only daughter, Mary Abigail, born March
27, 1830, died July 26, 1854; and their only son, Millard Powers,
born April 25, 1828, became a lawyer, was clerk of the U.S. court in Buffalo
and died there, Nov. 15, 1859.
Mr. Fillmore visited Europe in 1855 and was the recipient
of attention from the queen, the British cabinet, Napoleon III.
and the pope of Rome. He declined the proffered degree of D.C.L.
from the University of Oxford. He established the Buffalo historical
society and was chancellor of the University of Buffalo; member of the
Buffalo historical society, and corresponding honorary member of the New
England historic, genealogical society, and was prominent in all public
functions of that city. He received the honorary degree of LL.D.
from Hobart college in 1850. He was married in 1866 to Mrs. Caroline
(Carmichael) McIntosh, widow of Ezekiel C. McIntosh of Albany,
and daughter of Charles and Tempe Wickham (Blackly) Carmichael of
Morristown, N.J., and with her visited Europe. After his return he
passed his life in retirement at his home in Buffalo. Mrs. Fillmore
died in Buffalo, N.Y., Aug. 11, 1881. See Irving Chamberlain's Biography
of Millard Fillmore (1856). He died in Buffalo, N.Y., March 8,
1874. |
3. Gary Boyd Roberts. 1995. Ancestors of American
Presidents. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston.
4. Anon. 1852. "Marriages and Deaths." New
England Historical and Genealogical Record 7(July): 291-295.
On p. 292:
FILLMORE, Mrs. Abigail, Washington, D.C., 30 March, ae. 55.
She was the wife of Ex-President Fillmore, and dau. of Rev. Lemuel Powers,
who was a grandson of James Leland, of Grafton, Mass. Abigail, was
b. in Stillwater, Saratoga Co., N.Y., in 1798, m. Mr. F. in Feb., 1826.
They have two children--Millard P., b. in 1828; Mary Abigail, b. in 1832.
[See Leland Magazine, pp. 113, 114] |
5. From a web site entitled, Genealogy of the US Presidents.
[link died] Data there extracted from Funk & Wagnall's
The Presidents.
6. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress:
FILLMORE, Millard, 1800-1874. [link died]
7. The American Presidency: MILLARD FILLMORE, Biography [link died]. Grollier
Encyclopedia (online).
8. Encyclopedia Britannica CD 98.
9. Email from Grecia DeRossett. |